Autobiography of Mark Twain (22 page)

“That’s the General! Yes, sir! That’s the General! Mind! I tell you! That’s the General!”

Then he went away, and the place became absolutely silent.

Within a few minutes afterwards the General was sleeping, and for two hours he continued to sleep tranquilly, the serenity of his face disturbed only at intervals by a passing wave of pain. It was the first sleep he had had for several weeks uninduced by narcotics.

To my mind this bust, completed at this sitting, has in it more of General Grant than can be found in any other likeness of him that has ever been made since he was a famous man. I think it may rightly be called the best portrait of General Grant that is in existence. It has also a feature which must always be a remembrancer to this nation of what the General was passing through during the long weeks of that spring. For, into the clay image went the pain which he was enduring but which did not appear in his face when he was awake. Consequently, the bust has about it a suggestion of patient and brave and manly suffering which is infinitely touching.

At the end of two hours General Badeau entered abruptly and spoke to the General and this woke him up. But for this animal’s interruption he might have slept as much longer possibly.

Gerhardt worked on as long as it was light enough to work and then he went away. He was to come again, and did come the following day; but, at the last moment, Colonel Fred Grant would not permit another sitting. He said that the face was so nearly perfect that he was afraid to allow it to be touched again, lest some of the excellence might be refined out of it, instead of adding more excellence to it. He called attention to an oil painting on the wall down stairs
and asked if we knew that man. We couldn’t name him—had never seen his face before. “Well,” said Colonel Grant, “that was a perfect portrait of my father once: it was given up by all the family to be the best that had ever been made of him. We were entirely satisfied with it, but the artist, unhappily, was not: he wanted to do a stroke or two to make it absolutely perfect and he insisted on taking it back with him. After he had made those finishing touches it didn’t resemble my father or any one else. We took it, and have always kept it as a curiosity. But with that lesson behind us we will save this bust from a similar fate.”

He allowed Gerhardt to work at the hair, however: he said he might expend as much of his talent on that as he pleased but must stop there.

Gerhardt finished the hair to his satisfaction but never touched the face again. Colonel Grant required Gerhardt to promise that he would take every pains with the clay bust and then return it to him to keep as soon as he had taken a mould from it. This was done.

Gerhardt prepared the clay as well as he could for permanent preservation and gave it to Colonel Grant.

Up to the present day, May 22, 1885, no later likeness of General Grant of any kind has been made from life and if this shall chance to remain the last ever made of him from life, coming generations can properly be grateful that one so nearly perfect of him was made after the world learned his name.

Grant’s Memoirs

1885. (Spring.)

Some time after the contract for General Grant’s book was completed, I found that nothing but a verbal understanding existed between General Grant and the Century Company giving General Grant permission to use his Century articles in his book. There is a law of custom which gives an author the privilege of using his magazine article in any way he pleases after it shall have appeared in the magazine, and this law of custom is so well established that an author never expects to have any difficulty about getting a magazine copyright transferred to him whenever he shall ask for it with the purpose in view of putting it in a book. But in the present case I was afraid that the Century Company might fall back upon their legal rights and ignore the law of custom, in which case we should be debarred from using General Grant’s Century articles in his book—an awkward state of things, because he was now too sick a man to re-write them. It was necessary that something should be done in this matter, and done at once.

Mr. Seward, General Grant’s lawyer, was a good deal disturbed when he found that there was no writing. But I was not. I believed that the Century people could be relied upon to carry out any verbal agreement which they had made. The only thing I feared was that their idea of the verbal agreement and General Grant’s idea of it might not coincide. So I went back to the General’s house and got Colonel Fred Grant to write down what he understood the verbal agreement to be and this piece of writing he read to General Grant, who said it was correct and then signed it with his own hand: a feeble and trembling signature, but recognizable as his.

Then I sent for Webster, and our lawyer, and we three went to the Century office, where
we found Roswell Smith, (the head man of the company,) and several of the editors. I stated my case plainly and simply and found that their understanding and General Grant’s were identical; so, the difficulty was at an end at once, and we proceeded to draw a writing to cover the thing.

When the business was finished, or, perhaps, in the course of it, I made another interesting discovery.

I was already aware that the Century people were going to bring out all their war articles in book form eventually, General Grant’s among the number; but as I knew what a small price had been paid to the General for his articles I had a vague general notion that he would receive a further payment for the use of them in their book, a remuneration which an author customarily receives in our day by another unwritten law of custom. But when I spoke of this, to my astonishment they told me that they had bought and paid for every one of these war articles with the distinct understanding that that first payment was the last. In confirmation of this amazing circumstance, they brought out a receipt which General Grant had signed, and therein it distinctly appeared that each $500 not only paid for the use of the article printed in the magazine
but also in the subsequent book!

One thing was quite clear to me: if we consider the value of those articles to that book, we must grant that the General was paid very much less than nothing at all for their issue in the magazine.

This was altogether the sharpest trade I have ever heard of, in any line of business, horse trading included.

The Century people didn’t blush and therefore it is plain that they considered the transaction fair and legitimate; and I believe myself that they had no idea that they were doing an unfair thing. It was easily demonstrable that they were buying ten-dollar gold pieces from General Grant at twenty-five cents apiece, and I think it was as easily demonstrable that they did not know that there was anything unfair about it.

During our talk Roswell Smith said to me, with the glad air of a man who has stuck a nail in his foot, “I’m glad you’ve got the General’s book, Mr. Clemens, and glad there was somebody with courage enough to take it, under the circumstances. What do you think the General wanted to require of me?” “What?”
“He wanted me to insure a sale of 25,000 sets of his book. I wouldn’t risk such a guarantee on any book that ever was published.” This
is the remark I have already several times referred to. I’ve got Smith’s exact language; (from my note-book); it proves that they thought 10 per cent royalty would actually represent half profits on General Grant’s book! Imagine it.

