June 19 Saturday – At 23 Tedworth Square in London, Sam wrote to James Gordon Bennett, Jr., who was heading up a NY Herald division in Paris, which published the Paris Herald, heading the letter concerning the Herald’s relief fund for Mark Twain, “Personal.”

Dear Sir: I concealed this matter from my family, & hoped that when they found out I could persuade them to be reconciled to it, but I have been disappointed in that, & have failed, after three days of strenuous effort. I hoped & believed, & I still believe, that a sufficient fund could be raised to lighten my debt very greatly & possibly even discharge it, but the family are not willing, (convinced me that I have no right to take your money & other men’s to smooth my road with,) & so I have to come to you & ask you to cable the enclosed letter to the Herald to the end that I may once more stand well with the household. I shall be grateful if you will do me this favor. And I am already grateful to you for wanting to help me out of my slavery of debt  [MTHHR 287n2].

Note: The “enclosed letter” was cabled by Bennett to the NY Herald, and ran there as well as in other newspapers later in the month, including the Springfield Daily Republican, June 29, 1897, p. 6, which follows. This letter was also written June 19, not June 24 or 25 as catalogued. In his June 23 to Rogers, Sam wrote that Livy “made me write to Bennett in Paris last Saturday and ask him to stop the scheme and return the money.”

MARK TWAIN DECLINES HELP

Does so at the Desire of His Family, So He Says

The New York Herald Mark Twain fund is to be abandoned at the request of Mr. Clemens. It was started by the Herald with $1000, and had amounted to $2938. Here is the letter, written in London, June 19:—

I made no revelation to my family of your generous undertaking in my behalf and for my relief from debt, and in that I was wrong.

Now that they know all about the matter they contend I have no right to allow my friends to help me while my health is good and my ability to work remains, that it is not fair to my friends and not justifiable, and that it will be time enough to accept help when it shall be proved that I am no longer able to work.

I am persuaded that they are right. While they are grateful for what you have done and for the kindly instinct which prompted you, it is urgent that the contributions be returned to the givers with their thanks and mine. I yield to their desire and forward their request and my indorsement of it to you.

I was glad when you initiated that movement, for I was tired of the fact and worry of debt, but I recognize that it is not permissible for a man whose case is not hopeless to shift his burdens to other men’s shoulders.

S.L. CLEMENS.

Note: J. Kaplan points out Sam’s June 24 repeating of the request suggests that the “first letter to Bennett somehow miscarried” [349]. This letter, and one for publication enclosed were both written on June 19. Bennett may not have had time to respond from Paris by the time Sam wrote again.

Frank Bliss sent a message to Sam: “HERALD FUND HURTING YOU WILL YOU CABLE US DISAPPROVAL” [MTHHR 283n2].

Note: Sam had just given Bliss half the MS on June 16; and the NY Times puts Bliss’ arrival back in Hartford as “a week before” July 10. Bliss may have sent this note from his London hotel.

The first of Mark Twain’s special cables appeared in the Hearst newspapers, the Sunday S.F. Examiner, front page, and the NY Journal. Below, in part, from the Examiner:

LONDON. June 19 — So far as I can see, a procession has value in but two ways—as a show and as a symbol, its minor function being to delight the eye, its major one to compel thought, exalt the spirit, stir the heart, and inflame the imagination. As a mere show, and meaningless—like a Mardi-Gras march—a magnificent procession is worth a long journey to see; as a symbol, the most colorless and unpicturesque procession, if it have a moving history back of it, is worth a thousand of it.

After the civil war ten regiments of bronzed New York veterans marched up Broadway in faded uniforms and faded battle flags that were mere shot-riddled rags—and in each battalion as it swung by, one noted a great gap, an eloquent vacancy, where had marched the comrades who had fallen and would march no more.

Always, as this procession advanced between the massed multitudes, its approach was welcomed by each block of people with a burst of proud and grateful enthusiasm—then the head of it passed, and suddenly revealed those pathetic gaps and silence fell upon that block, for every man in it had choked up, and could not get command of his voice and add it to the storm again for many minutes. That was the most moving and tremendous effect that I have ever witnessed—those affecting silences falling between those hurricanes of worshipping enthusiasm.

A Symbolical Pageant

There was no costumery in that procession, no color, no tinsel, no brilliancy, yet it was the greatest spectacle and the most gracious and exalting and beautiful that has come within my experience. It was because it had history back of it and because it was a symbol and stood for something and because one viewed it with spiritual vision, not the physical. There was not much for the physical eye to see, but it revealed continental areas, limitless horizons, to the eye of the imagination and the spirit.

A procession, to be valuable, must do one thing or the other—clothe itself in splendors and charm the eye or symbolize something sublime and uplifting, and so appeal to the imagination . As a mere spectacle to look at, I suppose that the Queen’s procession will not be as showy as the Czar’s late pageant; it will probably fall much short of the one in “Tannhauser” in the matter of rich and adorable costumery; in the number of renowned personages on view in it will probably fall short of some that have been seen in England before this. And yet in its major function, its symbolic function, I think that if all the people in it wore their everyday clothes and marched without flags or music it would still be incomparably the most important procession that ever moved through the streets of London.

For English Power and Renown

For it will stand for English history, English growth, English achievement, the accumulated power and renown and dignity of twenty centuries of strenuous effort. Many things about it will set one to reflecting upon what a large feature of this world England is today, and this will in turn move one, even the least imaginative, to cast a glance down her long perspective and note the steps of her progress and insignificance of her first estate. In this matter London is itself a suggestive object lesson.

I suppose that London has always existed. One cannot easily imagine an England that had no London. No doubt there was a village here over a thousand years ago. It was on the river somewhere west of where the tower is now. It was built of thatched mud huts close to a couple of limpid brooks, and on every hand for miles and miles stretched rolling plains of fresh green grass, and here and there were groups and groves of trees. The tribes wore skins—sometimes merely their own sometimes those of other animals.

The chief was monarch, and helped out his complexion with blue paint. His industry was the chase, his relaxation was war. Some of the Englishmen who will view the procession today are carrying his people’s ancient blood in their veins.

It may be that the village remained about as it began, away down to the Roman occupation, a couple of thousand years ago [Note: For the full text see Neider’s Complete Essays 189-99.]

Note: a 22-page booklet of the Jubilee Story was privately printed but never published separately beyond the newspaper accounts; it was, however, incorporated into the 1923 Europe and Elsewhere [NY Times, May 22, 1910, p. SM4].

The Critic included “The Lounger,” p. 428, an anonymous article skeptical of the NY Herald’s attempts to subscribe a relief fund for Mark Twain: “He is one of the best paid living authors….[Tenney: “A Reference Guide Fourth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1980 p. 173].