Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  21.11–15 our Tennessee land . . . what Mr. Longworth thought of those Tennessee grapes] See “The Tennessee Land” and “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It]” (AutoMT1, 61–63, 206, 208–9, 469 n. 61.1–3, 470–71 n. 63.14–16, 529 n. 206.19–20, 530 n. 208.37).

  21.27–36 a gentleman arrived yesterday from Tennessee . . . the surviving heirs—the remaining third] These visitors have not been identified. About a year later, however, Clemens did join in a lawsuit relayed to him by his attorney, John Larkin, to secure an old claim to the Tennessee land. According to the “Declaration” filed on 15 May 1907, eight defendants had allegedly taken illegal possession of some four thousand acres of land in Tennessee that arguably belonged to the heirs of John M. Clemens. Clemens and his niece and nephew, Annie Moffett Webster and Samuel E. Moffett (the children of Pamela Moffett), joined suit with the Fentress Land Company to recover the land, worth more than $2,000, plus $5,000 in damages. When deposed on 7 and 8 June 1909, Clemens was asked to explain his assertion, published in two North American Review installments (NAR 12, NAR 13), that his family no longer owned any Tennessee land. (These installments were drawn from “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It]” and the present dictation.) When questioned about the “Tennesseean gentleman” and the “well-to-do citizen of New York,” Clemens could not recall their names, and referred all questions to Larkin. The litigation continued for more than three years. Most of the witnesses were questioned about the disputed boundary between Fentress and Overton counties, being asked to recall landmarks such as trees, stumps, streams, and structures. The surveyor who had run the most current county line, in 1896, was also deposed at length. Meanwhile, Moffett and Clemens had both died, leaving Annie Webster as the sole family plaintiff. The case was dismissed in December 1910 because the defendants proved that the land in question was in Overton County, where the court had no jurisdiction, and the plaintiffs were ordered to pay more than $400 in court costs. Clemens had anticipated this result, remarking to Isabel Lyon, his secretary, in September 1906: “Tennessee Lands going to be an expense after all. The almighty has been looking after it for 70 years, & he’ll make it expensive” (Lyon Stenographic Notebook #1, CU-MARK; U.S. National Archives and Records Administration 1907–9, documents in Fentress Land Company et al. v. Bruno Gernt et al., Case 967: “Declaration,” filed 15 May 1907; “Interrogatories for Saml. L. Clemens,” filed 3 Apr 1909; “Deposition S.L. Clemens,” filed 11 June 1909; “Deposition of Chas. R. Schenck,” filed 17 Nov 1909; depositions of various witnesses, filed 28 Nov 1910; “Non-suit,” filed 14 Dec 1910; “Fieri Facias,” filed 8 Jan 1912; copies of these documents provided courtesy of Barbara Schmidt).

  21.39–42 I came East in January 1867. Orion remained in Carson City . . . steamer for New York] Orion and Mollie Clemens actually returned East before Clemens. They left Carson City on 13 March 1866, but remained in California until 30 August, when they departed San Francisco for New York. Clemens left San Francisco on 15 December 1866 and arrived in New York on 12 January 1867 (22 May 1866 to MEC, L1, 342 n. 1; link note preceding 15 Jan 1867 to Hingston, L2, 1). The account here is the primary source for information about Orion’s activities between 1866 and 1875. Additional details, drawn from family correspondence during this period, may be found in L1–L6 and in Fanning 2003, 111–26, 131–51, 155–66.

  22.7–8 I had bought my mother a house in Keokuk . . . They all lived together in the house] Clemens makes a chronological leap here. It wasn’t until August 1882 that Jane Clemens went to Keokuk to live with Orion and Mollie. They occupied rented houses until January 1889, when Orion bought a house for $3,100, financing it with $1,100 in cash, most of it from a matured insurance policy, and a $2,000 loan. As his contribution to the purchase, Clemens helped pay for extensive repairs and improvements to make the house more comfortable for Jane, including the addition of an indoor “water closet.” During this entire period and beyond, Clemens supported the Keokuk household with a monthly check (supplemented by cash gifts at Christmas and other times): at first he sent $125 ($75 for Orion and Mollie, $50 for Jane), then $150 (the additional $25 for Orion and Mollie), then $155 (the additional $5 to be passed on to a needy cousin, Tabitha Quarles Greening), and finally $200 (the additional $45 for an attendant for Jane, who by the late 1880s was suffering serious senile dementia as well as rheumatism). He continued the monthly $200 even after Jane’s death on 27 October 1890, finally reducing it in 1891 to $110 ($10 of it for Tabitha Greening), and then by 1893 to $50, which he continued to send to Mollie after Orion’s death on 11 December 1897 (OC to SLC, numerous letters in 1882–90, and 11 Dec 1897 to Whitmore, all in CU-MARK).

