How Not to Get Rich

by Alan Pell Crawford

  I am also grateful to Tom Gayner for his generosity and insight; to Steve Courtney at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford for his expertise; to Kim Hasten, Gayle Kelly, and Robin Cheslock for their help with editing and research; to Mark Raper, Michael Whitlow, and Christian Munson, among others, who have been my gracious hosts at Padilla; and to Kent Masterson Brown, Stanley Craddock, Jane Glancy, Paul Hanks, Solomon Miles, and the late Kent Owen.

  Much that I got right in this book is attributable to these people. If there are errors and I can think of anyone other than myself to blame for these lapses, their names will appear in later editions.

  I owe special thanks, of course, to my beloved sons, Ned and Tim Crawford, and to my wife, Sally Curran, whose love, patience, and wisdom have made it possible for me to write books.

  Notes

  * * *

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  “no ordinary genius”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 140.

  Twain “was a devil”: Ibid., 277.

  1. “WHATEVER I TOUCH TURNS TO GOLD”

  “part steamboat”: Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 181.

  “I increased the population”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 1.

  “The answer becomes obvious”: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (Boston: Little, Brown, 2008), 62.

  “it really matters”: Ibid.

  “The best time”: Ibid., 63.

  rightful Earl of Durham: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 438.

  “an over-surplus of property”: Neider, Autobiography, 23.

  “two or three Negroes”: Ibid.

  “Money is better than poverty”: Jon Winoker, The Rich Are Different (New York: Pantheon, 1996), 12.

  “Whatever befalls me”: Neider, Autobiography, 29.

  “grazing lands”: Ibid.

  “the magnificent episode”: John Maynard Keynes, Critical Assessments: Second Series, Vol. 5, ed. John Cunningham Wood (London: Routledge, 1994), 71.

  “the phenomenal release”: George Wilson Pierson, Tocqueville in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 770.

  “the breathless generation”: William Chamberlain, The Enterprising Americans: A Business History of the United States (New York: HarperCollins, 1974), 81.

  “the continent lay”: Elizabeth Stevenson, Henry Adams: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1997), 242.

  “will henceforth increase”: Neider, Autobiography, 29.

  “It’s good to begin”: Ibid., 32.

  “inherited his father’s aptitude”: R. Kent Rasmussen, Mark Twain A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 81.

  “my prescriptions were unlucky”: Mark Twain, Roughing It (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 151.

  “customers bothered me”: Ibid.

  “I am frightened”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 821.

  2. “THAT SPLENDID ENTERPRISE”

  “detested school”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 69.

  “I will promise”: Ibid., 75.

  “hotbed of rest”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 69.

  “through the heart”: Mark Twain, “The Turning Point of My Life,” in The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ed. Charles Neider (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 480–81.

  “coca enough to chew”: William Lewis Herndon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon: 1851–1852, ed. Gary Kinder (New York: Grove Press, 2000), 47.

  “It has made me”: Ibid.

  “require no other sustenance”: Powers, Mark Twain, 72.

  “at least to Moses”: Leigh Buchanan, “How to Achieve Big Hairy Audacious Goals,” Inc., November 1, 2012, www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/big-ideas/jim-collins-big-hairy-audacious-goals.html.

  “see their audacity”: James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 104.

  “a longing to open up”: Twain, “Turning Point,” 481.

  “agreed that no more”: Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 1, 1853–1866 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 66.

  “determined to start”: Ibid.

  “to take all the hell”: Ibid.

  “inquired about ships”: Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 461.

  “A policeman came”: Mark Twain, Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (New York: Sterling Publishing, 1995), 15.

  “that it would be difficult”: Paine, Mark Twain, I, 109.

  “This was all the thought”: Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (New York: Bantam, 1963), 25.

  “By temperament”: Twain, “Turning Point,” 482.

  3. “DO YOU GAMBLE?”

  “But I must smoke”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Chelsea House: 1980), 118.

  “a private one”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 57.

  “Very well”: Paine, Mark Twain, I, 119.

  “and the rest when I earn it”: Ibid.

  “When a circus came and went”: Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (New York: Bantam, 1963), 21.

  “the grandest position”: Ibid., 24.

  “an income equal”: Paine, Mark Twain, I, 145.

  “the largest boat”: Harriet Elinor Smith and Richard Bucci, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 2, 1867–1868 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 97.

  “to let the d—d rascals”: Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 1, 1853–1866 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 98.

  “moving mountains of light”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 77.

  “Good Lord, Almighty!”: David L. Levy, Mark Twain: The Divided Mind of America’s Best-Loved Writer (Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011), 40.

  4. “I HAD TO SEEK ANOTHER LIVELIHOOD”

  “the least sign”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 60.

  “incapacitated by fatigue”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 134.

  “learned more about retreating”: David L. Levy, Mark Twain: The Divided Mind of America’s Best-Loved Writer (Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011), 41.

  “I supposed”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 256.

  “a not negligible position”: Levy, Mark Twain, 44.

  “pure and fine”: Mark Twain, Roughing It (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 84.

  “was built to hold”: Ibid.

  “galloping all over”: Ibid.

  “It was wonderful”: Ibid.

  “Within half an hour”: Ibid.

  “Superb, Magnificent!”: Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 1, 1853–1866 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 124.

  “the conflagration had traveled”: Twain, Roughing It, 87.

  “looked like lava men”: Branch, Letters, 1, 124.

  5. “ALL THAT GLITTERS”

  “I would have been more”: Mark Twain, Roughing It (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 96.

  “literally bursting”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 182.

  “was the road to fortune”: Twain, Roughing It, 96.

  “is fabulously rich”: Paine, Mark Twain,I, 175.

  “I confess”: Twain, RoughingIt, 103.

  “Think of it!”: Ibid., 105.

  “All that glitters”: Ibid.

 
“it was found that”: Ibid.

  “if we had towed the horses”: Ibid.

  “One week of this”: Ibid., 107.

  “So we went down”: Ibid.

  “I think we had better”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 17.

  “All too often”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 144.

  “had never grown”: Twain, Roughing It, 131.

  “felt constrained to ask”: Ibid.

  “I was discharged”: Neider, Autobiography, 144.

  “It was not entirely”: Paine, Mark Twain, I, 199.

  found “the real secret”: Twain, Roughing It, 109.

  “bought and sold”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 108.

  “We are rich!”: Twain, Roughing It, 143.

  6. “RICH AND BRIMFUL OF VANITY”

  “I thought the very earth”: Mark Twain, Roughing It (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 143.

  “Let’s—let’s burn”: Ibid.

  “Hang the butcher!”: Ibid., 145–46.

  “managed to get it”: Ibid., 147.

  “busy with vain”: Ibid., 148.

  “I can always”: Ibid., 150.

  “the most curious”: Ibid., 141.

  “Send me $40”: Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 1, 1853–1866 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 189.

  “because I know”: Ibid., 105.

  “You have promised ”: Ibid., 194–95.

  “until I am”: Ibid.

  “was avoiding acquaintances”: Twain, Roughing It, 229–30.

  “In the course”: Victor Fischer and Michael B. Frank, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 4, 1870–1871 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 148.

  7. “THE RICHEST PLACE ON EARTH”

  “richest place on earth”: Warren Hinckle, The Richest Place on Earth: The Story of Virginia City, Nevada, and the Heyday of the Comstock Lode (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), vii.

  “I am very well satisfied”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 77.

  “Consequently, we generally”: Mark Twain, Roughing It (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 159–60.

  “would squander half a column”: Ibid., 160.

  “washerwomen and servant girls”: Ibid., 159.

  “was Paradise to me”: Ibid., 224.

  “I attended private parties”: Ibid.

  “vested interest in euphoria”: John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Economic Euphoria (New York: Penguin Business, 1994), 6.

  “The wreck was complete”: Twain, Roughing It, 225.

  “spasms of virtue”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 139.

  “Once more, native imbecility”: Twain, Roughing It, 228.

  “the town fell into decay”: Ibid., 233.

  8. “POOR, PITIFUL BUSINESS!”

  “a little book”: Louis J. Budd, ed., Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28.

  “I don’t believe”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 320.

  “utterly miserable”: Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 1, 1853–1866 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 322.

  “I have had a ‘call’”: Ibid.

  “The temperance virtue”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 287–88.

  “never entirely forgive”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 87–88.

  “Doors open at 7 o’clock”: Paine, Mark Twain,I, 292.

  “quaint, apparently unconcerned”: “Mark Twain on Artemus Ward,” Brooklyn Daily Union, November 22, 1871.

  “could not help”: Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911), 162.

  “We are perhaps”: Paine, Mark Twain, I, 350.

  “the best business judgment”: Ibid., 157.

  “is always good-humored humor”: William Dean Howells, My Mark Twain: Reminiscences and Criticisms, ed. Marilyn Austin Baldwin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1967), 89.

  “full of point and pungency”: Budd, Mark Twain, 82.

  “I am not married”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 33–34.

  “I want a good wife”: Ibid.

  9. “IT IS OURS—ALL OURS—EVERYTHING”

  “I’ll harass that girl”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 41.

  “Huge chandeliers”: Ibid., 37.

  “character, in case”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 247.

  “frank to a fault”: Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 226.

  “would fill a drunkard’s grave”: Willis, Mark and Livy, 40.

  “I’ll be your friend”: Ibid., 248.

  “unconsciously cheat”: Smith, Autobiography, 1, 471.

  “People who can afford”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 394.

  “put us into a boarding-house”: Neider, Autobiography, 156.

  “Mr. Langdon”: Paine, Mark Twain, I, 396.

  10. “IN FAIRYLAND”

  “Little Sammy”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 283.

  “most credulous”: John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Economic Euphoria (New York: Penguin Business, 1994), 6.

  “the pet scheme”: Victor Fischer and Michael B. Frank, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 4, 1870–1871 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 258–60.

  “dead sure tricks”: Ibid.

  “sound as a drum”: Fischer, Letters, 4, 262–63.

  “just as if”: Ibid., 251.

  “will be packing his trunk”: Ibid.

  “for one hundred thousand dollars”: Ibid., 331.

  “Let the diamond fever”: Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 127.

  “pumped dry”: Ibid., 128.

  “a kind of technological grandeur”: Ibid., 126.

  “anti-sun-stroke hat”: Powers, Mark Twain, 300.

  “An inventor is a poet”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 114.

  “modest little drilling machine”: Ibid.

  “could have made”: Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 145.

  “the most extraordinary”: Fischer, Letters, 4, 465.

  “While I dressed”: Ibid., 463.

  “While the literature claims”: Rebecca Greenfield, “Celebrity Invention: Mark Twain’s Elastic Clasp Brassiere Strap,” The Atlantic, July 1, 2011, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07​/celebrity-invention-mark-twains-elastic-clasp-brassiere-strap/241267/.

  “We should refocus”: Ibid.

  “Taking full advantage”: Fred Kaplan, The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 256.

  11. “TO LIVE IN THIS STYLE . . .”

  “Hartford dollars have a place”: Kenneth R. Andrews, Nook Farm: Mark Twain’s Hartford Circle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), 18.

  “To live in this style”: Ibid., 19.

  “one of the best of men”: Peter Messent, Mark Twain and Male Friendship: The Twichell, Howells, and Rogers Friendships (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 50.

  “castigated [his congregants for]”: Andrews, Nook Farm, 15–16.

  “fetch a whoop”: Ibid., 88.

  “bu
ild it right”: Ibid., 24.

  “The carpenters are here”: Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 6, 1874–1875 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 247.

  “even if we”: Steve Courtney, “The Loveliest Home That Ever Was”: The Story of the Mark Twain House in Hartford (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2011), 106.

  “oddest-looking buildings”: Ibid.

  “brick-kiln gone crazy”: Ibid.

  “This Italy”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 122.

  “still had a little cash”: Carole Thomas Harnsberger, Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2009), 360.

  “Why, they’ve even”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 572.

  “take off that ugly roof”: Courtney, “The Loveliest Home,” 127.

  “whole-souled hosts”: Willis, Mark and Livy, 96.

  “never plain”: Courtney, “The Loveliest Home,” 50.

  “It is octagonal”: Milton Meltzer, Mark Twain Himself (New York: Bonanza, 1960), 146.

  “Canadian pirates”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 686.

  “he shan’t run”: Victor Fischer and Michael B. Frank, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 4, 1870–1871, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 127.

  “did not contain”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 457.

  “gum-stickum, to ward off”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 324.

  “you need not wet”: Albert Bigelow Paine, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917), 196.

  “ought to be good evidence”: Ibid.

  “malleable as a spaniel”: Powers, Mark Twain, 324.

  “splendid, immoral, tobacco-smoking”: Gregg Camfield, The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 556.

  “the unholiest gang”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 352.