Autobiography Of Mark Twain, Volume 1

by Mark Twain

  273.38 not able to sink the shop] Not able to refrain from “talking shop.”

  274.14–22 In 1858 I was a steersman . . . never wanted my mother to know about that dream] Clemens recounted his and his nineteen-year-old brother Henry’s employment aboard the steamer Pennsylvania in chapters 18–20 of Life on the Mississippi. He began his temporary service under Captain William Brown in November 1857. On 13 June 1858 three or four of the Pennsylvania’s boilers exploded and the boat sank, causing the deaths of between fifty and a hundred and fifty passengers and crew, including Henry and Captain Brown (see also the note at 275.20–21). Mentioned in this passage are Captain John S. Klinefelter (1810–85) and Horace E. Bixby (1826–1912), who supervised Clemens’s piloting apprenticeship (for Clemens’s on-the-spot account of the Pennsylvania disaster and Henry’s death, see 15 June 1858 to Moffett through 21 June 1858 to Moffett, L1, 80–86; see also Branch 1985). At the time of this dictation, Clemens had not described his prophetic dream of Henry in that book or elsewhere; he later published this account in the North American Review, as part of the series of “Chapters from My Autobiography,” in April 1907 (NAR 16). Clemens’s niece, Annie Moffett, said in recollections published by her son in 1946 that Jane Clemens did know of the dream, and

  often talked about it. He had told them about it before he went away, but the family were not impressed; indeed they were amused that he took it so seriously.

  The story as the family used to tell it was not quite like Uncle Sam’s version. They said his dream occurred in the daytime. The family including Henry were in my mother’s room and Sam was asleep in the next room. He came in and told them what he had dreamed. My grandmother said he went back and dreamed the same dream a second and third time, but I think that was her embellishment. (MTBus, 37)

  274.32 our brother-in-law, Mr. Moffett] William A. Moffett, a St. Louis commission merchant, married Clemens’s older sister, Pamela Ann, in 1851 (link note preceding 24 Aug 1853 to JLC, L1, 2; see the Appendix “Family Biographies” (p. 655).

  275.20–21 I had the fight . . . I be left ashore at New Orleans] In chapter 19 of Life on the Mississippi Clemens recalled his fight with Brown. In order to prevent him from assaulting Henry with “a ten-pound lump of coal,” he had used “a heavy stool” to hit “Brown a good honest blow which stretched him out.” The incident evidently occurred on 3 June 1858. Although Captain Klinefelter was sympathetic to Clemens, his inability to replace Brown, and Brown’s refusal to continue supervising Clemens, led to his being left in New Orleans (L1: link note following 1 June 1857 to Taylor, 75; 18 June 1858 to MEC, 82 n. 2).

  275.28 hurricane-deck . . . wheel-house] The hurricane deck usually was the third deck. “The name was derived from the ever-present breeze that made it a favorite viewing place on warm evenings. It was the location of the boat’s large signal bell.” Wheelhouses covered the paddlewheels (“Glossary of Steamboat Terms” 2008; for diagrams of a typical Mississippi River steamboat, see HF 2003, 405).

  275.33–34 I have already told in “Old Times on the Mississippi.”] In chapter 20 of Life on the Mississippi, Clemens wrote that after Henry was thrown into the river by the explosion, he returned to the burning boat to help others before he was overcome by his own injuries. But in an article written in late June or early July 1858, in which he precisely reconstructed the effect of the explosion on Henry, Clemens made no mention of this heroism (reproduced in facsimile in Branch 1985, 36). Here, as elsewhere, Clemens refers to Life on the Mississippi as “Old Times on the Mississippi,” the series of Atlantic Monthly articles that were reprinted in chapters 4–17 and form the core of the book (SLC 1875a; see 18 June 1858 to MEC, L1, 84 n. 7).

  276.3–4 Dr. Peyton . . . fatal effects were soon apparent. I think he died about dawn] Clemens recalled Thomas F. Peyton in an 1876 letter: “What a magnificent man he was! What healing it was just to look at him & hear his voice!” (25 Oct 1876 to Unidentified, Letters 1876–1880). Henry died on 21 June 1858; Clemens’s identification of the immediate cause of death as an inadvertent overdose of morphine has not been confirmed.

  Autobiographical Dictation, 15 January 1906

  277.37 his daughter, Mrs. Wood] Julia Curtis Twichell (b. 1869) had been married to New York lawyer Howard Ogden Wood (1866–1940) since 1892 (“Twichell,” in “Hartford Residents” 1974; New York Times: “Wood–Twichell,” 27 Apr 1892, 5; “Howard Ogden Wood, a Philanthropist, 74,” 17 June 1940, 15).

  277.41–278.11 house of James Goodwin . . . granite mansion for his father] James Goodwin (1803–78) had owned a mail stage line and afterward was a director of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad and an incorporator and president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest of Hartford’s insurance firms and one of the largest in the United States, with assets of over $40 million by 1875. The house his son designed and built for him on Woodland Street in Hartford was “one of the most extensive private houses in the city, and one of marked architectural importance” (see 3 July 1874 to OLC, L6, 176–77 n. 4).

  279.7 Morris paper] Wallpaper designed by English author and artist William Morris (1834–96) and produced by his firm.

  279.24 MRS. MORRIS’S ILLNESS TAKES A SERIOUS TURN] Clemens’s allusion to William Morris, in the previous paragraph, evidently triggered his recall of the completely unrelated Mrs. Minor Morris, and prompted him to have this article from the 11 January 1906 New York Times pasted into the typescript of this dictation. He had discussed Mrs. Morris’s experience in the White House of President Theodore Roosevelt at length in his dictation of 10 January. The article mentions William Howard Taft (1857–1930), at this time secretary of war; John Morris Sheppard (1875–1941), Democratic congressman from Texas; Charles Henry Grosvenor (1833–1917), Union veteran and Republican congressman from Ohio; Sereno Elisha Payne (1843–1914), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful Republican congressmen; and Marlin Edgar Olmsted (1847–1913), Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, an authority on parliamentary procedure.

  280.13 Philippine Tariff bill] The bill, sponsored by Congressman Sereno E. Payne, proposed to permit Philippine sugar to enter the United States for three years at one-fourth of current duties, and subsequently to establish free trade between the islands and the United States. Vigorously opposed by the domestic sugar industry, the bill nevertheless passed by a wide margin in the House of Representatives on 16 January 1906, only to be buried in committee in the Senate on 2 March. Attempts to revive it later in 1906 and in 1907 failed (New York Times: numerous articles, 3 Jan 1906–27 Dec 1907).

  281.36–37 Quaker City Excursion . . . “The Innocents Abroad,”] See “The Chicago G. A. R. Festival,” note at 67.6–13.

  281.39–41 So I started . . . John Swinton] William Swinton (1833–92), brother of journalist and social reformer John Swinton (1829–1901), was a controversial Civil War correspondent for the New York Times. He later was a professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley (1869–74), and the author of military histories as well as textbooks on geography, grammar, and literature. Clemens roomed for a time with Swinton in Washington in the winter of 1867–68, while he worked for Senator William Stewart of Nevada and contributed letters to the New York Tribune and Herald, the San Francisco Alta California, the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and the Chicago Republican. Although it is possible that they collaborated on a “Newspaper Correspondence Syndicate,” no firm evidence of it has been found (4 Dec 1867 to Young, L2, 125–26 n. 1).

  282.12–13 six letters for the New York Tribune . . . got back] Clemens’s six Quaker City letters to the Tribune were: “The Mediterranean Excursion,” published on 30 July 1867; “The Mediterranean Excursion,” published on 6 September; “Americans on a Visit to the Emperor of Russia,” published on 19 September; “A Yankee in the Orient,” published on 25 October; “The American Colony in Palestine,” published on 2 November; and “The Holy Land. First Day in Palestine,” published on 9 November. The “pretty bre
ezy one for the New York Herald” was “The Cruise of the Quaker City,” which poked bitter fun at the “pilgrims” and their activities and was published on the morning of 20 November 1867, the day after the excursion ended and just hours after Clemens wrote it (SLC 1867l, 1867m, 1867n, 1867o, 1867p, 1867r, 1867s; L2: 20 Nov 1867 to JLC and family [1st], 104; enclosure with 20 Nov 1867 to JLC and family, 399–406).

  282.14–15 Every now and then I was able to get twenty-five dollars for a magazine article] Only one such article published in the winter of 1868 has been identified: “General Washington’s Negro Body-Servant. A Biographical Sketch,” which appeared in the February 1868 Galaxy magazine (SLC 1868b). How much the Galaxy paid for it is not known.

  282.15–18 Riley and I . . . I will speak of him another time] John Henry Riley (1830?-72) was a newspaper reporter in San Francisco in the early 1860s when Clemens met him. In late 1865 he moved to Washington, where he was the regular correspondent for the San Francisco Alta California, also contributed to other papers, and served as clerk to the House Committee on Mines and Mining. In 1870 Clemens concocted a plan for Riley to visit the recently discovered diamond fields of South Africa to gather material for a book that Clemens would write. Subsidized by Clemens, Riley undertook the trip, and submitted travel notes to Clemens, but Clemens postponed work on the book, and then abandoned it entirely when Riley died of cancer in September 1872 (for further details, see L4, especially 2 Dec 1870 to Bliss and 2 Dec 1870 to Riley, 256–66, and L5). Clemens depicted Riley in “Riley—Newspaper Correspondent” in the November 1870 Galaxy magazine and modeled the “mendicant Blucher,” in chapter 59 of Roughing It, on him (SLC 1870e; RI 1993, 702). He did not, however, speak of him again in the Autobiographical Dictations.

  282.19–24 I had a chance . . . “Concerning the Great Beef Contract.”] The article described here was “The Facts in the Case of George Fisher, Deceased,” published in the January 1871 issue of Galaxy magazine. Clemens confused it with “The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract,” about an unpaid 1861 military supply obligation, published in the May 1870 Galaxy. He included both sketches in his 1875 collection, Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (SLC 1871b, 1870b, 1875c).

  282.25–26 A. R. Spofford . . . Librarian of Congress then] Ainsworth Rand Spofford (1825–1908), former associate editor of the Cincinnati Commercial, became chief assistant to the librarian of Congress in 1861 and then became librarian himself in 1864. He remained in the post until 1897, when he became chief assistant once again, for the remainder of his life. Clemens probably first met him in Washington in the winter of 1867–68. He corresponded with Spofford about copyright on more than one occasion (see L4, LS, and L6).

  282.29 Tooke on Prices] Thomas Tooke’s A History of Prices, and of the State of the Circulation, from 1793 to 1837; Preceded by a Brief Sketch of the State of the Corn Trade in the Last Two Centuries (Tooke 1838–57).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 16 January 1906

  283.13–14 When you arrive . . . at eleven] Clemens was addressing his stenographer, Josephine Hobby.

  283.36–284.1 Did I dictate something about John Malone . . . my acquaintance] For Malone, see the note at 286.38–39. Volney Streamer (1850–1915), librarian of The Players club since December 1905, had been an actor in Edwin Booth’s company, was a literary adviser at Brentano’s (the famed New York booksellers), and compiled several collections of literary excerpts, including Voices of Doubt and Trust (Streamer 1897), copies of which Clemens acquired in February 1902 and December 1905. Both were gifts; the second might well have been presented personally by Streamer. Clemens also owned In Friendship’s Name (Streamer 1904), possibly another 1905 gift from the author (see Gribben 1980, 2:673–74; “Volney Streamer,” New York Times, 15 Apr 1915, 13).

  284.5 And some time . . . about that] He already had; see the Autobiographical Dictation of 10 January 1906, especially the note at 255.19–22.

  284.7 David Munro . . . editor of the North American Review] Munro (1844–1910) was born in Scotland and attended Edinburgh University. After emigrating to the United States as a young man, he worked in the literary department of Harper and Brothers. He became the manager of the North American Review in 1889, and seven years later became an editor as well. Since George Harvey’s purchase of the journal in 1899, Munro had served as his assistant editor. In addition, he was a Greek scholar who contributed to a comparative Greek-English New Testament and other publications (“David A. Munro Dead,” New York Times, 10 Mar 1910, 9).

  284.7–8 Robert Reid, the artist; Saint-Gaudens, the sculptor] Reid (1862–1929), an American Impressionist painter and muralist, was born in Massachusetts and attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, completing his studies in New York and Paris. Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) was born in Dublin but grew up in New York City. He took art classes there at the Cooper Union, and then studied in Paris under François Jouffroy at the École des Beaux-Arts and later in Rome. He was known primarily for his public sculptures of famous people.

  284.31 John McCullough] McCullough (1832–85) emigrated from Ireland at the age of fourteen. He settled in Philadelphia, where he taught himself to read and write, studied drama, and at twenty-four made his stage debut. In 1861 he joined the touring company of actor and playwright Edwin Forrest (1806–72). Later he was for a time a theatrical manager as well as an actor in San Francisco, then performed extensively throughout the United States, becoming one of the most eminent and popular actors of the day.

  285.18–19 President of the New York City College] John H. Finley (see AD, 10 Jan 1906, note at 255.18–19).

  285.36 he is providing another, for the 6th of February] No information about this dinner has been discovered.

  286.27 Bishop Greer] David Hummell Greer (1844–1919), Episcopal clergyman and rector at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York (1888–1903), became bishop coadjutor of New York in 1904.

  286.31 Dr. Hawkes] Forbes Robert Hawkes (1865–1940), a prominent surgeon, was a professor of clinical surgery at the Post-Graduate Hospital in New York from 1901 to 1905.

  286.38–39 John Malone . . . passing from this life] Like Clemens, Malone had been an incorporator and charter member of The Players club. Isabel Lyon wrote in her diary on 16 January, “John Malone is dead—Mr. Clemens had me telephone to Volney Streamer at the Players that if they are short of pall bearers, he will be one—Yesterday Mr Clemens was talking with Mr Twichell about John Malone: & now he is dead” (Lyon 1906, 16). Twichell had cut Malone’s obituary from the New York Times of 16 January. When inserting it into this dictation, Clemens corrected the Times’s “Mr. Malone was 78 years old,” but how accurately is unknown. The New York Tribune’s obituary noted that Malone “was fifty-six years old, though many supposed him older” (“Apoplexy Kills Actor,” 16 Jan 1906, 7). Clemens was in fact one of the pallbearers at Malone’s funeral, on 18 January, at the Church of St. Francis Xavier, on West Sixteenth Street (“Funeral of Actor John Malone,” New York Times, 19 Jan 1906, 11; Lanier 1938, 358).

  287.1–5 I started to say . . . happened] About 1893 Clemens drafted a prospectus for The Back Number. He noted there that the idea had come to him “when I was a newspaper correspondent in Washington,” that is, in the winter of 1867–68 (SLC 1893, 1; see also AD, 17 Jan 1906).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 17 January 1906

  287.7–11 I have tried to get publishers . . . latest effort three years ago] Clemens’s first attempt to make The Back Number a reality evidently came in November 1893, shortly after he prepared a prospectus for it (SLC 1893). He tried, unsuccessfully, to enlist the support of John Brisben Walker, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. Clemens thought that Samuel E. Moffett, his nephew, could edit the magazine. Nothing is known of his 1903 effort to interest a publisher (Notebook 33, TS pp. 37, 38, 39a, CU-MARK).

  287.26–32 Twichell and I stepped across the street . . . I was there at the time] Clemens and Twichell visited Daniel Edgar Sickles (1823–1914) at his home at 23 Fifth Avenue
(Clemens lived at 21 Fifth Avenue on the corner of 9th Street) on the evening of 15 January 1906. Sickles was a former lawyer, Democratic congressman from New York (1857–61, 1893–95), and a controversial diplomat and Civil War general. On 27 February 1859 he fatally shot Francis Scott Key’s son on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House, because the younger Key had had an affair with his wife. Sickles was acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity by a jury that shared the widespread public opinion that he had acted justifiably. This was the first time that the temporary-insanity defense was used. On the day of the shooting Clemens had arrived in St. Louis on the Aleck Scott, serving as a cub pilot under Bixby (“Steamboat Calendar,” L1, 388; Twichell 1874–1916, 2:117–18; New York Times: “Dreadful Tragedy,” 28 Feb 1859, 1; “The Sickles Tragedy,” 27 Apr 1859, 1; “The Acquittal of Mr. Sickles,” 28 Apr 1859, 4; “Gen. Sickles Dies; His Wife at Bedside,” 4 May 1914, 1).

  287.34 Twichell was a chaplain in Sickles’s brigade in the Civil War] The regiment in which Twichell served as chaplain from 1861 to 1864 was part of the Excelsior Brigade commanded by Sickles, which saw action in several important battles (Twichell 2006, 1, 4).

  288.5–6 The late Bill Nye . . . Wagner’s music is better than it sounds] Edgar Wilson (Bill) Nye (1850–96) was a journalist and then a popular humorist and lecturer. Clemens himself is often mistakenly credited with this remark.