  22.8–9 Orion could have had all the work he wanted . . . in the composing-room of the Gate City] Orion tried repeatedly to get editorial or compositorial work on the Keokuk Gate City and other newspapers, but was unable to do so on anything but a spot basis, and was usually unpaid for the few editorials he managed to publish.

  22.10 his wife had been a Governor’s wife] That is, when Orion, as Nevada territorial secretary, was standing in for the absent territorial governor (see AD, 2 Apr 1906, note at 5.25–36).

  22.12–24 Orion got a job as proof-reader on the New York Evening Post . . . Rutland, Vermont] Clemens’s chronology is inaccurate. Orion worked for the New York Evening Post in the fall of 1873, while Mollie stayed in Fredonia, New York, with Jane Clemens and Pamela Moffett (6 Nov 1873 to JLC, L5, 471 n. 1). His position on the Hartford Evening Post had lasted from about September 1872 until May 1873. Clemens’s scheme for getting a job by first working without pay is the subject of his Autobiographical Dictation of 27 March 1906 (see AutoMT1, 446–51). In a letter to Olivia of 3 October 1872 Clemens implied that Orion had gotten the Hartford position by following his advice:

  Livy darling, it is indeed pleasant to learn that Orion is happy & progressing. Now if he can only keep the place, & continue to give satisfaction, all the better. It is no trouble for a man to get any situation he wants—by working at first for nothing—but of course to hold it firmly against all comers—after the wages begin—is the trick. (L5, 188)

  By early May 1873 Orion had accepted the editorship of the Rutland Globe, remaining there until sometime in July (L5: 25 Sept 1872 to OLC, 182 n. 11; 5 May 1873 to OC and MEC, 363 n. 1).

  22.36–39 his idea was to buy that place and start a chicken farm . . . and I sent the money] In May 1874 Clemens gave Orion and Mollie $900 to make a first payment on Mollie’s father’s chicken farm near Keokuk. But price negotiations stalled, the purchase was never completed, and Orion and Mollie merely rented the farm until sometime in 1876, when they gave up trying to make it pay and moved to Keokuk proper. There Orion tried, unsuccessfully, to practice law while Clemens supported him (L6: 23 Apr 1864 to OC, 110–14; 10 May 1874 to JLC, 141–42; 10 June 1874 to OC and MEC, 156 n. 3; 27 March 1875 to OC, 427–28; 25 Apr 1875 to JLC and PAM, 461, 462–63 n. 8; Fanning 2003, 164–67).

  23.13–14 I found twenty-five dollars for pew-rent . . . sell the pew] On 26 July 1875 Clemens wrote to Orion:

  One item in your account strikes me curiously—“pew rent.” You might as well borrow money to sport diamonds with. I am willing to lend you money to procure the needs of life, but not to procure so useless a luxury as a church pew. It would much better become a man to remain away from church than borrow money to hire a pew with. The principle of this thing is what I am complaining of—not the amount of money. (L6, 519)

  Autobiographical Dictation, 6 April 1906

  23.23 Renwick, the architect of the Roman Catholic Cathedral] James Renwick (1818–95), a graduate of Columbia College but self-trained as an architect, designed many prominent buildings in New York, including banks and hotels, luxurious private residences, and several churches. The most important of these was Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, completed in 1879, except for the spires, which were added in 1888.

  23.24–25 Katy, (the housekeeper,)] Katy Leary, who had been with the Clemens family for twenty-six years
(see AutoMT1, 541 n. 242.22).

  24.14–22 Etta Booth . . . Virginia City, Nevada] Booth was probably the daughter of Lucius A. Booth of Virginia City, owner of the Winfield Mill and Mining Company. In 1877 Clemens recalled seeing her at a ball in Virginia City when she was “8 years of age” (10 Sept 1877 to Booth, Letters 1876–1880; 12 July 1867 to JLC and family, L2, 73 n. 2).

