Produced by David Widger
By Albert Bigelow Paine
It would be hard to exaggerate the stir which the newspapers and thepublic generally made over the homecoming of Mark Twain. He had leftAmerica, staggering under heavy obligation and set out on a pilgrimage ofredemption. At the moment when this Mecca, was in view a great sorrowhad befallen him and, stirred a world-wide and soul-deep tide of humansympathy. Then there had followed such ovation as has seldom beenconferred upon a private citizen, and now approaching old age, still inthe fullness of his mental vigor, he had returned to his native soil withthe prestige of these honors upon him and the vast added glory of havingmade his financial fight single-handed-and won.
He was heralded literally as a conquering hero. Every paper in the landhad an editorial telling the story of his debts, his sorrow, and histriumphs.
"He had behaved like Walter Scott," says Howells, "as millions rejoicedto know who had not known how Walter Scott had behaved till they knew itwas like Clemens."
Howells acknowledges that he had some doubts as to the permanency of thevast acclaim of the American public, remembering, or perhaps assuming, anational fickleness. Says Howells:
He had hitherto been more intelligently accepted or more largely imagined in Europe, and I suppose it was my sense of this that inspired the stupidity of my saying to him when we came to consider "the state of polite learning" among us, "You mustn't expect people to keep it up here as they do in England." But it appeared that his countrymen were only wanting the chance, and they kept it up in honor of him past all precedent.
Clemens went to the Earlington Hotel and began search for a furnishedhouse in New York. They would not return to Hartford—at least not yet.The associations there were still too sad, and they immediately becamemore so. Five days after Mark Twain's return to America, his old friendand co-worker, Charles Dudley Warner, died. Clemens went to Hartford toact as a pall-bearer and while there looked into the old home. ToSylvester Baxter, of Boston, who had been present, he wrote a few dayslater:
It was a great pleasure to me to renew the other days with you, & there was a pathetic pleasure in seeing Hartford & the house again; but I realized that if we ever enter the house again to live our hearts will break. I am not sure that we shall ever be strong enough to endure that strain.
Even if the surroundings had been less sorrowful it is not likely thatClemens would have returned to Hartford at this time. He had become aworld-character, a dweller in capitals. Everywhere he moved a worldrevolved about him. Such a figure in Germany would live naturally inBerlin; in England London; in France, Paris; in Austria, Vienna; inAmerica his headquarters could only be New York.
Clemens empowered certain of his friends to find a home for him, and Mr.Frank N. Doubleday discovered an attractive and handsomely furnishedresidence at 14 West Tenth Street, which was promptly approved.Doubleday, who was going to Boston, left orders with the agent to drawthe lease and take it up to the new tenant for signature. To Clemens hesaid:
"The house is as good as yours. All you've got to do is to sign