The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1878-09-20

the tendency TO speculate. So they de
cided TO build novel unpon Col. Eschol
Sellers. Each was to write a certain
amount every day, meet in Mark Twain's
den at night and fit the ends together,
lay out the work for next day, and talk
it over. Mark Twain was enthusiastic.
He insisted that Col. Sellers would be
recognized as a sad type of the prevail
ing evil, and that people would be bene-
fitted by the warning. Warner had some
doubt about the people looking at Col
Echol Sellers as portrayed in THE
Gilded Age'' in just that'way.
The manuscript was finished in Just a
month from the day ON which il had
been begun, and Mark Twain who has a
horror of writing the headings of chap
tiers, thought that it would be desirable
to get DIR. j. Hammond Trumbull, the
linguist, sometimes described as the on
" man who can read Elliott's Indian
Bible in the original, to write the chap
ter headings in some unforgotten Ian
guage with unknown alphabets. This
DR.. Trumbull gladly did, and it explains
those queer headings which made more
talk than Col. Sellers did when the book
appeared. Mark Twain has since said
that he was glad one book had been pub
lished which contained something that
even the critics had to admit they did
not understand.
1.-THE Gilded Age'' sold rapidly at first,
and Mark Twain assured Warner that
the people were accepting Col. Sellers,
as he had known all along they would,
in all seriousness. But the sale sudden
ly stopped. Mark could not understand
it, until Parson Twitchell told him that
the trouble was that the book was too
serious. The public would accept moth
ing from him that was not funny, and
they had been deceived in this book.
They bought it for fun, and found it
sad, solemn story, with moral. Mark
accepted the explanation, but Dudley
Warmers friends say that the book stop
ped selling when the public found out
how bad it was, and Warner privately
admits it. However, the profits to the
authors were $14, 900, and would have
been 81 900 more, had not Warmers pre-
| diction, when Mark Twain proposed to
use Col. Eschol Sellers name, come true.
Dudley Warner sat in his editorial
chair in the Hartford Courant Office one
day, SO the intimate friend says, a few
weeks after "The Gilded Age" had IN
published. The door opened and
man with broad brimmed hat stood on
the threshold. When Warner looked nm
and caught the tall mans eye, he felt a
growing sensation of weakness. and
wished that Mark Twain was there
The card that the tall man handed him.
as Warner knew without looking at il,
bore the name of Col Eschol Sellers.
Only few words passed between them,
and after the interview was over, War.
ner fastened to Mark Twain's house.
Money or a suit was Col Eschol Sellers
ultimatum.
There was meeting of LAWYERS, and
Col. Eschol Sellers left Hartford $4,000
richer, and with the promise that ali fu-
ture editions should appear with the
name changed to Col. Beriah Sellers.
This explains why in few copies of
The Golden Age' the name appears as
Col. Eschol and in all others as Col. Be
riah. In this respect Mark Twain's
prophecy that Col. Eschol Sellers would
be serious reality was fulfilled.
John I. Raymond did not like Beriah
and substituted Mulberry when he dra-
matiZed the story.
Also, John has a story of his own to
tell about the bargain with Mark for the
right to dramatize the story. When he
buys another play, John says he must
put the pound of flesh in the bond, and
then he won't be ruined when pay time
comes.-N. Y. Sun.