was on
the down-grade--nothing could save it. There was new hope in the old
type-setting machine, but his faith in the resurrection was not strong.
The strain of his affairs was telling on him. The business owed a great
sum, with no prospect of relief. Back in Europe again, Mark Twain wrote
F. D. Hall, his business manager in New York:
"I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition
unfit for it, and I want to get out of it. I am standing on a
volcano. Get me out of business."
Tantalizing letters continued to come, holding out hope in the business
--the machine--in any straw that promised a little support through the
financial storm. Again he wrote Hall:
"Great Scott, but it's a long year for you and me! I never knew the
almanac to drag so. . . I watch for your letters hungrily--just
as I used to watch for the telegram saying the machine was finished
--but when "next week certainly" suddenly swelled into 'three weeks
sure,' I recognized the old familiar tune I used to hear so much.
W. don't know what sick-heartedness is, but he is in a fair way to
find out."
They closed Viviani in June and returned to Germany. By the end of
August Clemens could stand no longer the strain of his American affairs,
and, leaving the family at some German baths, he once more sailed for New
York.
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