November 8 Friday – Clemens sent another announcement to the editor of the London Telegraph, of his return home and plans for lecturing in the spring [MTL 5: 219].
John Camden Hotten wrote to Clemens, who went to Piccadilly to call on him. Hotten’s letter, noted only in 1st ed. MTDBD I for this date, is now supplied by Welland:
I am vexed that I was out when you called this afternoon. Had I been at home I think the misunderstanding betwixt us might have been cleared away.
From the message you left here this afternoon I am sorry to find you under the impression that I am about to issue with your name, a work not written by you. You have said some very hard things about me — probably at the instigation of others who hoped to benefit by misleading you, but I do assure you in the frankest manner possible that self-respect — apart from my sincere respect for your inimitable talent — would not allow me to do anything of the kind. You have, unfortunately, fallen amongst people who dislike me, people who are jealous of me because I happen to be not quite so industrious, not quite so shrewd as they are. These people have misled you, the same as they tried to poison the mind of poor Artemus Ward against me. I say nothing more. All I ask is for you to see and judge for yourself.
I may just mention that Mr Bierce [Ambrose Bierce] was brought here for the express purpose of creating a disturbance. He saw that he was being made a tool of from jealous motives, and the result was that we became fast friends and I have had the pleasure of handing him money for material for a little book. It was my hope that our relations would have been of this character, and with the kindly message you have just left I do not despair of it.
The advertisement you have seen — or rather, I suspect, to which your attention has been drawn — refers simply to an elegantly printed volume of your scattered writings that we are preparing. The reason I was not more explicit in my announcement is that other members of the trade watch me as a cat would a mouse but after the frank message you have left here [not extant] I at once tell you what I am doing, and I can only say that I gladly avail myself of your offer to revise it. I have just telegraphed for sheets, and these shall be with you tomorrow, when you can go over them and let me have back on Monday.
I did think of giving a short biography of yourself, taking your own outline sketch as my foundation. I suppose that story of the origin of your nom de plume is tolerably correct. I remember when I lived at Galena, Ill., and used to go down the river on old Uncle Toby, the throwing — or casting — of the lead was accompanied by some such words.
As to payment for your editorial services — I am perfectly willing to give whatever you may think fair. I know you are a rich man, but that does not matter as my payment is concerned.
If you will kindly drop me a line I shall be obliged. Enclosed letter is from a Bank, and I sincerely trust that its stout proportions only represent so many bank notes.
Enclosed is a portrait of yourself which I prefer to any of the photographs yet published. I also send one of Bret Harte [26-7] Note: Welland provides a good exposition of the issues and back and forth between Twain and Hotten.
Hearth and Home published an article, “Mark Twain and Hans Breitmann” with. Tenney: “Etchings of the two, with only brief text and no specific works named. Breitmann (Charles Godfrey Leland), a Princeton graduate, attended universities of Munich, Heidelberg and Paris. He practiced law in America briefly, then turned to his career of writing comic German dialect ballads. MT’s ‘education was a very imperfect one, as printer, which aided largely in supply the defects in his scholastic training.’ He went on as riverboat pilot, miner, and local editor on the Enterprise. He built his name, ‘and now there is no writer of his class so sure of a buying and reading constituency as he’ ” [Bibliography Number 6, Mark Twain Journal Spring/Fall 2012 50: 1 & 2, p.50].