Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  Charles Dudley Warner is charmed with the poem for its own felicitous sake; and so indeed am I, but more because it has drawn the sting of my fiftieth year; taken away the pain of it, the grief of it, the somehow shame of it, and made me glad and proud it happened.

  With reverence and affection,

  Sincerely yours,

  S. L. CLEMENS.

  265.12 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS] Clemens also wrote to Harris on 29 November 1885 (GEU):

  Dear Uncle Remus:

  I thank you cordially; & particularly for the good word about Huck, that abused child of mine who has had so much unfair mud flung at him. Somehow I can’t help believing in him, & it’s a great refreshment to my faith to have a man back me up who has been where such boys live, & knows what he is talking about.

  May you never be fifty till you’ve got to be, & then may we all be there to say the kind word that will mollify the affront of it.

  Sincerely Yours

  S L Clemens

  In addition to thanking his friends individually, Clemens wrote to them as a group via The Critic, also on 29 November (CLU-SC):

  My dear Conspirators:

  It was the pleasantest surprise I have ever had, & you have my best thanks. It reconciles me to being fifty years old; & it was for you to invent the miracle that could do that—I could never have invented one myself that could do it. May you live to be fifty yourselves, & find a fellow-benefactor in that time of awful need.

  Sincerely Yours

  S.L. Clemens

  No individual letter thanking Warner for his tribute in The Critic is known to survive (see AD, 15 Oct 1906; “Mark Twain Surprised,” The Critic, 4 Dec 1885, 271).

  265.21 James Russell Lowell] Lowell turned fifty on 22 February 1869, almost a year before Clemens met Howells in December 1869.

  265.30–34 Major General Franklin, who had been one of McClellan’s favorite generals in the Civil War . . . Monday Evening Club] William Buel Franklin served under General George B. McClellan. Clemens discusses Franklin, McClellan, and the Monday Evening Club in the Autobiographical Dictations of 12 and 13 January 1906 (AutoMT1, 269–72, 273, 558 n. 269.1–6, 560 n. 273.3–5).

  265.41 rout at the first Bull Run] The First Battle of Bull Run, fought near Manassas, Virginia, on 21 July 1861, ended with the Union forces retreating in panic.

  Autobiographical Dictation, 7 November 1906

  266.17 The first time I was in Egypt a Simplified Spelling epidemic had broken out] This dictation was first published in Letters from the Earth, edited by Bernard DeVoto (1962), who suggested that it had been “interpolated in a dictation” of 7 November 1906 but was “certainly written before that day” (LE, 159–63, 291). The suspicion is natural; yet Hobby made her standard notation on the typescript that it took two hours to dictate, and Clemens wrote on the same day to Mary Rogers that he had “dictated a while, this morning—the first time for 19 days. On Simplified Spelling” (NNC). No manuscript has been found, but it is likely that Clemens had written it as a speech to be delivered in Egypt, where, during a burst of enthusiasm in late October 1906, he had been planning to spend the winter. But he canceled his plans on 31 October, and perhaps sought to salvage his Egyptian-themed speech by reading it into the Autobiography. Andrew Carnegie agreed to financially support the Simplified Spelling Board in January 1906, believing that the irregular orthography of English was impeding its adoption as “the world language” (“Carnegie Assaults the Spelling Book,” New York Times, 12 Mar 1906, 1). Clemens agreed to be a member of the board, and he publicized Simplified Spelling in various speeches and articles. In this dictation, he alludes to Carnegie under the name of “Croesus,” and to Theodore Roosevelt as “the Khedive.” Twelve days later, in the Autobiographical Dictation of 19 November 1906, he goes on to discuss the origins of the Simplified Spelling movement and Roosevelt’s ill-fated support for it (Lyon 1906, entries for Oct 27–31; MTB, 3:1325–26; “Simple Spellers Start with 300 Pruned Words,” New York Times, 13 Mar 1906, 6).

  268.22–23 The trouble is not with the spelling . . . it is with the alphabet] Clemens developed this line of thought in a speech at a banquet honoring Andrew Carnegie on 9 December 1907 and in one of his manuscripts, “A Simplified Alphabet” (“Mark Twain Jeers at Simple Spelling,” New York Times, 10 Dec 1907, 2; SLC 1909a; for a text of the speech see Fatout 1976, 597–600; see also AD, 10 Dec 1907).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 8 November 1906

  269.28–29 he has been publishing Gen. Grant’s book] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 28 May 1906.

  270.4–5 he published without her knowledge that article in the “Christian Union”] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 December 1906.

