by Mark Twain
403.34–35 Dr. Hooker . . . pall-bearer at his mother’s funeral] Edward Beecher Hooker (1855–1927) was a physician and president of the American Institute of Homeopathy. Clemens served as an honorary pallbearer at his mother’s funeral, which took place on 28 January in Hartford (“Homeopaths Elect Officers,” Washington Post, 14 Sept 1906, 3; “Dr. Edward Beecher Hooker,” New York Times, 24 June 1907, 23; “Mrs. Hooker’s Funeral,” Hartford Courant, 29 Jan 1907, 6).
403.36–37 my secretary] Isabel Lyon.
404.6 my brother Orion’s autobiography] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 6 April 1906, note at 27.15–16.
404.14–15 Mrs. Holliday, who was always consulting fortune-tellers and believing everything they said] Mrs. Richard Holliday (born Melicent S. McDonald in about 1800) was the model for the character of Widow Douglas in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (Inds, 325). In 1897 Clemens described her in “Villagers of 1840–3“: “Well off. Hospitable. Fond of having parties of young people. Widow. Old, but anxious to marry. Always consulting fortune-tellers; always managed to make them understand that she had been promised 3 [husbands] by the first fraud. They always confirmed the prophecy. She finally died before the prophecies had a full chance” (Inds, 96).
404.24–25 chapter which I dictated . . . lately published in the North American Review] Clemens refers to the Autobiographical Dictations of 28 March, 29 March, and 2 April 1906 (AutoMT1, 451–55, 455–62). He originally selected a series of excerpts from these three dictations to comprise a single chapter in the North American Review. Starting with the issue of 4 January 1907, however, the magazine had a shorter format, and the proposed chapter was split in two: half appeared in the 18 January 1907 issue (NAR 10), and the other half in the most recent issue, of 1 February (NAR 11).
405.3–5 The sweetheart was Laura Wright . . . had not heard for forty-seven years] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 30 July 1906, note at 149.38–150.1.
405.8 I have just received the following letter from Sam] Orion added this remark to the top of Clemens’s letter before forwarding it to his mother and sister in St. Louis. Clemens had directed the letter to Orion in Memphis, Missouri, where he was living with his wife and daughter and attempting to set up a law practice. The letter text inserted here has been lightly censored, presumably by Clemens on the now missing copy that Orion made of the original letter. Clemens says that Orion “copied it faithfully, word for word” (as Orion asserts in his appended notes), so it is a fair presumption that the departures from the original are not Orion’s. The original undoctored manuscript was published in Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 1 (107–16), and all of that volume’s texts and notes are available at MTPO. The thorough annotation supplied there supplements the notes here.
405.13–14 Madame Caprell] Madame Caprell worked as a fortune teller from 1857 to 1861 in St. Louis as well as in New Orleans. She undoubtedly drew some of her information about the Clemens family from her conversations with Mrs. Holliday, one of her clients (6 Feb 1861 to OC and MEC, L1, 112–13 n. 1).
409.4–7 mother’s mother . . . father died at 48] Clemens’s forebears, in the order mentioned, are: Margaret (Peggy) Casey (mother’s mother, 1783–1818); Jane Lampton (mother, 1803–90); Benjamin Lampton (mother’s father, 1770–1837); William Lampton (mother’s grandfather, 1724–90) and Martha (Patsy) Schooler (mother’s grandmother, 1741–1811); Samuel Clemens (father’s father, 1770–1805, killed by a falling log at a house raising); John Marshall Clemens (father, 1798–1847); Pamelia Goggin (father’s mother, 1775–1845) (Lampton 1990, 23, 30, 79, 88).
409.10 Cook’s pills] This drug, a combination of several strong laxatives (dried aloe juice, rhubarb, calomel, and soap powder), was formulated by John Esten Cooke (1798–1853) of Virginia and popularized—as “Cook’s pills“—by John C. Gunn in his Domestic Medicine (1830). It was used to treat a variety of ailments (Swiderski 2009, 140–41; Hiss and Ebert 1910, 560).
Autobiographical Dictation, 30 January 1907
409.28–31 It takes a Cromwell . . . to pull them down into the mud again] Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) was the Puritan political and military leader of the parliamentary forces during the English civil wars (1642–51), which led to the overthrow of the English monarchy. As Lord Protector of the newly established republican Commonwealth, he promoted moral and spiritual reform. The monarchy was restored after his death, and King Charles II (1630–85) placed on the throne.
409.39 “The press is the palladium of our liberties.”] The full quotation—”The liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman”—is from the dedication in Letters by Junius (fl. 1770), the pseudonymous English polemicist.
