3 December 1864
Clemens published “Lucretia Smith's Soldier” in the Californian almost exactly five months after his “Original Novelette” (no. 80) had appeared in the San Francisco Morning Call. Both are burlesque or “condensed” novels after the fashion introduced by Thackeray and practiced most influentially in the United States by Charles Henry Webb and Bret Harte.1 In his preface to the present sketch Clemens implies that his target was not a specific novel or novelist, but the entire corpus of “those nice, sickly war stories in Harper's Weekly.” Examples are not difficult to find. “An Exchange of Prisoners,” which appeared in the 3 January 1863 issue, comes remarkably close to his burlesque plot. It is a sentimental tale of a young girl so eager to make a sacrifice for her country that she promises to marry a man she does not love if he will become a soldier. When he returns from battle, he unites the girl with her true lover and then quietly disappears.2
Clemens was thoroughly familiar with the satiric possibilities of the condensed novel. The tale he tells here is a warning to all sentimentalists to get their facts straight, and its ending argues that the sentimental mask cannot really endure a serious misreading of the facts. The “novel” moves swiftly through four miniature chapters, each provided with a melodramatic climax, and all leading inexorably to his quite unsentimental conclusion. But while “Lucretia Smith's Soldier” burlesques the plot of those “sickly war stories,” it also ridicules the platitudinous sentiment of novels like Pierce Egan's Such Is Life, to which Clemens al- [begin page 126] ludes in the last paragraph of his sketch: “Such is life, and the trail of the serpent is over us all.” Such Is Life was being serialized in the San Francisco Golden Era for much of 1864, and the passage to which Clemens alludes appeared on August 14. (He says in his preface that he has been working on the burlesque “for the last three months.”) Ormsby's closing remarks to Viola in Egan's novel are as follows:
“My love,” he said, tenderly to her, “may your wishes be responded to by a kind Heaven! But toil, trial, vicissitudes, burdens of all kinds, are our inheritance; we have but to meet them boldly, for from them none of us are exempt; to endure them bravely, for the longest lane has its turning, the greatest sorrow has its consolation. Our sojourn here is made up of chances and changes, joys and griefs, splendors and miseries; let us, with equanimity, therefore, take the good with the evil, and bear all patiently, keeping in mind that “Such is Life.” 3
Clemens' mocking conclusion to his own “melancholy history” draws upon the reader's
familiarity with this mountain of platitudes, as well as on another novel about extraordinary
trials and tribulations. Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Trail of the Serpent had been serialized in the Era from December 1863 to February 1864, and its title in turn alluded to Thomas Moore's
lines in Lalla Rookh: “Some flow'rets of Eden ye still inherit,
But the trail of the Serpent is over them all!”4
This brand of sentimental self-indulgence would always arouse Mark Twain's satiric impulses, but perhaps it is worth remembering that the present sketch was published at the very end of the period in his life described in chapter 59 of Roughing It as the time when he became “a very adept at ‘slinking.’ ” It was a time when he “felt meaner, and lowlier and more despicable than the worms,” and clung to a single coin “lest the consciousness coming strong upon me that I was entirely penniless, might suggest suicide.”5 Although Clemens probably exaggerated his situation in retrospect, he was still not likely to take much consolation from Ormsby's spectacularly banal advice to bear in mind that “Such is Life!”
“Lucretia Smith's Soldier” was immediately popular on both coasts. On 15 January 1865 the editor of the California Sunday Mercury reprinted it and said, “Speaking of funny things, just read ‘The Course of True Love,’ etc., on the third page of to-day's Mercury.” Webb in turn quoted this comment and remarked rather sourly that it was “a funny thing, indeed; written by Mark Twain, and paid for and published in The [begin page 127] Californian, the article, after going the rounds of the Eastern press is republished here without a word of credit to either.” Such unauthorized reprinting had become a general problem in Webb's eyes. In an article called “To the Eastern Press,” published the same day, Webb claimed that Emilie Lawson, Ina Coolbrith, and Mark Twain had “been frequently sufferers by this practice,” and he singled out the New York Leader as the worst offender.6 Still later, on February 4, he was more explicit: “ ‘Mark Twain's’ comical story of ‘Lucretia Smith's Soldier,’ fares better at the hands of the [New York] Atlas, being copied into that paper of December 3d, with credit to both author and The Californian. But other journals Eastward were not as honest, and thus it was that the Mercury the other week came to republish the article, under the impression that it was new to this coast, calling attention to it as particularly ‘funny.’ ”7 It seems likely that Webb was secretly pleased by the attention his writers and his journal were receiving, but he did want explicit recognition for both. Clemens was certainly happy to be reprinted, for he had joined the Californian staff in part because it was “liberally copied from by papers like the Home Journal.”8
Clemens and Webb decided to reprint this sketch in the 1867 Jumping Frog book, and it proved its popularity this time with reviewers. The Sacramento Union reprinted the entire sketch in its review, and said that it “risibly hits off the sentimental yarns of which the late war was prolific.” And when the Routledges reprinted the little book in September 1867, one British reviewer singled out “Lucretia Smith's Soldier” as “an admirable burlesque upon the over-wrought tales of emotion which filled the American periodicals during the war. The style and feeling of those gushing narratives are both parodied with great slyness and apparent simplicity.”9 Clemens continued to reprint the sketch in 1872 and 1874, but even though he considered reprinting it in Sketches, New and Old (1875), it did not finally appear there.