  270.17–18 Jean has been absent . . . at a Sanatorium in the country] Clemens had arranged for Jean to stay at the private sanatorium operated by her doctor, Frederick Peterson, at Katonah, New York. She left on 25 October 1906; for the next three years, her life would be spent in sanatoriums, rented lodgings, and clinics, until Clemens brought her to Stormfield in April 1909 (Lystra 2004, 83–85).

  270.20–22 Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs . . . Mr. Riggs] Author and educator Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856–1923), whose best-known book is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903), had married businessman George Christopher Riggs in 1895. Dorothea Gilder (1882–1920) was the eldest daughter of Richard Watson Gilder, and a friend of Clara’s. For Norman Hapgood and his wife see AutoMT1, 598 n. 375.2, and the Autobiographical Dictation of 7 June 1906, note at 101.31.

  271.14 Gulliver in Lilliput] From Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726).

  271.32 my five or six unfinished books] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 30 August 1906, notes at 196.39–42 and 197.4–7.

  271.39–272.5 F. Hopkinson Smith . . . auction this time was of original manuscripts] Clemens had told this story some twelve years earlier in a letter to Olivia written on 12 February 1894, two weeks after the event it describes (CU-MARK):

  And did I tell you about Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin & the sale of manuscripts? You see they had a great gathering at Sherry’s in aid of the kindergartens, & they had music, & then it was announced that Hopkinson Smith & Mrs. Wiggin would read unpublished articles & each sell the other’s MS. at auction.

  Smith ran Mrs. Wiggin’s up to $85—a nice good figure. Of course Mrs. W. wanted to do as well; but when she mounted the auctioneering rostrum she found that Smith’s was nothing but a type-written MS. But she wrought brightly & well, & scattered wit in all directions; & although she had a formidable job she stuck bravely to it till she captured the same sum secured for her own genuine MS.

  Mary Mapes Dodge, talking with her, said—

  “It was shabby of him to put off a type-written MS on you to sell. It would have been perfectly fair for you to resent it. Of course you were angry?”

  “Inside—yes. Boiling, in fact. Oh, I wanted to resent it, badly enough.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Oh, well, I am a lady, & I have to be so damned polite!”

  The auction was held at Sherry’s Restaurant on 29 January 1894 for the New York Kindergarten Association, a project of Wiggin’s. F. Hopkinson Smith (1838–1915) was an author, painter, and engineer, and may be best remembered for having built the foundation for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Clemens first met him at a Tile Club dinner in New York on 20 December 1880. Eight years later he characterized him as “a well known water-color artist, civil engineer, architect, designer of railway bridges, magazine writer, after-dinner speaker, public reader, jack-of-all-trades & master of them all, & he is moreover an old & special friend of mine” (27 Dec 1888 to Gripenberg, FiH2; 11, 12, 13 Feb 1894 to OLC, CU-MARK; “Notes,” The Critic, 3 Feb 1894, 84; N&J2, 360 n. 14).

  272.31 Chase’s spacious and sumptuous studio] The Tenth Street studio in New York of painter William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) was described by art critic Arthur Hoeber as “the sanctum sanctorum of the Aesthetic fraternity” (Gallati 1995, 39–42).
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  Autobiographical Dictation, 19 November 1906

  273.19–25 pleading for the life of the culprit sentence . . . that it would get by the expergator alive] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 9 February 1906 (AutoMT1, 349). The long passage in the Huckleberry Finn manuscript in which Jim describes his midnight encounter with a cadaver in a medical school dissecting room, which Clemens deleted before publication, was probably one of the “delightfully dreadful” passages (HF 2003, 531–38).

  273.28–274.5 Andrew Carnegie started this storm . . . The indignant British Lion rose] Clemens was one of many literary men who signed the pledge circulated by spelling reformers in May 1905 to adopt simplified forms of twelve common words such as program, prolog, and thru. Andrew Carnegie’s financial support was contingent upon the gathering of these pledges. Satisfied, in early 1906 he organized the Simplified Spelling Board under the leadership of critic Brander Matthews. The board soon issued an amplified list of three hundred recommended spellings. On 27 August, Roosevelt ordered the government printer to use the simplified system in all publications of the executive departments. American response was bemused, but the British response was unexpectedly fierce. The Pall Mall Gazette called Roosevelt an anarchist, and the Evening Standard reminded him that the English language “was ours while America was still a savage and undiscovered country.” The Globe vowed that British resistance to spelling reform would be tougher than Filipino resistance to American rule, while the Leader said: “Of kors if Ruzvelt, backed up by Karnegi, sez we hav got to reform our speling we shal hav to, and that wil be the end of it, for Karnegi has awl the dollers and Ruzvelt has awl the branes” (“England in Fury Yelps at Ruzvelt,” Chicago Tribune, 26 Aug 1906, 1). Against this tide of anti-American, anti-Roosevelt feeling, Carnegie protested that spelling reform was neither American nor Roosevelt’s: it was an international movement and the reformed spellings had all been recommended in 1883 by an Anglo-American committee. But American support was also lacking: on 13 December the House of Representatives went on record against Roosevelt’s presidential order, and he promptly rescinded it (Scott 1905; New York Times: “Carnegie Assaults the Spelling-Book,” 12 Mar 1906, 1; “Spelling Changes Came from England—Carnegie,” 7 Sept 1906, 1; Matthews to SLC, 21 May 1905, CU-MARK; U.S. Government Printing Office 1906, 5–6; “New Spelling Dies,” Washington Post, 14 Dec 1906, 1).