410.3–8 Mr. Guggenheim . . . he is not aware that he has been guilty of even an indelicacy, let alone a gross crime] Simon Guggenheim (1867–1941), like his father and seven brothers, made a fortune in mining and smelting. He was elected as a Republican senator from Colorado by the state legislature on 15 January. When accused of buying the members’ votes, he replied, “The money I have contributed has helped to elect these men, and naturally they feel under obligation to vote for me. It is done all over the United States to-day” (“Guggenheim Is Scored,” Washington Post, 15 Jan 1907, 1; “Guggenheim for Colorado,” Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan 1907, 15). Although no formal action was brought against Guggenheim, his reputation for dishonesty persisted: in July 1907 a Denver judge, Ben B. Lindsey, was reported as saying, “Not the senate chamber but the penitentiary or the gallows is the place for Guggenheim” (“Advises Gallows for Guggenheim,” Chicago Tribune, 16 July 1907, 1).
410.11–21 It is true that Mr. Guggenheim . . . will of the people] The date of this article from the Denver Post has not been identified.
410.20 Tom Patterson] Thomas MacDonald Patterson (1839–1916) had served as a Democratic senator from Colorado since 1901 and was in the last year of his term.
410.24–26 they offered a motion to inquire . . . actually sponged it from the records] On 11 January a resolution was introduced in the Colorado legislature that provided for the appointment of a committee to investigate Guggenheim’s “alleged purchase of the United States Senatorship.” The resolution was tabled, and by a “viva-voce vote” the matter was “expunged from the records” (“Guggenheim Vindicated,” Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan 1907, 17).
410.32–411.23 The Reverend Elliot B.X. . . . establishing its authenticity] In 1886 Frank M. Bristol, a Chicago minister and book collector, found, supposedly in Nevada, a copy of the second (1632) folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays. On a flyleaf was pasted a slip of paper bearing an apparent Shakespeare signature. The book also contained the signature of John Ward. Since this was the name of a seventeenth-century vicar of Stratfordon-Avon, it seemed to lend credibility to the Shakespeare signature. Bristol acquired the book and sold it to the wealthy Chicago book collector Charles F. Gunther. The signature was soon recognized as a forgery, an imitation of one of the signatures on Shakespeare’s last will and testament. Clemens himself would ignore it in Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), where he enumerates the five signatures then extant (“Literary Notes,” New York Tribune, 18 Feb 1886, 6; Vining 1887; Rolfe 1890; “The Gunther Autograph,” New Shakespeareana 4 [Apr 1905]: 56–62; SLC 1909c, 33–34; Tannenbaum 1927, 149, 152–53).
412.36–38 copy of the Eliot Indian Bible . . . Mr. Trumbull would know the book’s value] Missionary John Eliot (ca. 1604–90) translated the Bible into Natick, a dialect of the Massachusett-Naragansett tribe in the Algonquian family. A thousand copies of it—the first Bible published in the Americas—were printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1660–63. By 1881 the preeminent historian and linguist James Hammond Trumbull (a Hartford acquaintance of Clemens’s) was said to be the only man living who could read it. He spent his last years working on a Natick dictionary, which he left nearly complete when he died in 1897. It was published posthumously in 1903 by the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution (Library of Congre
ss 2011; “Eliot’s Indian Bible,” Chicago Tribune, 17 Apr 1881, 24; “Key to Eliot’s Bible,” New York Times, 15 Aug 1903, BR13).
413.3–9 poverty-stricken sister, or other female relative of Audubon . . . boast about it afterwards] The original folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, published in London in 1827–38, comprised four volumes of plates; five volumes of text were issued in 1831–38. Clemens described this incident, and contrasted it with Trumbull’s sale of the Eliot Bible, in a eulogy he published in the Century Magazine in 1897: “James Hammond Trumbull. The Tribute of a Neighbor” (SLC 1897).
Autobiographical Dictation, 1 February 1907
413.12–22 Last summer I dictated some remarks . . . spelt as only Susy could spell] Clemens discusses the correspondence pertaining to the “western girl” in the Autobiographical Dictation of 18 June 1906; Ned Wakeman’s letter is in the dictation of 29 August 1906; and a passage from Susy’s biography of Clemens is excerpted and praised in that of 8 August 1906.
413.28–37 letter which has come to my hands . . . Miss Sullivan (Mrs. Macy,)] Clemens received—presumably from Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan—a typed copy of this letter by B. B. Page (of whom nothing has been learned beyond what is in the letter itself). Keller had published The Story of My Life in 1903 (see the ADs of 20 Nov 1906 and 17 Jan 1907).
414.34–35 I see in the Kansas City Star . . . he ought to take a good Wash] In May 1903 President Charles William Eliot of Harvard was reported as saying that western delegates to an upcoming Boston conference should visit Revere Beach because “a bath may be good for them” (“Do Westerners Need Baths?” Kansas City Star, 22 May 1903, 1).
414.42 Miss Francis Wilard] Frances Willard (1839–98) was a nationally known political figure, espousing temperance reform, labor rights, and women’s rights.
414.44 your little Black plamate Marthy Washington] Helen Keller was unable to remember the real name of the childhood companion she called Martha Washington in The Story of My Life, an African American girl who was adept at understanding Keller’s wishes before she had any language (Keller 1903, 10–13; 2005, 79).