I did not say anything, but I thought a good deal. This was one more evidence that the Century people had no more just idea of the value of the book than as many children might be expected to have. At this present writing (May 25, 1885) we have not advertised General Grant’s book in any way: we have not spent a dollar in advertising of any kind; we have not even given notice by circulars or otherwise that we are ready to receive applications from book agents, and yet to-day we have
bona fide
orders for 100,000 sets of the book—that is to say, 200,000 single volumes, and these orders are from men who have bonded themselves to take and pay for them, and who have also laid before us the most trustworthy evidence that they
are financially able to carry out their contracts. The territory which these men have taken is only about one-fourth of the area of the Northern states. We have also under consideration applications for 50,000 sets more and although we have confidence in the energy and ability of the men who have made these applications, we have not closed with them because as yet we are not sufficiently satisfied as to their financial strength. [Sept. 10; 250,000 sets (500,000 single copies,) have been sold, to date—and only half the ground canvassed.]

When it became known that the General’s book had fallen into my hands, the New York World and a Boston paper, (I think the Herald) came out at once with the news; and, in both instances, the position was taken that, by some sort of superior under-handed smartness, I had taken an unfair advantage of the confiding simplicity of the Century people, and got the book away from them—a book which they had the right to consider their property, inasmuch as the terms of its publication had been mutually agreed upon, and the contract covering it was on the point of being signed by General Grant when I put in my meddling appearance.

None of the statements of these two papers was correct, but the Boston paper’s account was considered to be necessarily correct, for the reason that it was furnished by the sister of Mr. Gilder, editor of the Century. So, there was considerable newspaper talk about my improper methods, but nobody seemed to have wit enough to discover that if one gouger
had
captured the General’s book, here was evidence that he had only prevented another gouger from getting it, since the Century’s terms were distinctly mentioned in the Boston paper’s account as being
10 per cent royalty
. No party observed that, and nobody commented upon it. It was taken for granted all round that General Grant would have signed that 10 per cent contract without being grossly cheated.

It is my settled policy to allow newspapers to make as many misstatements about me or my affairs as they like; therefore I had no mind to contradict either of these newspapers or explain my side of the case in any way. But a reporter came to our house at Hartford from one of the editors of the Courant to ask me for my side of the matter for use in the Associated Press dispatches. I dictated a short paragraph in which I said that the statement made in the World that there was a coolness between the Century Company and General Grant, and that in consequence of it the Century would not publish any more articles by General Grant, notwithstanding the fact that they had advertised them far and wide, was not true. I said there was no coolness and no ground for coolness; that the contract for the book had been open for all competitors; that I had put in my application and had asked the General to state its terms to the other applicants in order that he might thereby be enabled to get the best terms possible; that I had got the book eventually, but by no underhand or unfair method. The statement I made was concise and brief and contained nothing offensive. It was sent over the wires to the Associated Press headquarters in New York, but it was not
issued
by that concern. It did not appear in print. I inquired why, and was told that although it was a piece of news of quite universal interest, it was also more or less of an advertisement for the book—a thing I had not thought of before. I was also told that if I had had a friend round about the Associated Press office, I could have had that thing published all over the country for a reasonable bribe. I wondered if that were true. I wondered if so great and important a concern dealt in that sort of thing.

I presently got something in the way of a confirmation in New York. A few days afterwards, I found that our lawyers, Alexander & Green, and also Mr. Webster, had been disturbed by the World’s statement of this matter and had thought a correction ought to be made through the press of the country. They had imagined that the Associated Press, having for its sole business the collection of valuable news for newspapers, would be very glad to have a statement of the facts in this case. Therefore, they called on an employee of that concern and put into his hands a brief statement of the affair. He read it over, hesitated, said it was certainly a matter of great public interest but that he couldn’t see anyway to make the statement without its being also a pretty good advertisement for General Grant’s book, and for my publishing firm; but he said if we would pay $500 he would send it over the wires to every newspaper in the country connected with that institution.

This pleasant offer was declined. But the proposition seemed to explain to me a thing which had often puzzled me. That was the frequent appearance among the Associated Press dispatches of prodigious puffs of speculative schemes. One, in particular, was a new electric light company of Boston. During a number of weeks there had been almost daily a wildly extravagant puff of this company’s prosperous condition in the Associated Press dispatches of the Hartford papers. The prosperity or the unprosperity of that company was a matter of not the slightest interest to the generality of newspaper readers, and I had always wondered before why the Associated Press people should take such an apparent interest in the matter. It seemed quite satisfactorily explained now. The Associated Press had sent the World’s misstatements over the wires to all parts of the country free of charge for the reason, no doubt, that that statement slandered General Grant, lied about his son, dealt the Century Company a disastrous blow, and was thoroughly well calculated to sharply injure me in both character and pocket. Therefore it was apparent that the Associated Press were willing to destroy a man for nothing, but required cash for rehabilitating him again. That was Associated Press morals. It was newspaper morals, too. Speaking in general terms it was always easy to get any print to say any injurious thing about a citizen in a newspaper, but it was next to impossible to get that paper or any other to right an injured man. We have a law of libel, but it is inoperative and merely cumbers the statute books. For several reasons:
First
—The case must take its routine place in the calendar of the court and that ensures that some months must elapse before the courts get down to it, so that whatever injury the libel might do has been already done.
Second
—A jury is afraid of the newspapers and always lets a newspaper off at the cheapest and easiest rate. As the result libel suits are very uncommon and whenever one is tried it simply serves as a reminder to later comers that the best way is to let libel suits alone and take what the newspapers choose to give you in the way of abuse.