[Note from the Author.—Mr. Editor: Ⓐhistorical collation I am an ardent admirer of those nice, sickly war stories in Harper's Weekly Ⓐhistorical collation, and for the last three months I have been at work upon one of that character, which I now forward to you for publicationⒶhistorical collation. It can be relied upon as true in every particular, inasmuch as the facts it contains were compiled from the official records in the War Department atⒶhistorical collation Washington. The credit of this part of the labor is due to the Hon. T. G. PhelpsⒺexplanatory note, who has so long and ably represented this State in Congress.Ⓐhistorical collation It is but just, also, that I should make honorable mention of the obliging publishing firms Roman & Co. and BancroftⒶemendation & Co.Ⓔexplanatory note, of this city, who loaned meⒶhistorical collation Jomini's Art of War Ⓔexplanatory note, the Message of the President and Accompanying Documents Ⓔexplanatory note, and sundry maps and military works, so necessary for reference in building a novel like this. To the accommodating Directors of the Overland Telegraph CompanyⒺexplanatory note I take pleasure in returningⒶemendation my thanks for tendering me the use of their wires at the customary rates. The inspiration which enabled me in this production to soar so happily into the realms of sentiment and soft emotion, was obtained from the excellent beer manufacturedⒶemendation at the New York Brewery, in Sutter street, between Montgomery and KearnyⒶemendation.Ⓐhistorical collation And finally, to all those kind friends who have, by good deeds or encouraging words, assisted me in my labors upon this story of “Lucretia Smith's Soldier,” during the past three months, and whose names are too numerous for special mention, I take this method of tendering my sincerest gratitude.
[ M.Ⓐemendation T.Ⓐhistorical collation]
[begin page 129]
On a balmy May morning in 1861, the little village of Bluemass, in Massachusetts, lay wrapped in the splendor of the newly-risen sun. Reginald de Whittaker, confidential and only clerk in the house of Bushrod &Ⓐhistorical collation Ferguson, general dry goods and grocery dealers, and keepers of the Post-officeⒶemendation, rose from his bunk under the counter and shook himself. After yawning and stretching comfortably, he sprinkled the floor and proceeded to sweep it. He had only half finished his task, however, when he sat down on a keg of nails and fell into a reverie. “This is my last day in this shanty,” said he. “How it will surprise Lucretia when she hears I am going for a soldier! How proud she will be—the little darling!” He pictured himself in all manner of warlike situations; the hero of a thousand extraordinary adventures; the man of rising fame; the pet of Fortune at last; and beheld himself, finally, returning to his oldⒶhistorical collation home, a bronzed and scarred Brigadier-General, to cast his honors and his matured and perfect love at the feet of his Lucretia Borgia Smith.
At this point a thrill of joy and pride suffused his system—but he looked down and saw his broom, and blushed. He came toppling down from the clouds he had been soaring among, and was an obscure clerk again, on a salary of two dollars and a half a week.
At 8 o'clock that evening, with a heart palpitating with the proud news he had brought for his beloved, Reginald sat in Mr. Smith's parlor awaiting Lucretia's appearance. The moment she entered he sprang to meet her, his face lighted by the torch of love that was blazing in hisⒶemendation head somewhere and shining through, and ejaculated “Mine own!” as he opened his arms to receive her.
“Sir!” said she, and drew herself up like an offended queen.
