MY DEAR MADAM,--I do not know how it is in the White House, but in this house of ours whenever the minor half of the administration tries to run itself without the help of the major half it gets aground.Last night when I was offered the opportunity to assist you in the throwing open the Warner brothers superb benefaction in Bridgeport to those fortunate women, I naturally appreciated the honor done me, and promptly seized my chance.I had an engagement, but the circumstances washed it out of my mind.If I had only laid the matter before the major half of the administration on the spot, there would have been no blunder; but I never thought of that.So when I did lay it before her, later, I realized once more that it will not do for the literary fraction of a combination to try to manage affairs which properly belong in the office of the business bulk of it.I suppose the President often acts just like that: goes and makes an impossible promise, and you never find it out until it is next to impossible to break it up and set things straight again.Well, that is just our way, exactly-one half of the administration always busy getting the family into trouble, and the other half busy getting it out again.And so we do seem to be all pretty much alike, after all.The fact is, I had forgotten that we were to have a dinner party on that Bridgeport date--I thought it was the next day: which is a good deal of an improvement for me, because I am more used to being behind a day or two than ahead.But that is just the difference between one end of this kind of an administration and the other end of it, as you have noticed, yourself--the other end does not forget these things.Just so with a funeral; if it is the man's funeral, he is most always there, of course-but that is no credit to him, he wouldn't be there if you depended on hint to remember about it; whereas, if on the other hand--but I seem to have got off from my line of argument somehow; never mind about the funeral.Of course I am not meaning to say anything against funerals--that is, as occasions--mere occasions--for as diversions I don't think they amount to much But as I was saying--if you are not busy I will look back and see what it was I was saying.
I don't seem to find the place; but anyway she was as sorry as ever anybody could be that I could not go to Bridgeport, but there was no help for it.And I, I have been not only sorry but very sincerely ashamed of having made an engagement to go without first making sure that I could keep it, and I do not know how to apologize enough for my heedless breach of good manners.
With the sincerest respect, S.L.CLEMENS.
Samuel Clemens was one of the very few authors to copyright a book in England before the enactment of the international copyright law.
As early as 1872 he copyrighted 'Roughing It' in England, and piratical publishers there respected his rights.Finally, in 1887, the inland revenue office assessed him with income tax, which he very willingly paid, instructing his London publishers, Chatto &Windus, to pay on the full amount he had received from them.But when the receipt for his taxes came it was nearly a yard square with due postage of considerable amount.Then he wrote:
To Mr.Chatto, of Chatto & Windus, in London:
HARTFORD, Dec.5, '87.
MY DEAR CHATTO,--Look here, I don't mind paying the tax, but don't you let the Inland Revenue Office send me any more receipts for it, for the postage is something perfectly demoralizing.If they feel obliged to print a receipt on a horse-blanket, why don't they hire a ship and send it over at their own expense?
Wasn't it good that they caught me out with an old book instead of a new one? The tax on a new book would bankrupt a body.It was my purpose to go to England next May and stay the rest of the year, but I've found that tax office out just in time.My new book would issue in March, and they would tax the sale in both countries.Come, we must get up a compromise somehow.You go and work in on the good side of those revenue people and get them to take the profits and give me the tax.Then I will come over and we will divide the swag and have a good time.
I wish you to thank Mr.Christmas for me; but we won't resist.The country that allows me copyright has a right to tax me.
Sincerely Yours S.L.CLEMENS.
Another English tax assessment came that year, based on the report that it was understood that he was going to become an English resident, and had leased Buckenham Hall, Norwich, for a year.
Clemens wrote his publishers: "I will explain that all that about Buckenham Hall was an English newspaper's mistake.I was not in England, and if I had been I wouldn't have been at Buckenham Hall, anyway, but at Buckingham Palace, or I would have endeavored to find out the reason why.Clemens made literature out of this tax experience.He wrote an open letter to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
Such a letter has no place in this collection.It was published in the "Drawer" of Harper's Magazine, December, 1887, and is now included in the uniform edition of his works under the title of, "APetition to the Queen of England."
From the following letter, written at the end of the year, we gather that the type-setter costs were beginning to make a difference in the Clemens economies.
To Mrs.Moffett, in Fredonia:
HARTFORD, Dec.18, '87.
DEAR PAMELA,-- will you take this $15 and buy some candy or some other trifle for yourself and Sam and his wife to remember that we remember you, by?
If we weren't a little crowded this year by the typesetter, I'd send a check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like that.However we go on and on, but the type-setter goes on forever--at $3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the first seventeen months, when the bill only averaged $2,000,and promised to take a thousand years.We'll be through, now, in 3 or 4 months, Ireckon, and then the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once more, whether success ensues or failure.
Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least scrimped-but it would take a long letter to explain why and who is to blame.
All the family send love to all of you and best Christmas wishes for your prosperity.
Affectionately, SAM.