Mark Twain's Letters — Volume 3 (1876-1885) eBook

But it’s getting dark.  Merry Christmas to all of you. 
                                   Yrs Ever,
          
                                   Mark.

The Chinese Educational Mission, mentioned in the foregoing, was a thriving Hartford institution, projected eight years before by a Yale graduate named Yung Wing.  The mission was now threatened, and Yung Wing, knowing the high honor in which General Grant was held in China, believed that through him it might be saved.  Twichell, of course, was deeply concerned and naturally overjoyed at Grant’s interest.  A day or two following the return to Hartford, Clemens received a letter from General Grant, in which he wrote:  “Li Hung Chang is the most powerful and most influential Chinaman in his country.  He professed great friendship for me when I was there, and I have had assurances of the same thing since.  I hope, if he is strong enough with his government, that the decision to withdraw the Chinese students from this country may be changed.”

     But perhaps Li Hung Chang was experiencing one of his partial
     eclipses just then, or possibly he was not interested, for the
     Hartford Mission did not survive.

XXI.

Letters 1881, to Howells and others.  Assisting A young sculptor.  Literary plans

With all of Mark Twain’s admiration for Grant, he had opposed him as a third-term President and approved of the nomination of Garfield.  He had made speeches for Garfield during the campaign just ended, and had been otherwise active in his support.  Upon Garfield’s election, however, he felt himself entitled to no special favor, and the single request which he preferred at length could hardly be classed as, personal, though made for a “personal friend.”

          To President-elect James A. Garfield, in Washington: 

Hartford, Jany. 12, ’81. 
Gen.  Garfield

Dear sir,—­Several times since your election persons wanting office have asked me “to use my influence” with you in their behalf.

To word it in that way was such a pleasant compliment to me that I never complied.  I could not without exposing the fact that I hadn’t any influence with you and that was a thing I had no mind to do.

It seems to me that it is better to have a good man’s flattering estimate of my influence—­and to keep it—­than to fool it away with trying to get him an office.  But when my brother—­on my wife’s side—­Mr. Charles J. Langdon—­late of the Chicago Convention—­desires me to speak a word for Mr. Fred Douglass, I am not asked “to use my influence” consequently I am not risking anything.  So I am writing this as a simple citizen.  I am not drawing on my fund of influence at all.  A simple citizen may express a desire with all propriety, in the matter of a recommendation