  25.4–5 poultry experiment . . . had then cost me six thousand dollars] Since the chicken farm was never actually purchased, it is unlikely that the two-year “poultry experiment” cost Clemens this much, even allowing for the regular support “loans” he made to Orion (see AD, 5 Apr 1906, especially the note at 22.36–39).

  25.24 he invented a wood-sawing machine] This invention was one of many that Orion worked on but never successfully completed, such as an “Anti-Sun-Stroke hat” and a “flying machine” (7 June 1871 to OC and MEC, L4, 396; 4 Feb 1874 to OC, L6, 26–27, 28 n. 2).

  25.29–31 fifty-thousand-dollar prize . . . Orion worked at that thing two or three years] In 1871 the New York legislature established a commission to test inventions to enable economical navigation on the state’s canals by steam power rather than by “bank propulsion,” that is, towage by draft animals. Prizes were offered in two categories—“degrees of perfection as to methods employed and results attained,” and “successful operation and probable general adoption”—each paying $50,000 to a single winner, or the same amount divided among three winners (Whitford 1906, 1:281–82). At that time Orion was, in fact, working on his invention of a boat propelled by a paddle wheel (L4: 7 June 1871 to OC and MEC, 396 n. 3; 16 Sept 1871 to OC, 457–58).

  26.4–14 he wrote me all about it himself . . . to the joy of every witness present] No letter of Orion’s describing such an event has been found. During the presidential campaign of 1888, however, Orion assisted Keokuk Republicans despite being a supporter of the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland. In a letter of 31 August Orion described a torchlight event staged by African American residents that included “two tariff sentiments I furnished for the white folks Republican procession . . . though I expect to vote for Cleveland on that issue.” And in a letter of 8 September he reported that “transparencies” bearing his tariff mottoes were used in both Republican processions, “white and colored.” One of his slogans was “Protection is the eagle’s wings that keep her out of the lion’s mouth” (CU-MARK).

  26.34–35 Bill Nye, poor fellow . . . is dead] Edgar Wilson (Bill) Nye (1850–96), the popular humorist and lecturer, suffered from chronic meningitis for many years before his death from that illness, at age forty-five.

  27.15–16 Orion wrote his autobiography . . . he was constantly making a hero of himself] Clemens gives a similar account of Orion’s autobiography in his Autobiographical Dictation of 23 February 1906 (see AutoMT1, 6, 378, 599–600 n. 378.25–27). Paine mined Orion’s manuscript for details about Clemens’s childhood while researching and writing his official (authorized) biography, and quoted from it in that work, published in 1912. He called “altogether unwarranted” Clemens’s assertion that Orion “was constantly making a hero of himself.” He judged Orion’s work faithful to Clemens’s “original plan,” characterizing it as “just one long record of fleeting hope, futile effort, and humiliation. It is the story of a life of disappointment; of a man who has been defeated and beaten down and crushed by the world until he has nothing but confession left to surrender” (MTB, 1:24, 28, 44, 85, 89–93, 103–4, 107–8, 2:676–77).

  27.21–22 I destroyed a considerable part of that autobiography] Today only a few pages of Orion’s autobiography survive in the Mark Twain Papers. What befell the bulk of the manuscript that Lyon and Paine saw is unclear. In later years Paine himself reported, inconsistently, that it was buried “deep in the dusty obscurity of a safe deposit vault” and that it had been burned in keeping with “M.T.’s wish.” According to Lyon, however, Paine lost the manuscript in Grand Central Station in July 1907 (Fanning 2003, 218–19; MTHL, 1:313).

  27.22 Miss Lyon] Isabel Van Kleek Lyon (1863–1958) was the daughter of Giorgiana and Charles Lyon. Her father, an author of Greek and Latin textbooks, left his family impoverished when he died in 1883, and Isabel, after several other jobs, took a position as governess for the Franklin Whitmore family in Hartford. Clemens met her while playing whist at their home in the late 1880s. She came to work for the Clemenses as a secretary in the fall of 1902, despite her lack of typing or stenographic skills. She soon assumed some of Olivia’s housekeeping duties and befriended Clara and Jean, on occasion serving as their chaperone. By the time the family went to Florence in the fall of 1903 she had become Clemens’s amanuensis (Trombley 2010, 10–12, 19–28, 261).