Poor Reginald was stricken dumb with astonishment. This chilling demeanor, this angry rebuff where he had expected the old, tender welcome, banished the gladness from his heart as the cheerful brightness is swept from the landscape when a dark [begin page 130] cloud drifts athwart the face of the sun. He stood bewildered a moment, with a sense of goneness on him like one who finds himself suddenly overboard upon a midnight sea and beholds the ship pass into shrouding gloom, while the dreadful conviction falls upon his soul that he has not been missed. He tried to speak, but his pallid lips refused their office. At last he murmured:
“O, Lucretia,Ⓐhistorical collation what have I done—what is the matter—why this cruel coldness? Don't you love your Reginald any more?”
Her lips curled in bitter scorn, and she replied, in mocking tones:
“Don't I love my Reginald any more? No, I don't love my Reginald any more! Go back to your pitiful junk shop and grab your pitiful yard-stick, and stuff cotton in your ears so that you can't hear your country shout to you to fall in and shoulder arms!Ⓐhistorical collation Go!” And then, unheeding the new light that flashed from his eyes, she fled from the room and slammed the door behind her.
Only a moment more! Only a single moment more, he thought, and he could have told her how he had already answered the summons and signed his name toⒶhistorical collation the muster-roll, and all would have been well—his lost bride would have come back to his arms with words of praise and thanksgiving upon her lips. He made a step forward, once, to recall her, but he remembered that he was no longer an effeminate dry-goods student, and his warrior soul scorned to sue for quarter. He strode from the place with martial firmness, and never looked behind him.
When Lucretia awoke the nextⒶhistorical collation morning, the faint music of a fifeⒶhistorical collation and the roll of a distant drum came floating uponⒶhistorical collation the soft spring breeze, and as she listened the sounds grew more subdued and finally passed out of hearing. She lay absorbed in thought for many minutes, and then she sighed and said, “OhⒶhistorical collation,Ⓐemendation if he were only with that band of fellows, how I could love him!”
In the course of the day a neighbor dropped in, and when the conversation turned upon the soldiers, the visitor said:
“Reginald de Whittaker looked rather down-hearted, and didn't shout when he marched along with the other boys this morning. [begin page 131] I expect it's owing to you, Miss Loo, though when I met him coming here yesterday evening to tell you he'd enlisted, he thought you'd like it and be proud of——Mercy! what in the nation's the matter with the girl?”
Nothing, only a sudden misery had fallen like a blight upon her heart, and a deadly pallor telegraphed it to her countenance. She rose up without a word and walked with a firm step out of the room, but once within the sacred seclusion of her own chamber, her strong will gave way and she burst into a flood of passionate tears. Bitterly she upbraided herself for her foolish haste of the night before, and her harsh treatment of her lover at the very moment that he had come to anticipate the proudest wish of her heart, and to tell her that he had enrolled himself under the battle-flag and was going forth to fight as her soldier. Alas! other maidens would have soldiers in those glorious fields, and be entitled to the sweet pain of feeling a tender solicitude for them, but she would be unrepresented. No soldier in all the vast armies would breathe her name as he breasted the crimson tide of war! She wept again—or, rather, she went on weeping where she left off a moment before. In her bitterness of spirit, she almost cursed the precipitancy that had brought all this sorrow upon her young life. “Drat it!” The words were in her bosom, but she locked them there, and closed her lips against their utterance.Ⓐhistorical collation
For weeks and weeksⒶhistorical collation she nursed her grief in silence while the roses faded from her cheeks. And through it all she clung to the hope that some day the old love would bloom again in Reginald's heart, and he would write to her—but the long summer days dragged wearily along, and still no letter came. The newspapers teemed with stories of battle and carnage, and eagerly she read them, but always with the same result: the tears welled up and blurred the closing lines—the name she sought was looked for in vain, and the dull aching returned to her sinking heart. Letters to the other girls sometimes contained brief mention of him, and presented always the same picture of him—a morose, unsmiling, desperate man, always in the thickest of the fight, begrimed with powder, and moving calm and unscathed through tempests of shot and shell, as if he bore a charmed life.
But at last, in a long list of maimed and killed, poor Lucretia [begin page 132] read these terrible words, and fell fainting to the floor: “R. D. Whittaker, private soldier, desperately wounded!Ⓐhistorical collation”
On a couch in one of the wards of a hospitalⒶhistorical collation at Washington lay a wounded soldier; his head was so profusely bandaged that his features were not visible, but there was no mistaking the happy face of the young girl who sat beside him—it was Lucretia Borgia Smith's. She had hunted him out several weeks before, and since that time she had patiently watched by him and nursed him, coming in the morning as soon as the surgeonsⒶhistorical collation had finished dressing his wounds, and never leaving him until relieved at nightfall. A ball had shattered his lower jaw, and he could not utter a syllable; through all her weary vigils, she had never once been blessed with a grateful word from his dear lips; yet she stood to her post bravely and without a murmur, feeling that when he did get well again she would hear that which would more than reward her for all her devotion.