  274.31–32 speech . . . before the Associated Press delegates, last September] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 5 October 1906, note at 245.36–246.1.

  275.16–17 In 1883, when the Simplified Spelling movement first tried to make a noise] In 1883 the Philological Society of London and the American Philological Association joined in recommending three thousand standardized spellings (“Spelling Changes Came from England—Carnegie,” New York Times, 7 Sept 1906, 1).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 20 November 1906

  277.38–278.6 Georgia Cayvan . . . had taken lessons in the Delsarte elocutionary methods] Cayvan (1857–1906) was born in Bath, Maine. She studied at the Lewis B. Monroe School of Oratory, which taught the system of expressive gestures created by French musician and teacher François Delsarte (1811–71), and embarked on a career as a professional reader and reciter (Gagey 1971, 2:314–15; “Georgia Cayvan Dead,” New York Tribune, 20 Nov 1906, 7; Wilbor 1887, 256–57).

  278.10 Miss Porter’s celebrated school] Sarah Porter’s boarding school for girls in Farmington, Connecticut, established around 1843, offered instruction in Latin, German, French, natural philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, chemistry, geography, history, and music in a noncompetitive fashion that dispensed with grades and examinations and allowed each student to progress at her own pace. No record of Georgia Cayvan’s visit to the school, or Clemens’s, has been found (N&J3, 444 n. 121).

  278.15–28 The stage was her dream . . . her mind was affected] Cayvan made a great success as Jocasta in an 1881 production of Oedipus Tyrannus. She reached the zenith of her career as the leading woman of New York’s Lyceum Theatre in 1887–94, but in the latter year she entered a period of ill health and inactivity. In 1898 she was named as co-respondent in a sensational divorce case. Although she was exonerated, it was reported that the scandal had deranged her mind. She was placed in a sanatorium in 1900, where she eventually became blind and passed into a vegetative state; news reports leave little doubt that her disease was syphilis (“Miss Cayvan Exonerated,” New York Times, 4 Jan 1899, 7; “Georgia Cayvan Childish,” Hartford Courant, 17 July 1902, 10; “Georgia Cayvan Dead,” New York Tribune, 20 Nov 1906, 7; “Georgia Cayvan Dead,” New York Sun, 20 Nov 1906, 1).

  278.30–31 The profession flocked to her relief] In 1903 Cayvan’s personal wealth had been exhausted, and Broadway’s most prominent actors and managers staged a benefit performance on her behalf (“Benefit for Georgia Cayvan,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 Jan 1903, 6).

  279.24–26 I first met Helen Keller . . . at Laurence Hutton’s house] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 30 March 1906 (AutoMT1, 464–67, 650 n. 465.6–7).

  279.30–31 Miss Sullivan was a pastmaster of Dr. Howe’s methods] Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–76) was an American teacher specializing in the education of the blind, the deaf, and the mentally disabled. He taught language to the blind and deaf Laura Bridgman by means of two tactile methods: first, using cards printed with embossed letters, and later, with a manual alphabet (finger spelling). Anne Sullivan, Keller’s teacher, graduated from Howe’s school for the blind (the Perkins Institute); she studied his notes of the Bridgman case before she went to Alabama to teach Keller (for Sullivan see AutoMT1, 650 n. 465.9).

  279.39–280.1 I was sojourning in London . . . leaving Helen and Miss Sullivan destitute] In November 1896 the Clemenses were in deep seclusion, mourning Susy’s death, when Eleanor Hutton wrote that Keller’s wealthy patron, John S. Spaulding, had died without making provision for her, thus casting in doubt her ability to attend Radcliffe. On 26 November Clemens replied to Mrs. Hutton:

  There is only one reason why I do not turn out at once & try to interest rich Englishmen in Helen’s case: I go nowhere, I see no one, I keep my address strictly concealed. I must not get discovered, or my work on my long book would be disastrously interfered with, straightway.