  27.23 I shall quote from them here and there and now and then, as I go along] In the remaining dictations, through 1909, Clemens only once quotes an excerpt from Orion’s autobiography: into his dictation of 29 January 1907 he inserted the text of a letter he had written to Orion and Mollie on 6 February 1861, which Orion had transcribed into his manuscript.

  27.24–25 in 1898 a cablegram came from Keokuk announcing Orion’s death] Orion died on 11 December 1897. From Vienna, Clemens wrote Mollie the same day:

  We all grieve for you; our sympathy goes out to you from experienced hearts, & with it our love; & with Orion, & for Orion, I rejoice. He has received life’s best gift.

  He was good—all good, and sound; there was nothing bad in him, nothing base, nor any unkindness. It was unjust that such a man, against whom no offence could be charged, should have been sentenced to live 72 years. It was beautiful, the patience with which he bore it. (IaCrM)

  Autobiographical Dictation, 9 April 1906

  27.36–28.8 a letter from a French friend of mine, enclosing . . . de la faire] This clipping from an unidentified French newspaper was sent to Clemens by Hélène Elisabeth Picard (b. 1872 or 1873) in a letter of 28 or 29 March 1906. In English it reads:

  MARK TWAIN BANNED

  NEW YORK, 27 March. (By dispatch from our special correspondent.)—The directors of the Brooklyn library have put Mark Twain’s two latest books on the prohibited list for children under the age of fifteen, considering them unwholesome.

  The celebrated humorist has written the officials a letter full of wit and sarcasm. These gentlemen have refused to publish it, under the pretext that they have not been given the author’s permission to do so.

  28.10–11 she wrote me about five years ago . . . friendly letters three or four times a year] The surviving correspondence between Clemens and Picard consists of thirty-one letters, written (with the possible exception of one undated postcard) between February 1902 and August 1909. Nineteen letters are by Picard (all in CU-MARK); twelve are by Clemens, of which nine survive only as transcriptions published in the Ladies’ Home Journal of February 1912 (“Mark Twain’s Private Girls’ Club,” 23, 54). In her 14 March 1902 letter to Clemens, Picard described herself as “Helene E. Picard—of a French Alsatian familly—aged 29—born in le Havre—tall, fair and plain looking, but not altogether too bad—living alone with her mother . . . in a very small town in the Vosges Mountains, quite near the frontier of Alsace.—Is very fond of books, delights in yours” (CU-MARK). For an account of the correspondence, with the texts of all Clemens’s letters except for one he dictated to Isabel Lyon on 9 April 1906, see Schmidt 2011.

  28.18–19 I have the constitution and by-laws somewhere] Clemens drafted the “Constitution and Laws of the Juggernaut Club” early in 1902. The only qualification for membership was “superior mentality, joined with sincerity and the spirit of good will”; inside the “imaginary Temple of Juggernaut, where the Club foregathers in the spirit . . . ranks cease, nationalities cease, no clan is represented there but the Human Race.” The unspecified object of the club was to be “determined by the Membership” (draft in CU-MARK, 4–5, 7).

  28.41–29.7 His temple is visited by pilgrims of all ranks . . . those pilgrims constitute a perfect democracy] The temple of Juggernaut, who was a
form of the Krishna avatar of Vishnu (one of the most highly revered Hindu divinities), is in Puri in central India, on the Bay of Bengal. The cult of Juggernaut allows no caste distinctions.

  29.11–19 Something in a newspaper . . . clean, clear ink] Apart from the enclosed newspaper clipping, this paragraph is the only part of Picard’s letter that is known to survive.

  29.22–24 When “Huck” appeared . . . the public library of Concord, Massachusetts, flung him out indignantly] For a detailed account of the Concord library’s March 1885 expulsion, see HF 2003, 763–72.

  29.28–29 Then the public library of Denver flung him out] In August of 1902, at the request of local clergymen who attacked Huckleberry Finn as immoral and sacrilegious, the Denver Public Library removed the book from its shelves (Denver Post to SLC, 12 Aug 1902, CU-MARK). In a letter of 14 August to the Denver Post, which had solicited his response, Clemens wrote, in part: