10 December 1873 • London, England (London Morning Post, 11 Dec 73, UCCL 00997)
to the editor of the morning post. 1explanatory note
Sir,—Now that my lecturing engagement is drawing to its close, I find that there is one attraction which I forgot to provide, & Ⓐemendation that is, the attendance of some great member of the Government to give distinction to my entertainment. Strictly speaking, I did not really forget this or underrate its importance, but the truth was, I was afraid of it. I was afraid of it for the reason that those Ⓐemendationgreat personages have so many calls upon their time that they cannot well spare the time to sit out an entertainment, & I knew that if one of them were to leave his box & retire while I was lecturing it would seriously embarrass me. I find, however, that many people think I ought not to allow this lack to exist longer; therefore, I feel compelled to reveal a thing which I had intended to keep secret. I early applied to a party at the East-end who is in the same line of business as Madame Tussaud,2explanatory note & he agreed to lend me a couple of kings & some nobility, & he said that they would sit out my lecture, & not only sit it out, but that they wouldn’t even leave the place when it was done, but would just stay where they were, perfectly infatuated, & wait for more. So I made a bargain with him at once, & was going to ask the newspapers to mention, in the usual column, that on such-and-such an evening his Majesty King Henry VIII. would honour my entertainment with his presence, & that on such-&-such an evening his Majesty William the Conqueror would be present; & that on the succeeding evening Moses & Aaron would be there, & so on. I felt encouraged now, an attendance like that would make my entertainment all that could be desired, & besides, I would not be embarrassed by their going away before my lecture was over. But now a misfortune came. In attempting to move Henry VIII. to my lecture hall, the porter fell down stairs & utterly smashed him all to pieces; in the course of moving William the Conqueror, something let go & all the saw-dust burst out of him, & he collapsed & withered away to nothing before my eyes. Then we collared some dukes, but they were so seedy & decayed that nobody would ever have believed in their rank; & so I gave them up, with almost a broken heart. In my trouble I had nothing in the world left to depend on now but just Moses & Aaron, & I confess to you that it was all I could do to keep the tears back when I came to examine those two images & found that that man, in his unapproachable ignorance, had been exhibiting in Whitechapel for Moses & Aaron what any educated person could see at a glance, by the ligature, were only the Siamese Twins.3explanatory note
You see now, sir, that I have done all that a man could do to supply a complained-of lack, & if I have failed I think I ought to be pitied, not blamed. I wish I could get a king somewhere, just only for a little while, & I would take good care of him, & send him home again, & pay the cab myself.
London, Dec. 10.4explanatory note
The editor of the Morning Post—considered “the fashionable chronicle and journal of the Beau Monde”—was William Hardman (1828–90). Educated at Cambridge and trained as a barrister, Hardman filled the position from 1872 until his death (Newspaper Press Directory, 17; Griffiths, 422–23; Boase, 1:1329–30). Clemens may not have known Hardman at this time, but both men attended a New Year’s Eve party at Shirley Brooks’s on 31 December (Layard, 576; see 29 Dec 73 to OLC, n. 3click to open letter).
Marie Tussaud (1760–1850) was a Swiss wax modeler who, as her uncle’s apprentice, took death masks from heads severed by the guillotine during the French Revolution. After coming to England in 1802 she toured Britain with her life-size portrait waxworks of famous people, including royalty, and in 1833 set up a permanent exhibition on Baker Street in London. After her death her sons continued the business, which has remained a popular entertainment to this day.
Whitechapel was a congested and poverty-ridden neighborhood in London’s East End. In May 1869 Clemens had written a humorous article about Chang and Eng (1811–74), famous “Siamese Twins” who lived in North Carolina (Weinreb and Hibbert, 955; L3 , 228).
The Morning Post printed this letter on 11 December, with a brief introduction:
We have received the following from Mr. Mark Twain, and give insertion to this singular advertisement as a curious specimen of Transatlantic puffery. We suppose that wag intends it to be funny; but it rather conveys the idea that the author of the “Jumping Frog” has become a prey to the sad melancholy which attacks foreigners in this country. (“Mark Twain’s Lectures,” 2)
The Belfast Northern Whig (Frank Finlay’s newspaper) reprinted the letter on 13 December, remarking that
Mark Twain has been audaciously poking fun at the snobbish tendencies of the great British public, by sending the following letter to the organ of fashionable society, the Morning Post. Jenkins publishes the letter, and gravely “supposes the writer intends it to be funny,” but is not at all sure. (“Mark Twain Again,” clipping in Scrapbook 12:49, CU-MARK)
“Jenkins” was a general name for a “fawning, snobbish journalist” (Spielmann, 209–10, 289, 319–20).
“Mark Twain’s Lectures,” London Morning Post, 11 Dec 73, 2. Copy-text is a microfilm edition of the newspaper in the British Library Newspaper Library, London (Uk).
L5 , 503–505; numerous newspapers, including “Mark Twain Again,” Belfast Northern Whig, 13 Dec 73, Scrapbook 12:49, CU-MARK; “Mark Twain and the Nobility”: San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 3 Jan 74, 4, and San Francisco Alta California, 11 Jan 74, 4; Grenander 1975, 3.