At the hour we have chosen for the opening of this chapter, Lucretia was in a tumult of happy excitement, for the surgeon had told her that at last her Whittaker had recovered sufficiently to admit of the removal of the bandages from his head, and she was now waiting with feverish impatience for the doctor to come and disclose the loved features to her view. At last he came, and Lucretia, with beaming eyes and a flutteringⒶhistorical collation heart, bent over the couch with anxious expectancy. One bandage was removed, then another, and another, and lo! the poor wounded face was revealed to the light of day.
“O my own dar——”
What have we here! What is the matter! Alas!Ⓐhistorical collation it was the face of a stranger!
Poor Lucretia! With one hand covering her upturned eyes, she staggered back with a moan of anguish. Then a spasm of fury distorted her countenance as she brought her fist down with a crashⒶemendation that made the medicine bottles on the table dance againⒶemendation, and exclaimed:
“OⒶhistorical collation confound my cats if I haven't gone and fooled away three [begin page 133] mortal weeks here, snuffling and slobberingⒶhistorical collation over the wrong soldier!”
It was a sad, sad truth. The wretched, but innocent and unwitting impostor was R. D., or Richard Dilworthy Whittaker, of Wisconsin, the soldier of dear little Eugenie Le Mulligan, of that State, and utterly unknown to our unhappy Lucretia B. Smith.Ⓐhistorical collation
Such is life, and the trailⒶemendation Ⓐhistorical collation of the serpentⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note is over us all. Let us draw the curtain over this melancholy history—for melancholy it must still remain, during a season at least, for the real Reginald de Whittaker has not turned up yet.Ⓐhistorical collation Ⓐemendation
Historical Collation
Texts collated:
Cal “Lucretia Smith's Soldier,” Californian 2 (3 December 1864): 9.JF1 Jumping Frog (New York: Webb, 1867), pp. 89–98. Prints an edited Cal without demonstrable revision by Mark Twain.
JF2 Jumping Frog (London: Routledge, 1867), pp. 82–91. Reprints JF1 with few errors.
JF3 Jumping Frog (London: Hotten, 1870), pp. 84–89. Reprints JF2 without further error.
JF4 Jumping Frog (London: Routledge, 1870 and 1872), pp. 76–84. Reprints JF2 without further error.
MTSk Mark Twain's Sketches (London: Routledge, 1872), pp. 196–203. Reprints JF4 with Mark Twain's revisions.
MTSk MT Copy of MTSk revised by Mark Twain, who made no changes in this sketch.
HWa Choice Humorous Works (London: Hotten, 1873), pp. 532–535. Reprints JF3 with few errors.
HWa MT Sheets of HWa revised by Mark Twain, who made two changes in this sketch.
HWb Choice Humorous Works (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874), pp. 506–509. Reprints HWa with authorial revisions from HWaMT.
HWb MT Copy of HWb revised by Mark Twain, who made no changes in this sketch.
The first printing in the Californian 2 (3 December 1864): 9 is copy-text. Copies: Bancroft; PH from Yale.
