Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. Autograph letter signed ("Saml.") to his wife Livy in Paris, New York, "The Players" (club), "Xmas," [25 December] 1893. TWENTY-SIX PAGES, 8vo, in ink on both sides of 13 sheets, with a few revisions, with original envelope (defective) addressed by Clemens.
THE ART OF THE DEAL
An extraordinary letter, written on Christmas Day upon Clemens'return from Chicago; he had travelled there with his new friend and financial benefactor, Henry Huttleston Rogers, to negotiate a new contract with James W. Paige, inventor of the typesetting machine for which Clemens had formed a company to manufacture and market. Rogers, a chief architect of the Standard Oil trust and one of the most rapacious businessmen of his day, had taken over the supervision of Clemens' troubled business affairs. Clemens would later say of him: "He is not only the best friend I ever had, but is the best man I have ever known" (quoted in Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, p. 321. To make up for "the 3 letterless days" during his Chicago trip during which he had not written to Livy, Clemens divides this 26-page letter into four "Letters" (sections really). In "Letter No. 1" (pages 1-4) Clemens is mainly concerned with Christmas and family news; in "Letters No. 2 and 3" (pages 5-23) he gives a detailed narration -- with extensive dialogue -- of the business meetings in Chicago; in "Letter No. 4" (pages 24-26) he mostly writes of the train journeys (on a private car with lavish accomodations) to and from Chicago. "Merry Xmas, my darling, & all my darlings! I arrived from Chicago close upon midnight last night, & wrote & sent down my Xmas cablegram before undressing: 'Merry Xmas! Promising progress made in Chicago!'...I was vaguely hoping, all the past week that my Xmas cablegram would be definite, & make you all jump with jubiliation; but the thought always intruded itself, 'You are not going out there to negoiate with a man, but with a louse. This makes results uncertain' [it would be more than a month before Paige would agree to the new terms and sign the final contract]...it is time to dress for Mrs. [William] Laffan's Xmas dinner this evening [she was the wife of the publisher of the New York Sun] -- where I shall meet Bram Stoker & must make sure about that photo with [Sir Henry] Irving's autograph. I will get the picture & he will attend to the rest. In order to remember, & not forget -- well, I will go there with my dress coat wrong-side out; it will cause remarks & then I shall remember..."
"I tell you it was interesting! [Clemens begins "Letter No. 2"] The Chicago campaign, I mean. On the way out Mr. Rogers would plan-out the campaign while I walked the floor & smoked and assented. Then he would close it up with a snap & drop it & we would totally change the subject & take up the scenery, etc. Then a couple of hours before entering Chicago, he said: 'Now we will review, & see if we exactly understand what we will do & will not do -- that is to say, we will clarify our minds, & make them up finally. Because in important negociations a body has got to change his mind: & how can he do that if he hasn't got it made up, & doesn't know what it is.' A good idea, & sound. Result -- two or three details were selected & labeled (as one might say), 'These are not to be yielded or modified, under any any stress of argument, barter, or persuasion.' There were a lot of other requirements -- all perfectly fair ones, but not absolute requisites. 'These we will reluctantly abandon & trade off, one by one, concession by concession, in the interest of & for the preservation of those others -- those essentials.' That was clear & nice & easy to remember. One could dally with minor matters in safety -- one would always know where to draw the line..."
Clemens and Rogers met with Paige's lawyer on the night they reached Chicago and convinced him of the fairness of their terms (Clemens narrates this, reporting key dialogue). The next day Rogers would meet with Paige and his lawyer, Clemens not attending. "The Conference was for 9.30 a.m. [Clemens begins "Letter No. 3"]. We ordered ourselves called at 7.45, which gave us chance for leisurely bath & leisurely breakfast -- that is, I had the leisurely bath, but it was so leisurely that Mr. Rogers didn't get any; which caused him to observe that the Kingdom of heaven is for those who 'look out for the details of life,' & he judged I would get there..." Clemens writes of this full-day meeting (from Rogers' report), again with dialogue, ending "Letter No. 3"; "The waiting game has been my pet notion from the beginning. I want it played till it breaks Paige's heart. As I reason: You [Clemens] can afford to wait 3 months...Mr. Rogers can wait indefinitely. As far as I can see, Paige is the only one who can't wait; to him Time is shod with lead, every day, now adds to his gray hairs, & spoils his sleep. I am full of pity & compassion for him & it is sincere. If he were drowning I would throw him an anvil..."
Despite Paige's final agreement to the new contract, Clemens' involvement in the typesetting maching was to be totally ill-fated. At the end of 1894, after Paige's maching did disastrously in a long test run with other typesetting machines, Clemens was advised by Rogers to give up any hopes for its commercial success. The eventual winner in the typesetting derby was to be the Linotype; Clemens simply backed the wrong horse (at a cost of $200,000 and fifteen years of effort).
THE ART OF THE DEAL
An extraordinary letter, written on Christmas Day upon Clemens'return from Chicago; he had travelled there with his new friend and financial benefactor, Henry Huttleston Rogers, to negotiate a new contract with James W. Paige, inventor of the typesetting machine for which Clemens had formed a company to manufacture and market. Rogers, a chief architect of the Standard Oil trust and one of the most rapacious businessmen of his day, had taken over the supervision of Clemens' troubled business affairs. Clemens would later say of him: "He is not only the best friend I ever had, but is the best man I have ever known" (quoted in Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, p. 321. To make up for "the 3 letterless days" during his Chicago trip during which he had not written to Livy, Clemens divides this 26-page letter into four "Letters" (sections really). In "Letter No. 1" (pages 1-4) Clemens is mainly concerned with Christmas and family news; in "Letters No. 2 and 3" (pages 5-23) he gives a detailed narration -- with extensive dialogue -- of the business meetings in Chicago; in "Letter No. 4" (pages 24-26) he mostly writes of the train journeys (on a private car with lavish accomodations) to and from Chicago. "Merry Xmas, my darling, & all my darlings! I arrived from Chicago close upon midnight last night, & wrote & sent down my Xmas cablegram before undressing: 'Merry Xmas! Promising progress made in Chicago!'...I was vaguely hoping, all the past week that my Xmas cablegram would be definite, & make you all jump with jubiliation; but the thought always intruded itself, 'You are not going out there to negoiate with a man, but with a louse. This makes results uncertain' [it would be more than a month before Paige would agree to the new terms and sign the final contract]...it is time to dress for Mrs. [William] Laffan's Xmas dinner this evening [she was the wife of the publisher of the New York Sun] -- where I shall meet Bram Stoker & must make sure about that photo with [Sir Henry] Irving's autograph. I will get the picture & he will attend to the rest. In order to remember, & not forget -- well, I will go there with my dress coat wrong-side out; it will cause remarks & then I shall remember..."
"I tell you it was interesting! [Clemens begins "Letter No. 2"] The Chicago campaign, I mean. On the way out Mr. Rogers would plan-out the campaign while I walked the floor & smoked and assented. Then he would close it up with a snap & drop it & we would totally change the subject & take up the scenery, etc. Then a couple of hours before entering Chicago, he said: 'Now we will review, & see if we exactly understand what we will do & will not do -- that is to say, we will clarify our minds, & make them up finally. Because in important negociations a body has got to change his mind: & how can he do that if he hasn't got it made up, & doesn't know what it is.' A good idea, & sound. Result -- two or three details were selected & labeled (as one might say), 'These are not to be yielded or modified, under any any stress of argument, barter, or persuasion.' There were a lot of other requirements -- all perfectly fair ones, but not absolute requisites. 'These we will reluctantly abandon & trade off, one by one, concession by concession, in the interest of & for the preservation of those others -- those essentials.' That was clear & nice & easy to remember. One could dally with minor matters in safety -- one would always know where to draw the line..."
Clemens and Rogers met with Paige's lawyer on the night they reached Chicago and convinced him of the fairness of their terms (Clemens narrates this, reporting key dialogue). The next day Rogers would meet with Paige and his lawyer, Clemens not attending. "The Conference was for 9.30 a.m. [Clemens begins "Letter No. 3"]. We ordered ourselves called at 7.45, which gave us chance for leisurely bath & leisurely breakfast -- that is, I had the leisurely bath, but it was so leisurely that Mr. Rogers didn't get any; which caused him to observe that the Kingdom of heaven is for those who 'look out for the details of life,' & he judged I would get there..." Clemens writes of this full-day meeting (from Rogers' report), again with dialogue, ending "Letter No. 3"; "The waiting game has been my pet notion from the beginning. I want it played till it breaks Paige's heart. As I reason: You [Clemens] can afford to wait 3 months...Mr. Rogers can wait indefinitely. As far as I can see, Paige is the only one who can't wait; to him Time is shod with lead, every day, now adds to his gray hairs, & spoils his sleep. I am full of pity & compassion for him & it is sincere. If he were drowning I would throw him an anvil..."
Despite Paige's final agreement to the new contract, Clemens' involvement in the typesetting maching was to be totally ill-fated. At the end of 1894, after Paige's maching did disastrously in a long test run with other typesetting machines, Clemens was advised by Rogers to give up any hopes for its commercial success. The eventual winner in the typesetting derby was to be the Linotype; Clemens simply backed the wrong horse (at a cost of $200,000 and fifteen years of effort).