August 17 Saturday – In Vancouver, Canada, J.B. Pond wrote in his diary:
Saturday, August 17th, Vancouver.
We are all waiting for the news as to when the Warrimoo will be off the dry dock and ready to sail. “Mark” is getting better. I have booked Victoria for Tuesday, the 20th.
“Mark” has lain in bed all day, as usual, spending much time writing. Reporters have been anxious to meet and interview him, and I urged it, He finally said: “If they’ll excuse my bed, show them up.”
A quartet of bright young English journalists came up. They all had a good time, and made much of the last interview with “Mark Twain” in America, as it was. “Mark” was in excellent spirits. His throat is better [Eccentricities of Genius 221-2].
In this article in the San Francisco Examiner, Aug.17, 1895, Sam revealed publicly for the first time his stated goal — to pay the creditors of Webster & Co. 100 cents on the dollar.
Mark Twain to Pay All
On His Way Around the World Now to Raise the Money
Sam L. Clemens (Mark Twain), who is about to leave for Australia, in an interview concerning the purpose of his long trip said:
“I am idle until lecture-time. Write, and I will dictate and sign. My run across the continent, covering the first 4,000 miles of this lecturing tour around the world, has revealed to me so many friends of whose existence I was unconscious before, and so much kindly and generous sympathy with me in my financial mishaps, that I feel that it will not be obtrusive self-assertion, but an act of simple justice to that loyal friendship, as well as to my own reputation, to make a public statement of the purpose which I have held from the beginning, and which is now in the process of execution.
“It has been reported that I sacrificed for the benefit of creditors the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer I was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit. This is an error. I intend the lectures as well as the property for the creditors.
“The law recognizes no mortgage on a man’s brain, and the merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the rules of insolvency and start again for himself. But I am not a business man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise for less than one hundred cents on the dollar, and its debts never outlaw.
“I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing firm, whose capital I furnished, and if the firm had prospered I should have expected to collect two-thirds of the profits. As it is I expect to pay all the debts. My partner has no resources, and I don’t look for assistance from him. By far the largest single creditor of this firm is my wife, whose contributions in cash from her private means have nearly equaled the claims of all others combined. In satisfaction of this great claim she has taken nothing, except to avail herself of the opportunity of retaining control of the copyrights of my books, which, for many easily understood reasons of which financial ones are the least we do not desire to see in the hands of strangers.
“On the contrary, she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the obligations due to the rest.
“The present situation is that the wreckage of the firm, together with what money I can scrape together, with my wife’s aid, will enable me to pay the other creditors about 50 per cent of their claims. It is my intention to ask them to accept that as a legal discharge and trust to my honor to pay the other 50 per cent as fast as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour I am confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four years, after which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and unencumbered start in life.
“I do not enjoy the hard travel and broken rest inseparable from lecturing, and if it had not been for the imperious moral necessity of paying these debts, which I never contracted but which were accumulated on the faith of my name by those who had a presumptive right to use it, I should never have taken to the road at my time of life. I could have supported myself comfortably by writing, but writing is too slow for the demands that I have to meet; therefore I have begun to lecture my way around the world. I am going to Australia, India and South Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the United States.
“In my preliminary run through the smaller cities on the northern route I have found a reception the cordiality of which has touched my heart and made me feel how small a thing money is in comparison with friendship.
“I meant, when I began, to give my creditors all the benefit of this, but I begin to feel that I am gaining something from it too, and that my dividends, if not available for banking purposes, may be even more satisfactory than theirs.
“MARK TWAIN”
[Note: this article was widely re-printed in other newspapers, including the N.Y Times of Aug. 17, p.8.]
Sam also wrote a note of introduction for his nephew, Samuel Moffett, chief editorial writer of the San Francisco Examiner. The letter was addressed to: Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence C. Buel, William Carey, Mary Mapes Dodge, and William F. Clarke (the last two names written in the left and right margins, respectively, as if an afterthought).
Good-bye; we sail westward three days hence. Billiards when I get back, Carey [MTP].
Sam also wrote a similar note of introduction for his nephew to William Dean Howells, and asked him to introduce Moffett to the Editor of the Atlantic [MTHL 2: 660]. Note: Moffett came to Tacoma Aug. 9 to see his uncle Sam before he sailed and to ask for letters of introduction back east, as he was being transferred to Hearst’s New York Journal [n1].
Sam also wrote a letter to Samuel Moffett, saying he couldn’t recall the name of the Editor of the Atlantic (Horace E. Scudder), but that Howells would “fix it for” him, and gave him Howells’ NYC address.
The United press agent here took your interview of me & promised to telegraph it unabridged [MTP].
Sam also wrote to J. Henry Harper, asking him to put his name on JA now, since he felt everything he’d wanted to “accomplish by withholding it has been accomplished,” and that he was going to be revealing it in his lectures in Australia. He wanted to keep his name in front of the public while he was gone. After his signature he added a PS: “Won’t you please save my MS books & articles & keep them for Mrs. Clemens?” [MTP]. Note: see Aug. 21 to Harper for more on this issue.
Livy also wrote a letter to H.H. Rogers that Sam added a line to at the end. She’d been unable to write ordering the Harper’s contract, but thanked Rogers for the telegram received upon their arrival in Vancouver. She was thankful they had not sailed as planned on Aug. 16, since Sam had taken a head cold and she felt it unsafe for him to travel. She related that a lecture engagement was made in Victoria for Aug. 17, but with doctor’s advice that lecture was postponed until Tuesday, Aug. 20, so the plan was to travel to Victoria on the morning of Aug. 20 and then sail to Australia from there on Aug. 21. Sam inserted that a time limit on the Harper’s contract “is only reasonable. It runs in my head that the contract is silent in that regard” [MTHHR 183-4]. Note: The contract with Harper & Brothers was signed by Rogers (for Livy) on May 23, and delivered on July 26. Repairs to the Warrimoo after it ran aground delayed the departure till Aug. 23.
Livy then wrote the formality — a one-sentence approval to H.H. Rogers:
I very readily agree to the changes which Messrs Harper & Brothers desire made in their contract with me, as per your letter of recent date [MTHHR 184n1].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers, about the planned travel book (Following the Equator):
I wish you’d get acquainted with J. Henry Harper and make sure that he is going to be perfectly willing that I shall publish my volume of travel through Bliss or a Chicago subscription house for the first three or four years before adding it to the Harper books [Uniform Edition; Ed. emphasis].
Sam explained why he wanted the book (to become Following the Equator) to be a subscription book for a time — he wanted the $10,000 advance from Frank Bliss, and thought he might clear $40,000 from the effort in the first six months, only by subscription. He also felt the subject matter of the countries he would travel to was particularly suitable for the subscription (non-urban) audience who was “wholly ignorant of the countries,” not something that was true about Harper’s trade (urban/bookstore) audience.
Sam also announced he’d made the goal of 100% payoff to his creditors public. He’d been hoarse for “several days” and related having a difficult time lecturing in New Whatcom.
Henry M. Alden for Harper & Brothers wrote to Sam advising it “impolitic” to announce authorship of JA before the serial publication concluded. TSD would be announced as his in the 1896 magazine. Alden also wrote, “We will be pleased to have from you such suggestions as you can give us as to illustrations for Dr. Twichell’s paper” [MTP]. Copy from The House of Harper p.576-7 (1912) Harper & Bros. N.Y.