interesting to note the use of the title, the “Duke of Bilgewater,” in
Huck Finn when the “Duchess of Bilgewater” had already made her
appearance in 1601. Sandwiched between his two great masterpieces, Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn, the writing of 1601 was indeed a strange interlude.
During this prolific period Mark wrote many minor items, most of them
rejected by Howells, and read extensively in one of his favorite books,
Pepys’ Diary. Like many another writer Mark was captivated by Pepys’
style and spirit, and “he determined,” says Albert Bigelow Paine in his
‘Mark Twain, A Biography’, “to try his hand on an imaginary record of
conversation and court manners of a bygone day, written in the phrase of
the period. The result was ‘Fireside Conversation in the Time of Queen
Elizabeth’, or as he later called it, ‘1601’. The ‘conversation’
recorded by a supposed Pepys of that period, was written with all the
outspoken coarseness and nakedness of that rank day, when fireside
sociabilities were limited only to the loosened fancy, vocabulary, and
physical performance, and not by any bounds of convention.”
“It was written as a letter,” continues Paine, “to that robust divine,
Rev. Joseph Twichell,” who, unlike Howells, had no scruples about Mark’s
‘Elizabethan breadth of parlance.'”
The Rev. Joseph Twichell, Mark’s most intimate friend for over forty
years, was pastor of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church of Hartford,
which Mark facetiously called the “Church of the Holy Speculators,”
because of its wealthy parishioners. Here Mark had first met “Joe” at a
social, and their meeting ripened into a glorious, life long friendship.
Twichell was a man of about Mark’s own age, a profound scholar, a devout
Christian, “yet a man with an exuberant sense of humor, and a profound
understanding of the frailties of mankind.” The Rev. Mr. Twichell
performed the marriage ceremony for Mark Twain and solemnized the births
of his children; “Joe,” his friend, counseled him on literary as well as
personal matters for the remainder of Mark’s life. It is important to
catch this brief glimpse of the man for whom this masterpiece was
written, for without it one can not fully understand the spirit in which
1601 was written, or the keen enjoyment which Mark and “Joe” derived from
it.
“SAVE ME ONE.”
The story of the first issue of 1601 is one of finesse, state diplomacy,
and surreptitious printing.
The Rev. “Joe” Twichell, for whose delectation the piece had been
written, apparently had pocketed the document for four long years. Then,
in 1880, it came into the hands of John Hay, later Secretary of State,
presumably sent to him by Mark Twain. Hay pronounced the sketch a
masterpiece, and wrote immediately to his old Cleveland friend, Alexander
Gunn, prince of connoisseurs in art and literature. The following
correspondence reveals the fine diplomacy which made the name of John Hay
known throughout the world.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Washington
June 21, 1880.
Dear Gunn:
Are you in Cleveland for all this week? If you will say yes by return
mail, I have a masterpiece to submit to your consideration which is only
in my hands for a few days.
Yours, very much worritted by the depravity of Christendom,
Hay
The second letter discloses Hay’s own high opinion of the effort and his
deep concern for its safety.
June 24, 1880
My dear Gunn:
Here it is. It was written by Mark Twain in a serious effort to bring
back our literature and philosophy to the sober and chaste Elizabethan
standard. But the taste of the present day is too corrupt for anything
so classic. He has not yet been able even to find a publisher. The
Globe has not yet recovered from Downey’s inroad, and they won’t touch
it.
I send it to you as one of the few lingering relics of that race of
appreciative critics, who know a good thing when they see it.
Read it with reverence and gratitude and send it back to me; for Mark is
impatient to see once more his wandering offspring.
Yours,
Hay.
In his third letter one can almost hear Hay’s chuckle in the certainty
that his diplomatic, if somewhat wicked, suggestion would bear fruit.