Departmentof state
Washington
June
21, 1880.
Dear Gunn:
Are you in Cleveland for all this week? If you
will say yes by return mail, I have a masterpiece
to submit to your consideration which is only in my
hands for a few days.
Yours, very much worritted by the depravity of Christendom,
Hay
The second letter discloses Hay’s own high opinion
of the effort and his deep concern for its safety.
June
24, 1880
My dear Gunn:
Here it is. It was written by Mark Twain in
a serious effort to bring back our literature and
philosophy to the sober and chaste Elizabethan standard.
But the taste of the present day is too corrupt for
anything so classic. He has not yet been able
even to find a publisher. The Globe has not
yet recovered from Downey’s inroad, and they
won’t touch it.
I send it to you as one of the few lingering relics
of that race of appreciative critics, who know a good
thing when they see it.
Read it with reverence and gratitude and send it back
to me; for Mark is impatient to see once more his
wandering offspring.
Yours,
Hay.
In his third letter one can almost hear Hay’s
chuckle in the certainty that his diplomatic, if somewhat
wicked, suggestion would bear fruit.
&nb
sp; Washington,
D. C.
July
7, 1880
My dear Gunn:
I have your letter, and the proposition which you
make to pull a few proofs of the masterpiece is highly
attractive, and of course highly immoral. I
cannot properly consent to it, and I am afraid the
great many would think I was taking an unfair advantage
of his confidence. Please send back the document
as soon as you can, and if, in spite of my prohibition,
you take these proofs, save me one.
Very
truly yours,
John
Hay.
Thus was this Elizabethan dialogue poured into the
moulds of cold type. According to Merle Johnson,
Mark Twain’s bibliographer, it was issued in
pamphlet form, without wrappers or covers; there were
8 pages of text and the pamphlet measured 7 by 8 1/2
inches. Only four copies are believed to have
been printed, one for Hay, one for Gunn, and two for
Twain.
“In the matter of humor,” wrote Clemens,
referring to Hay’s delicious notes, “what
an unsurpassable touch John Hay had!”
The first printing of 1601 in actual book form was
“Donne at ye Academie Press,” in 1882,
West Point, New York, under the supervision of Lieut.
C. E. S. Wood, then adjutant of the U. S. Military
Academy.