  But I have written to Mrs. Rogers & asked her to persuade her husband to lay the case before the other Standard Oil chiefs & ask them to contribute a temporary annual fund, to continue while Helen is in college; something to supply the essential immediate need, & give you time to work out your plan for achieving a permanent fund. I do hope my suggestion will bear fruit. I remarked that Laurence would be close by & handy at Harper’s when wanted.

  I would suggest to you that whenever a person declines to subscribe to your permanent fund, you strike him for a $25. annual subscription, & let him off with less, if you must. For many years Mrs. Clemens & I did the annual thing to the amount of $2,300—the interest on $40,000, you see; & it didn’t hamper us—but it would have made us shudder if we had been asked to put up the $40,000. (NjP-SC)

  Rogers himself wrote Clemens a month later that “the Helen Keller matter has been adjusted satisfactorily with Mrs. Hutton for the time being, at any rate.” He then described “a singular coincidence in connection with that matter.” Having conversed with Laurence Hutton at a recent Lotos Club dinner, he learned of Helen Keller’s situation and offered to help:

  Monday morning at the breakfast table I received a letter from Mrs. Hutton and Mrs. Rogers received a letter from you; they were both on the same subject, viz: Helen Keller. Mrs. Rogers went that day to call on Mrs. Hutton and had a very pleasant talk, and the arrangement that I before referred to was consummated. I do not know whether you would bring that coincidence into your mental telegraphy business or not, at any rate, I thought I would tell you about it, and knew it would please you to say the least. (Rogers to Clemens, 24 Dec 1896, CU-MARK, in HHR, 256–58)

  In a letter of 4 January 1897 Clemens agreed, saying the coincidence “is more easil
y explained as an instance of telegraphy than in any other way” (Salm, in HHR, 258–60). Rogers supported Keller’s education at Radcliffe, and he left her an annuity at his death in 1909 (Herrmann 1999, 94, 108–9; Keller 2005, 113).

  280.17–20 When J.B. Pond, the lecture agent, died . . . Pond’s little boy] James B. Pond (see AutoMT1, 600 n. 381.14) died of heart failure on 21 June 1903, after an operation to remove a gangrenous leg. His son, James B. Pond, Jr., was thirteen at the time. William Webster Ellsworth (1855–1936) was principally a publisher but was also an author and lecturer, one of Pond’s clients. Clemens answered his appeal in late June 1903: “A fund? Raise it? It is easier to raise the dead. A pension is the thing. I have tried it, & I know. Get people to put up a monthly sum” (late June 1903 to Ellsworth, extract in CU-MARK; Hudson Census 1900, 979:10A; New York Times: “Major J.B. Pond Is Dead,” 22 June 1903, 1; “Wm. W. Ellsworth, Lecturer, 81, Dies,” 19 Dec 1936, 19).

  280.28–33 Sir Henry M. Stanley . . . finding and rescuing Emin Pacha] Explorer-author Henry M. Stanley (1841–1904) was born John Rowlands, in Wales. His mother abandoned him at birth, and his father died a short time later. After the death of his grandfather, he was in foster care, then at age six was sent to a workhouse, where he was brutally treated. He ran away at age fifteen, and in 1859 emigrated to New Orleans. There he was adopted by a merchant, Henry Morton Stanley, whose name he assumed. His successful career as a journalist began after the Civil War, during which he fought for—and deserted from—both sides. In 1869 he received an assignment from the New York Herald to search for the Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who had disappeared in Africa several years earlier. After enduring great hardship, he succeeded in November 1871 (“Dr. Livingstone, I presume”), and returned to Europe, where his writings and lectures made him famous. In 1879 Stanley explored the Congo and founded the Congo Free State on behalf of King Leopold II of Belgium. He went back to Africa in 1887 as head of a mission to relieve Emin Pasha, the European-born governor of a province of the Sudan, who was holding out against the Mahdist rebellion which had overrun the rest of the country. But Emin, when located in 1888, wanted supplies, not rescue; he accompanied Stanley to the east coast, only to return to the interior, where he was later killed by slave traders. The relief expedition failed of its object and its casualties were enormous; but Stanley’s lecture tour of America, under the management of James B. Pond, was highly successful (November 1890–April 1891), as was his book In Darkest Africa (1890), which Clemens tried without success to acquire for Webster and Company. Stanley settled in England, served in Parliament, and was knighted in 1899 (25 Oct 1872 to OLC, L5, 201–2 n. 4; Chicago Tribune: “Henry M. Stanley Starts on His Long Lecturing Tour,” 14 Nov 1890, 2; “Henry M. Stanley to Sail Next Week,” 11 Apr 1891, 2; N&J3, 304–5 n. 19).