28 November 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00545)
Private & Conf. {Copy.}
My brother expects to start east in about 6 or 8 days.
I have put my greedy hands on the best man in America for my purpose & shall start him to the diamond fields of South Africa within a fortnight., at my expense. 1explanatory note
I shall write a book of his experiences for next spring, (600 pp 8vo.,) spring of ’72 & write it jo Ⓐemendation just as if I had been through it all myself, but will explain in the preface that this is done merely to give it life & sparkle. & reality.
That book will have a perfectly awful beautiful sale.
1. Now Sir, will you pay me 10 Ⓐemendation per cent copyright on it . Ⓐemendation?
2. Will you advance me a thousand dollars, (or $1,500 if it should be necessary,) now, for this purpose, with this distinct understanding, viz: That if the thing works & I manage to write the book on the diamond adventures, you are to deduct all of that thousand or $1,500 dollars from the first quarter’s sales of said book; but if the project fails & I can’t get a book out of it, then you are to lose half of the thousand, or fifteen hundred dollars & I to lose the other half.
Say yes or no quick, Bliss, for I can this thing is brim-full of fame & fortune for both author & publisher. Expedition’s the word! , & I don’t want any timidity or hesitancy now. Hang it I can find you as many as several publishers 2explanatory note
But whether my pro Ⓐemendation project & my terms find favor in your eyes or not, I am perfectly satisfied with the scheme & my man will be packing his trunk by this time tomorrow. And in another 24 hours he will be full freighted with my minute instructions & will have his name to the contract & off for Africa within a fortnightⒶemendation, as I said.3explanatory note
Keep all this a secret, even from Frank himself, now & henceforth—for I don’t want to furnish some other Hartford publisher with an idea, though I would really care no more than about 2 figs for his opposition. But keep it a secret. It is best to do it.
Mrs Fairbanks (my best critic) likes my new book well, as far as I have got.
P. S. I don’t care two cents whether there is a diamond in all Africa or not—the adventurous narrative & its wild, new fascination is what I want.
on back of page 1 as folded:Confidential.
Diamonds were discovered in South Africa, on the banks of the Vaal River, in the spring of 1870, with subsequent rich finds reported in September and October (Annual Cyclopaedia 1870, 1–2; “The Diamond Land,” Buffalo Express, 15 Oct 70, 2–3; “The African Diamond Fields,” New York Tribune, 1 Nov 70, 4; “A New Golconda. The Diamond Fields of South Africa,” Buffalo Express, 11 Nov 70, 2). Clemens’s proxy there was to be John Henry Riley, qualified by his experience as a journalist (8 July 70 to OLC, n. 2click to open letter), and also by attributes Clemens elaborated in “Riley—Newspaper Correspondent,” in the Galaxy for November 1870:
Riley is full of humor, and has an unfailing vein of irony which makes his conversation to the last degree entertaining (as long as the remarks are about somebody else). But notwithstanding the possession of these qualities, which should enable a man to write a happy and an appetizing letter, Riley’s newspaper letters often display a more than earthly solemnity, and likewise an unimaginative devotion to petrified facts, which surprise and distress all men who know him in his unofficial character. He explains this curious thing by saying that his employers sent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, . . . What a shame it is to tie Riley down to the dreary mason-work of laying up solemn dead-walls of fact! He does write a plain, straightforward, and perfectly accurate and reliable correspondence, but it seems to me that I would rather have one chatty paragraph of his fancy than a whole obituary of his facts.
Riley is very methodical, untiringly accommodating, never forgets anything that is to be attended to, is a good son, a staunch friend, and a permanent, reliable enemy. He will put himself to any amount of trouble to oblige a body, and therefore always has his hands full of things to be done for the helpless and the shiftless. And he knows how to do nearly everything, too. He is a man whose native benevolence is a well-spring that never goes dry. He stands always ready to help whoever needs help, as far as he is able—and not simply with his money, for that is a cheap and common charity, but with hand and brain, and fatigue of limb and sacrifice of time. This sort of men is rare. (SLC 1870, 726–27)
Pinholes in the manuscript of this letter suggest that Clemens enclosed a clipping or clippings—possibly information about South Africa, for example “The South African Diamond Field,” (Buffalo Express, 28 Nov 70, 2). He did not enclose his sketch about Riley, which he first recommended to Bliss in his letter of 20 December.
Bliss replied on 30 November (CU-MARK):
Clemens replied to Bliss’s letter on 2 December. He probably made this entire list well before he used this envelope to preserve their initial diamond mine correspondence. By late November he had already written to James Redpath (12 November), Orion Clemens (5 November, 11 November, 21? November), Bliss (5 November, 7 November, 22 November), Charles H. Webb (26 November), and Mary Mason Fairbanks (5 November, 7 November telegram; not extant, 19 November). November letters to Benjamin Shillaber, Jane Lampton Clemens, Daniel Slote or Dan De Quille, Richard Stoker, James N. Gillis, Calvin H. Higbie, Harper’s Weekly editor George W. Curtis, and David Gray are not known to survive. Stoker, Gillis, and Higbie all were potential sources of information for Roughing It—as was Dan De Quille (William Wright), who, however, Clemens apparently had in mind in conjunction with the diamond mine book (2 Dec 70 to Rileyclick to open letter, final postscript). Some of the missing letters may have announced, or acknowledged congratulations upon, the birth of Langdon Clemens.
Clemens’s satisfaction was not tempered by the failure of a previous collaboration, with Darius R. Ford—or by the fact that Riley had not yet agreed to go (22 Jan 70 to Bliss, n. 2click to open letter; 27 Mar 70 to the Langdonsclick to open letter; 2 Dec 70 to Rileyclick to open letter).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). A second copy, kept by the author, is in the Mark Twain Papers, with the following notation on the back of page 1 as folded: “No. 1 | Copy of Diamond Letter to Bliss.” In it, Clemens omitted the note at 252.1–7, “Keep . . . got.”
L4 , 251–54; MTMF , 141 n. 2, brief excerpt; MTLP , 42–44.
For the MS, copy sent, see Mendoza Collection in Description of Provenance. The MS evidently remained among the American Publishing Company’s files until it was sold (and may have been copied at that time by Dana Ayer; see Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance). The Ayer transcription was in turn copied by a typist and both the handwritten and typed transcriptions are at WU. For the MS, author’s copy, see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.