〚Don’t you let any of this private
letter get
into print, old fellow.〛
slc/mt
farmington avenue, hartford.
March 20, 1880.
My Dear Master Bowser:
I haven’t read the composition, yet—I have only read your
letter. I find it isn’t wise for ordinary folks to have two interests
in their minds at once, else neither of them will get more than a weak
& divided attention. 
This is a marvelously
wretched pen, & I will change it.〛
I wrote all day yesterday with it on the fifteenth chapter of a story for
boys entitled “The Little Prince & the Little
Pauper,”—laid in the time of Edward VI of
England—so it is time to change. And speaking of that book, if
you will drop me a reminder, say about next New Year’s, I will
send you the first copy of it that is printed〛
Would I be a boy again? I will answer:
1. Without any modifying stipulations at all, but just simply be a boy again and start fresh? NO!
2. I have almost always been happy, & singularly
usually fortunate. This has been my case, both as boy &
man. There is not a cheerfuller person in the world, today, than I
am. I have not the slightest fault to find with my lot. Yet I have no desire to
live my life over again. I really am not able to tell why, for I
don’t know the reasons myself, but that is the way I feel about it.
2. Would I live it over again under certain conditions?
Certainly I would! The main condition would be that I should emerge from boyhood
as a “cub pilot” on a Mississippi boat,
& that I should by & by become a pilot, &
remain one. The minor conditions would be these: Summer always; the magnolias at
Rifle Point always in bloom, so that the dreamy twilight should have the added
charm of their perfume; the oleanders on the “coast”
always in bloom, likewise; the sugar cane always green—never any
“bagasse” burnings; the river always bank-full, so we
could run every chu all the chutes—how heavenly that would
be!—then in the foot of 63, & in a thousand other places,
we should see the thick banks of young willows dipping their
burde leaves into the currentless water, & we could
thrash right along against them without any danger of hurting anything;
& I would require a new “cut-off” to experiment
on, every season—we tried one about a dozen times, one rainy night,
& then had to go around, after all—but it was a noble
circus while we had it; I should require that there be a dog-watch in the
evening, but none in the morning—for a dog-watch in the morning is
pure foolishness; I would rule out the middle watch in the night, except on
moonlight nights, because it makes one feel so dreary & low-spirited
& forlorn to rouse out of a pleasant sleep & go
at dead midnight & go & perch away up there in the pilot
house in the midst of the wide darkness, with apparently nobody alive in the
deserted world but him; but the middle watch in so summer moonlit
nights is a gracious time, especially if the boat steers like a duck,
& friends have staid up to keep one company, & sing,
& smoke, & spin yarns, and blow the whistle when other
boats are met (though I remember that the unpracticed friend from the mainland
never blew it right, & consequently always made a little trouble;)
& I would have the trips long, & the stays in port short;
& my boat should be a big dignified freight boat,
that with a stately contempt for passenger-hails & a
tranquil willingness to “lay up” for fog—being
never in a hurry; & her crew should never change, nor ever
die;—one such crew I have in mind, & can call their names
& see their faces, now: but twen two decades have done
therir work upon them, & half are dead, the rest
scattered, & the boat’s bones are rotting five fathom deep
in Madrid Bend. That is the way I would have it all. And in addition, I should
require to be notiorious be notorious among speakers of the English
tongue—because I should want to be invited around, a little, you
know, & have nice little kindly attentions in cars & ships
& other places where such things help out, you see, & keep
a body from feeling homesick. And when strangers were introduced I should have
them repeat “Mr. Clemens?” doubtfully, & with
the rising inflection—& when they were informed that I was
the celebrated “Master Pilot of the Mississippi,”
& immediately took me by the hand & wrung it with
effusion, & exclaimed, “O, I know that name very well!” I should feel a pleasurable emotion
trickling down my spine & know I had not lived in vain.
Yes, under such conditions I would most glad[l]y “be a boy” & live this long stretch of time all over again—but not under any other conditions, Master Wattie—I mean I wouldn’t care to risk re-living my 45 years without conditions of a protective nature. It is a hundred to one that in trying to make a better job of the thing on a second trial, I should do worse than I have done this time. I don’t wish to run take stock in any such risky speculation. If you had reached the threshold of college, would you want to go back & do your schooling all over again?
Do you suppose I shall get that sixteenth chapter revised
get any work done to-day if I go gossiping along much longer
in this way? Certainly not. Therefore I will stop—though I
had just got down to where I was about to get the hang of this subject,
& experience “liberty” in the handling of it,
as the preachers say.
No indeed, I have not forgotten your principal at all. She was a very little
girl, with a very large spirit, a long memory, a wise head, a great appetite for
books, a good mental digestion, with grave ways, & inclined to
introspection—an unusual girl. How long ago it was! Another flight
backward like this, & I shall begin to realize that I
am cheating the cemetery.
Your friend & well-wisher
S. L. Clemens.
P.S. Now I have read your
composition, & I think it is a very creditable performance. I
notice that you use plain, simple language, short words, & brief
sentences. That is the way to write English—it is the modern way,
& the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff
& flowers & verbosity ceep in.
creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I
don’t mean that, utterly, but kill the most of
them—then the rest will [be] valuable. They weaken when they are
close together, they give strength when they are wide apart. An
adjective-habit, or a wordy, diffuse, or flowery habit, once fastened upon a
person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
I thank you very much for the pleasant things you have said of me.
S. L. C.
P.P.S. I have been looking at your
report-card, & find it remarkable. Why, I never was marked up 100
in my life, when I was a boy, except for one or two commonplace things, like
Good Spelling, & Troublesomeness. You seem to be tolerably slim
in the matter of History (5), but you make up for it in the other things. I
notice you do not go over 100 in Absence & Tardiness; that is
very good indeed; I used to strike 1,000 in those studies, sometimes, when I
had my hand in. But between you & me, my boy, I can’t
seem to have the fullest confidence in that diploma. The
teacher’s name isn’t signed to it; nor your
parents’; there haven’t been 5
months in 1880, yet; & you couldn’t carry all that
load of “Deportment” at 45, let alone 12. What do you
mean by such conduct as those?
Master D. W. Bowser ǀ Dallas ǀ Texas. ǀ [flourish] Care Messrs. Bowser & Lemmon. ǀ [flourish] [return address:] Return to S. L. Clemens, Hartford, Conn., if not called for. ǀ [rule] [postmarked:] hartford conn. mar 20 6pm
Textual Commentary
Copy-text:MS, TxU-Hu. Previous publication:Herzberg 1940, 2–3, partial
publication; “A Letter from Mark Twain,” Houston Post, 7 February 1960; Section 7, 1; Covici 1960, 106–9; Davis 1960, 2–3.
Provenance:As of 1960, the letters to Bowser were “in the possession of
Bowser’s niece, Mrs. E. C. Stradley” and destined
“for eventual deposit in the manuscript archives” at
TxU (Covici 1960, 105).
Emendations and textual notes:
be • be be [corrected miswriting]