Reprintings and Revisions. The sketch was reprinted in JF1, probably from an edited clipping of the Californian. Such a clipping might have been removed from the front part of the Yale Scrapbook when whole leaves were cut out, in which case variants in JF1 would almost certainly reflect revisions made by Mark Twain in the scrapbook. But no trace of such a clipping or of Mark Twain's revisions (assuming he made some) now survives in the scrapbook, and any argument for authorial revision in JF1 must rest heavily on the evidence of collation. Among half a dozen minor variants introduced by JF1, only one may be plausibly attributed to the author: the moderating change to “weeks” instead of “weeks and weeks” (131.24) is characteristic, even though it could easily be the result of compositorial oversight instead. Most of these minor variants are clearly not characteristic, however, and must be attributed to the compositor or the editor of JF1: “own” for “old” (129.16); “next” for “the next” (130.27); “fife” for “a fife” (130.27–28); “surgeon” for “surgeons” (132.10); and “fluttering” for “a fluttering” (132.24), as well as several changes in emphasis (italics and exclamation points). On the other hand, JF1 did introduce some slightly more substantial changes that are plausibly authorial. All of these cluster in the opening paragraph, which JF1 changed from a “Note from the Author” addressed to “Mr. Editor” into a briefer and less topical introduction. Mark Twain's reference to “stories in Harper's Weekly” became the more general “stories which have lately been so popular” (128.2); his telltale reference to a story “which I now forward to you for publication” became the noncommital “which is now completed” (128.4); his allusion to “the Hon. T. G. Phelps, who has so long and ably represented this State in Congress” (128.7–9) was omitted; the statement that “I should make honorable mention of the obliging publishing firms Roman & Co. and Bancroft & Co., of this city, who loaned” him several books was shortened to say simply “I should confess that I have drawn largely on” those books (128.9–11). Finally, Mark Twain's allusion to the “inspiration” he had drawn from the “excellent beer” supplied by a local brewery (128.16–20) was also omitted, perhaps in the interest of decorum. These changes conform to a pattern of revision repeated throughout the sketches included in JF1, and all or part of them may well have been instituted by Mark Twain on the clipping presumably drawn from the Yale Scrapbook. But Charles Henry Webb, following the example of Mark Twain's revisions elsewhere in the scrapbook, could easily have supplied these changes for the author—and if he did so, it would help to account for their somewhat neutral and colorless character. In the absence of concrete holographic evidence, and especially in the absence of distinctively authorial revisions, it is necessary to treat all of the JF1 variants as editorial in origin.
Whether or not Mark Twain revised the text for JF1, all but one of its variants were perpetuated in subsequent reprintings. The reprinting of the JF1 text is described in the textual introduction. Routledge reprinted JF1 in 1867 (JF2), and Hotten in turn reprinted JF2 in 1870 (JF3). Routledge also reprinted JF2 in 1870 (JF4a) and, using the unaltered plates of JF4a, reissued the book in 1872 (JF4b). None of these texts was revised by Mark Twain, although the compositor of JF2 made a number of errors and sophistications that were incorporated in JF3 and JF4a: “of” instead of “at” (128.6); “and” instead of “&” (129.5); “his name to” omitted (130.19). When Mark Twain prepared the printer's copy for MTSk in March or April 1872, he presumably revised a copy of JF4a, making two deletions: he omitted Lucretia's internal monologue (“ ‘Drat it!’ The words were in her bosom, but she locked them there, and closed her lips against their utterance” at 131.22–23); and he removed “and slobbering” from a later speech (133.1). Either he or the compositor corrected one variant introduced by JF1, restoring the indefinite article before “fife” (130.27–28), and altered “upon” to “up on” (130.28). And Mark Twain probably corrected an error deriving from the original Californian printing, restoring “trail” where all previous texts had “tail” in the phrase quoted from Lalla Rookh, “the trail of the serpent is over us all” (133.7)—a correction adopted in the present text.
One year later (1873) Hotten reprinted the JF3 text in HWa. His compositors made many minor changes in punctuation, but only one substantive change (also minor): “an” instead of “a” at 132.4. When Mark Twain revised this book for Chatto and Windus in the fall of 1873 (HWaMT), he duplicated some of the changes he presumably made one year earlier for MTSk: he again deleted Lucretia's slang monologue and the reference to “slobbering” (131.22–23 and 133.1), but he did not repeat his earlier correction of “tail” to “trail,” nor the minor corrections made by him or the MTSk compositor at 130.27–28 and 130.28. All of the HWaMT changes were made in the HWa plates and incorporated in HWb, published in 1874.
When in 1875 Mark Twain came to reprint the sketch in SkNO, he entered the title “Lucretia Smith's Soldier” as item 49 in the Doheny table of contents (see figure 23F in the textual introduction, volume 1, p. 629). He marked this entry, as he marked four others (items 12, 20, 52, and 67), with a circled cross, perhaps to indicate only tentative approval. He did not revise the sketch in either HWbMT or MTSkMT, the two sources available to the compositors of SkNO. Since he did not cancel it in HWbMT, the presumption must be that he intended the compositors to use that text. They, however, entered the page number (196S) to indicate that they had found it listed on page 196 in the table of contents for MTSkMT. At some point, however, Mark Twain or Elisha Bliss decided not to include the sketch in SkNO: Bliss has written on the Doheny table of contents, “(Not set).”
The diagram of transmission is as follows: