by Mark Twain
So the discussion went on, and waxed and waned as the months passed. But one day there was set up a great white screen, big enough for all the world to see, and over against it was placed a lantern that threw a light of wonderful intensity, and then came a person named Nemesis, with something under her arm, and took charge of the lantern. And then there fluttered forth all day on the great screen the moving picture of the poor monomaniac and a baby—how he found her, enticed her, cajoled her, and finally took her to his lair, prepared her for the table, and ate her up.
Well; it was said that the picture was shocking, and that the public ought not to have been allowed to see it. Oh yes, it was shocking; never picture more so. But it was terribly well adapted to make it unpopular to eat babies.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
These notes are intended to clarify and supplement the Autobiographical Dictations in this volume by identifying people, places, and incidents, and by explaining topical references and literary allusions. In addition, they attempt to point out which of Clemens’s statements are contradicted by historical evidence, providing a way to understand more fully how his memories of long-past events and experiences were affected by his imagination and the passage of time. Although some of the notes contain cross-references to texts or notes elsewhere in this volume and in Volume 1, the Index is an indispensable tool for finding information about a previously identified person or event.
All references in the notes are keyed to this volume by page and line: for example, 1.1 means page 1, line 1 of the text. All of Clemens’s text is included in the line count except for the date titles of the dictations. Most of the source works are cited by an author’s name and a date, a short title, or an abbreviation. Works by members of the Clemens family may be found under the writer’s initials: SLC, OSC (Susy), CC (Clara), and JC (Jean). All abbreviations, authors, and short titles used in citations are fully defined in References. Most citations include a page number (“L1, 74,” or “Derby 1884, 182–84”), but citations to works available in numerous editions may instead supply a chapter number or its equivalent, such as a book or act number. All quotations from holograph documents are transcribed verbatim from the originals (or photocopies thereof), even when a published form—a more readily available source—is also cited for the reader’s convenience. The location of every unique document or manuscript is identified by the standard Library of Congress abbreviation, or the last name of the owner, all of which are defined in References.
Autobiographical Dictation, 2 April 1906
3.6–7 PROMOTION FOR BARNES, WHOM TILLMAN BERATED] The article that begins here was published in the New York Times on 1 April. Clemens provided his stenographer with a (partial) clipping of it and dictated the following instructions: “Miss Hobby, please paste this in at this point, in record of April 1st, but I may not comment on it until later.” The clipping itself did not include the last two paragraphs of the original article, which contained background information about Benjamin Barnes and a comment about Senator Platt (see the note at 3.11–20). Clemens had discussed Mrs. Minor Morris’s ejection from the White House, Barnes’s part in it, and Senator Benjamin Tillman’s response in his Autobiographical Dictations of 10 January, 15 January, and 18 January 1906 (AutoMT1, 256–59, 279–81, 292–93). He takes up his discussion of the incident in the next dictation, of 3 April.
3.11–20 MERRITT GETS NEW PLACE . . . succeeding the late Major James Low] President William McKinley appointed John A. Merritt (1851–1919) as postmaster of Washington in 1899, the same year that he made James Low collector of customs for the district of Niagara. Thomas Collier Platt (1833–1910), who had recommended Merritt for the postmastership, was a senator from New York and former Republican party leader (“New City Postmaster,” Washington Post, 28 May 1899, 3; New York Times: “Presidential Nominations,” 21 Jan 1899, 4; “John A. Merritt,” 17 Oct 1919, 17).
4.1–2 Governor Nye was . . . politician, not statesman] James W. Nye (1815–76) had been a district attorney and judge in Madison County (New York), a lawyer in Syracuse, and president of the New York City Metropolitan Police Commission before Abraham Lincoln appointed him governor of Nevada Territory in 1861 (“Obituary. Gen. James W. Nye,” New York Times, 28 Dec 1876, 4; see also the notes at 5.25–36 and 6.8–9).
4.40–5.5 The Governor’s official menagerie . . . boarders and lodgers] In the first four chapters of Roughing It Clemens recalls Orion’s appointment as secretary of Nevada Territory, and the “six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary” he brought along on their stagecoach trip west from Missouri. In chapter 21, he describes the Carson City boardinghouse at which he and Orion and Nye’s “menagerie”—that is, his “Irish Brigade” of retainers—lived. It was run by “a worthy French lady by the name of Bridget O’Flannigan, a camp follower of his Excellency the Governor.” Her real name was Margret Murphy (see RI 1993, 1–19, 141–46, 613).
5.5 the silver I had brought from home] Out of his earnings as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot, Clemens had paid his and Orion’s $200 stagecoach fares from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Carson City, and had also provided about $800 for expenses (RI 1993, notes on 574–76).
5.7–8 a journalistic life on the Virginia City Enterprise . . . Carson City to report the legislative session] After about six weeks on the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Clemens was assigned to report the second session of the Nevada Territorial Legislature, held in Carson City from 11 November until 20 December 1862. None of his legislative dispatches has been recovered, but two of the weekly general letters he sent to the paper at the time survive (see AutoMT1, 251, 543 n. 251.31–38, and MTEnt, 9–10, 33–41).
5.15–21 I got the legislature to pass a wise and very necessary law . . . furnishing a certificate of each record] Clemens may be conflating two sessions of the Nevada Territorial Legislature. During the first session he served as Orion’s clerk, and it is likely that he influenced the passage of a law on 29 November 1861 that permitted Orion to collect certain fees: thirty cents per hundred words for copying documents, one dollar for sealing and for filing them, and five dollars for appointing a commissioner of deeds (notary public). Another law was approved during the second session, on 19 December 1862, that required corporations to file official certificates (with no fee stated) and raised the copying fee to forty cents—the amount Clemens recalls here. No evidence has been found, however, that he was involved in the enactment of this second law (William C. Miller 1973, 3–5; Laws 1862, 310–11; Laws 1863, 94).
5.23–24 Very well, we prospered. The record-service paid . . . a thousand dollars a month, in gold] Orion’s salary was $1,800 a year, paid quarterly, as set by the congressional act of 2 March 1861 which organized the Nevada Territory. Clemens earned $480 as Orion’s clerk during the first session of the legislature, and evidently planned to do so in the second (1862) session. It is highly unlikely that the record-service was so lucrative. In fact, the Clemens brothers were frequently pressed for funds, in part because they were spending much of what they did have on working their several mining claims and speculating in mining stock (see 25 Oct 1861 to PAM and JLC through 26 May 1864 to OC, L1, 129–301 passim; Laws 1862, ix, xiv).
5.25–36 Governor Nye was often absent . . . as Acting Governor] For four years Nye was a driver for his brother’s stagecoach line, hauling passengers and express on its Syracuse-Albany run, before studying law in Troy, New York, and being admitted to the New York State bar in 1839. Orion’s longest stint as acting governor was between December 1862 and July 1863, while Nye was on one of his frequent political forays outside Nevada (Samon 1979, 16; OC and SLC to MEC, 29, 30, and 31 Jan 1862, L1, 145–46 n. 2).
5.42–6.1 He recklessly built and furnished a house at a cost of twelve thousand dollars] In November 1863 Orion paid George B. Cowing $1,100 for the plot of land at the northwest corner of Spear and Division streets in Carson City. There he built the two-story clapboard house which, somewhat renovated, still stands today. Shortly after it was completed in
early 1864, the house and its furnishings were assessed at a taxable value of $3,250. Orion and his wife, Mollie, sold the property on 14 August 1866, after they had already left Nevada (Rocha 2000; Jeffrey M. Kintop [Nevada state archivist], personal communication, 3 Jan 2012, CU-MARK).
6.8–9 the people were willing . . . the Governor’s game was made] Nevada voters approved statehood on 2 September 1863, and Nevada became the thirty-sixth state in late 1864. Nye was elected a Republican senator and served from 1864 to 1873 (19 Aug 1863 to JLC and PAM, L1, 265 n. 5).
6.10–12 Orion’s game . . . disaster followed] For the details, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 5 April 1906. Clemens also describes Orion’s personality in the Autobiographical Dictations of 28 March and 29 March 1906 (AutoMT1, 451–62).
Autobiographical Dictation, 3 April 1906
6.22–30 BARNES’S APPOINTMENT . . . Citizens Say Selection Is an Insult] Clemens made three brief notes on the clipping of this article from the New York Times of 3 April, to remind himself of what he wanted to say about it: “The representative American—the President” above the headline; “insolence” above the first subhead; and “Is it Pr. suicide?” above the third subhead.
6.34–36 a “carpetbag” appointment . . . an effort will be made to defeat the confirmation] The Times, while not condoning Barnes’s part in the Morris incident, editorialized:
Mr. BARNES is objected to as a “carpet-bagger,” although he has been a virtual resident of Washington for eighteen years, while retaining a legal residence in New Jersey doubtless, very possibly for the purpose of securing his right to vote. If he does not know the local needs of the capital by this time, his ignorance is incurable. It is inconceivable that he would make a less good Postmaster of Washington for having been all these years a voter in New Jersey. (“The Washington Post Office,” 4 Apr 1906, 4)
Efforts to prevent Barnes’s confirmation were made in both houses of Congress—including a vituperative and partisan discussion of the Morris incident—but on 23 June his nomination was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 35 to 16, with all but two of President Roosevelt’s fellow Republicans in favor and the Democrats unanimously opposed (New York Times: “Penrose Calls Tillman an Ass in the Senate,” 6 May 1906, 3; “Barnes Is Confirmed,” 24 June 1906, 6).
7.45–46 the President’s letter of some weeks ago. Maybe I inserted it] On 16 February 1906 Minor Morris had written to Roosevelt, complaining of the “damnable treatment” his wife had received at the White House. Roosevelt’s reply was conveyed in a letter of 19 February from his secretary, William Loeb, Jr. Roosevelt had concluded that Mrs. Morris’s arrest was “justified,” that the force employed was “no greater than was necessary,” and that “the kindest thing that could be done to Mrs. Morris and her kinsfolk was to refrain from giving any additional publicity to the circumstances surrounding the case” (“President Indorses Ejection of Mrs. Morris,” New York Times, 22 Feb 1906, 5). Clemens did not insert the letter, or comment on it, at the time.
8.10–11 When Choate and I agreed to speak . . . Tuskegee Institute] For lawyer and jurist Joseph H. Choate, Booker T. Washington, and the Tuskegee Institute benefit, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 23 January 1906 (AutoMT1, 302–10 and notes on 572–73).
8.11–15 I at first took that thief and assassin, Leopold II . . . our Government’s attitude toward Leopold and his fiendishnesses] Clemens probably agreed to speak at the Tuskegee Institute fundraiser when Washington called at his house on 13 December 1905. Two days earlier he had announced his intention to talk about Leopold II’s atrocities in the Congo Free State at the Church of the Ascension in New York on the evening of 21 December—although he never did so. He and Washington were both vice-presidents of the Congo Reform Association, and for a time Clemens planned to make a similar speech at the 22 January 1906 fundraiser (Lyon 1905a, entry for 13 Dec; letterhead of Barbour to SLC, 23 Nov 1905, CU-MARK; Lyon for SLC to Twe, 11 Dec 1905, MS draft, CU-MARK). But by the time he formally accepted Washington’s invitation in a letter of 8 January, he had decided to withdraw from public involvement in the Congo reform movement (see the note at 8.28–33). He never delivered a speech on the subject, and if he ever wrote out a Congo speech “in full,” no text is known to survive. In his letter to Washington he wrote, “I will choose my subject to suit myself; & shall probably choose it that night, (22d) on the platform” (DLC). He continued to express his outrage over the Congo situation privately, however: four days later, in his Autobiographical Dictation of 12 January, he condemns Leopold II’s “slaughters and robberies,” and he returns to the subject in several later dictations (see AutoMT1, 268, 557 n. 268.24–25; see also the ADs of 22 June, 25 June, 17 July, and 5 Dec 1906).
8.15–20 Twice I went to Washington . . . A final visit to the State Department settled the matter] Only one of the three trips to Washington Clemens mentions here has been documented: on 24–27 November 1905 he traveled there on copyright business, and it is likely that he visited the State Department then. He lunched at the White House with Roosevelt on 27 November and had “a private word with him on a public matter” that was on his “citizen-conscience”—almost certainly the United States position on Leopold II and the Congo (28 Nov 1905 to Edith K. Roosevelt, SLC copy in CU-MARK; Lyon 1905a, entries for 24, 27, and 28 Nov; 27 Oct 1905 to Barbour, ViU).
8.22–24 of the fourteen Christian Governments . . . our Government was not one] Clemens alludes to the General Act of Berlin of 26 February 1885, which concluded a conference that met from November 1884 through February 1885 and was attended by representatives of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. The act apportioned spheres of commercial influence in Central Africa, provided for free trade and navigation, established rules for future colonization, and committed the signatories to monitor the welfare of the native tribes and help in suppressing slavery. It also recognized the Congo Basin as the Congo Free State, under the personal control of Leopold II of Belgium, which effectively undermined the commitment to the native tribes. The United States signed the act, but did not ratify it.
8.28–33 I privately withdrew . . . the Government would of course do nothing] On 8 January 1906 Clemens wrote to Thomas S. Barbour, a member of the “Local Committee of Conference” of the Congo Reform Association in Boston, announcing that “I have retired from the Congo.” He pleaded an inability to tie himself “to any movement of any kind, nor be officially connected with a movement of any kind, in a way which would lay duties & obligations upon me. . . . My instincts & interests are merely literary, they rise no higher; & I scatter from one interest to another, lingering nowhere. I am not a bee, I am a lightning-bug” (NN-BGC; letterhead of Barbour to SLC, 10 Jan 1906, CU-MARK). And in another letter to Barbour partially drafted around the same time, but evidently not sent in any form, he further explained:
It has been my belief, ever since my last visit to the State Department, some weeks ago, that the American branch of the Congo Reform Association ought to go out of business, for the reason that the agitation of the butcheries can only wring people’s hearts unavailingly—unavailingly, because the American people unbacked by the American government cannot achieve reform in the Congo. (CU-MARK)
8.34 So I suppressed that speech and delivered one . . . on another subject] At the 22 January 1906 Tuskegee Institute fundraiser Clemens spoke on private and public morals (see AutoMT1, 305–8).
8.39 I did not throw the speech away, but saved it] A manuscript of this speech on manners, comprising thirteen leaves, survives in the Mark Twain Papers. Clemens left it untitled, but in 1923, in publishing it in Mark Twain’s Speeches, Albert Bigelow Paine supplied the title “Introducing Doctor Van Dyke” (SLC 1923b, 296–301; also printed in Fatout 1976, 487–91). Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) was a Presbyterian clergyman, author, and professor of English literature at Princeton University.
9.11–14 I talked upon a text . . . m
y exposition of what the American gentleman should be got suppressed] Clemens spoke at New York’s Majestic Theatre on the afternoon of 4 March 1906 to fifteen hundred members and friends of the West Side Branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. He did not entirely suppress his thoughts on “the American gentleman,” but closed his speech with some remarks on that subject. For a text of the speech, as well as identification of the participants, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 15 March 1906 (AutoMT1, 409–12 and notes on 619–20).
9.31–36 Leonard Wood . . . “upholding the honor of the American flag.”] For Clemens’s extended remarks on this episode see the Autobiographical Dictations of 12 March and 14 March 1906 (AutoMT1, 403–9 and notes on 614–19).
10.5–7 MARK TWAIN LETTER SOLD. Written to Thomas Nast, It Proposed a Joint Tour] Clemens’s letter, written on 12 November 1877, is quoted only in part in this article from the New York Times (for the original manuscript, see Letters 1876–1880). Nast (1840–1902), a well-known illustrator and editorial cartoonist, served on the staff of Harper’s Weekly from 1862 to 1886. His work was highly influential in promoting the political causes he supported, including the Union side during the Civil War, the fight against New York City’s Tweed Ring (see AD, 4 Apr 1906, note at 13.26), and numerous Republican candidates. He also created the enduring image of a plump and bearded Santa Claus, and the elephant and donkey as emblems of the Republican and Democratic parties. His reply to Clemens’s proposal does not survive, and the two men never toured together.