Little Sammy in Fairyland (1870)
Chapter 43 of "Rebel With a Cause: Mark Twain's Hidden Memoirs"
Chapter 43
Little Sammy in Fairyland (1870)
Livy and I got married at her parents’ home in Elmira, New York, on February 2nd, 1870. I could scarcely believe my good fortune to have won the heart of the only woman I cared for, or could care for. I felt so proud, and never more like a success. I had sought and won the hand of the best woman in the world!
Wanting a stable source of income, and a steady and respectable livelihood, I sought to get away from the lecture stage, and advance beyond the risky life of a writer of books. I had experience as a newspaper writer and reporter, so I determined to purchase a share of a newspaper and help run it.
After considering a Cleveland paper, and fruitlessly attempting to become part owner of the Hartford Courant, I eventually bought into one in Buffalo, the Express.
My father-in-law surprised and delighted Livy and I with a very magnanimous wedding gift: a large house, complete with furnishings and servants already hired and installed, in that city of Buffalo.
Life there, apart from the newlywed period and its attendant interests, was not much to our liking. This was partly because Buffalo itself did not much appeal to me, but also because “regular” work on the newspaper soon wore me down. I was not cut out for such a schedule or work life. As editor, I could make my own hours, and the hours I assigned myself to work grew shorter and shorter, and my workday began later and later, until finally I was not there much at all. I wrote for the paper, but that was something I could do from home just as well, so normally I did just that.
EDITOR’S NOTES: Twain began reminiscing about his Hannibal boyhood within days after his wedding. He replied to a letter from his old friend Will Bowen (which had doubtless contained wedding congratulations), informing his old Hannibal playmate:
Your letter has stirred me to the bottom. The fountains of my great deep are broken up & I have rained reminiscences for four & twenty hours. The old life has swept before me like a panorama; the old days have trooped by in their old glory, again; the old faces have looked out of the mists of the past.
These reminiscences were enlivened and repackaged in much of his later fiction, especially “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
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Twain announced his presence as the new editor of the Buffalo Express via an introductory piece in the paper titled “Salutatory,” which included the following unilateral covenants (personal resolutions):
I shall always confine myself to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.
I shall not write any poetry, unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers.
I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political editor who is already excellent, and only needs to serve a term in the penitentiary to be perfect.
***
When approached to lecture before audiences at this time, Sam demurred, explaining, “Am just married, & don’t take an interest in anything out of doors.”
In a similar vein, he replied to a letter from his publisher, Elisha Bliss, as follows:
Friend Bliss—
Why bless your soul, I never have time to write letters these days—takes all my time to carry on the honey-moon.
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