415.1–3 that Duke told King Edward he was ingadged to Miss May Golet . . . Ingland neded her money] The engagement of the impoverished duke of Roxburghe to May Goelet, reputedly America’s richest heiress, was announced in September 1903. The Los Angeles Times reported that King Edward VII “regards all such marriages with high approval, being painfully aware that English society needs money more than anything to keep it alive” (“Duke to Wed May Goelet,” Chicago Tribune, 3 Sept 1903, 5; “‘Well Done Roxburghe,’ Says the King,” Los Angeles Times, 14 Sept 1903, 2).
415.16–17 Lue Dilen beet the World record . . . Name her Driver] Lou Dillon, a trotting mare, covered a mile in exactly two minutes at Readville, Massachusetts, on 24 August 1903, setting a world record. Her driver was Millard Saunders (“Lou Dillon Trots a Mile in Two Minutes,” New York Times, 25 Aug 1903, 1).
Autobiographical Dictation, 4 February 1907
415 title Monday, February 4, 1907] This Autobiographical Dictation is actually a series of five dictations strung together under the single date of 4 February. The fifth dictation was probably written no later than 9 February: it includes a clipping from a 29 January newspaper, published—according to Clemens—“Ten or twelve days ago” (427.8).
415.27–28 lively gold-mining camp of Yreka . . . editing the little weekly local journal] Harte lived for a time in Union, a town near Eureka (not Yreka), which served as a port for the gold fields in the mountains to the east (see AD, 13 June 1906, notes at 118.13–20 and 118.21–23; George R. Stewart 1931, 61–62).
416.16–18 Tom Fitch, whom Joe Goodman crippled in the duel . . . has gone back to his early loves] Clemens describes the duel between Fitch, editor of the Virginia City Union, and Goodman, editor of the rival Territorial Enterprise, in his Autobiographical Dictation of 19 January 1906 (AutoMT1, 294–96, 568 n. 294.29–33). Fitch told Clemens in his letter of 14 January 1907 (CU-MARK) that after the duel he and Goodman “became warm friends.” Fitch also explained that after leaving Nevada he worked in thirty-four law offices “between New York and Honolulu,” and was “on the roll of Supreme Court lawyers in 9 states, 3 territories and in the District of Columbia.” He finally established a law office in Tucson, Arizona, where he enjoyed the “brooding stillness, the reaches of space, the lavender mountains, and the electric air of the desert.”
416.23–24 When “The Luck of Roaring Camp” burst upon the world] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 14 June 1906, note at 120.6–17.
417.24–27 His wife was all that a good woman . . . never came back again from that time until his death] Harte was married in San Rafael, California, in 1862 to Anna Griswold (1832–1920), a contralto whom he had met in Thomas Starr King’s First Unitarian Church in San Francisco. Over the next thirteen years she bore him four children: Griswold (1863–1901), Francis King (“Frank,” 1865–1917), Jessamy (1872–1964), and Ethel (1875–1964). The two were not well suited, however. Anna was a demanding—even domineering—wife who preferred life in a hotel without domestic responsibilities, while Harte yearned for a peaceful home. Neither was good at managing money, and they soon found it difficult to live within their means. They were separated when Harte sailed for Europe in June 1878; he corresponded regularly with his family, but their occasional plans for a reunion—either in America or in Europe—were never realized. Frank visited his father in England in 1884, and again in 1888; in 1893 he settled at Weybridge (Surrey) with his wife, and five years later Anna and Ethel Harte joined his household. Harte occasionally spent time with Frank as well, and especially enjoyed seeing his grandchildren. But by then he and his wife were permanently estranged, and they never lived together again (Scharnhorst 2000a, 20–23, 33, 87, 114, 140–41, 165, 195, 215, 227, 232; Harte 1997, 44 n. 3; George R. Stewart 1931, 204, 282–83, 307).
417.31–32 Bayard Taylor . . . Minister to Germany] The banquet honoring Taylor was held at Delmonico’s on 4 April 1878. Like the Clemens family, he sailed on the SS Holsatia, which departed New York for Hamburg on 11 April (N&J2, 43, 53 n. 19, 63 n. 41; for Taylor see AD, 10 Apr 1906, note at 34.3–9).
417.32–34 I met a gentleman whose society I found delightful . . . grievance against him] Harte’s benefactor was Thomas B. Musgrave (d. 1903), head of a New York brokerage firm (Scharnhorst 2000b, 213; “Thomas B. Musgrave Dead,” New York Times, 1 May 1903, 9).
418.12 When Harte made his spectacular progress across the continent, in 1870] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 14 June 1906, note at 119.32–36.
418.23–30 he came to Hartford . . . accept of five hundred, which he did] Harte visited the Clemenses on 13–14 June 1872. After returning to New York, he wrote that he had received a check and paid one of his creditors the next day (15 June 1872 to Howells, L5, 103, 105 n. 2; Harte to SLC, 17 June 1872, CU-MARK, in Harte 1997, 67–68).
418.40 Once he wrote a play with a perfectly delightful Chinaman in it] Clemens saw Harte’s play, Two Men of Sandy Bar, in early September 1876, shortly after it opened in New York. He told Howells, “Harte’s play can be doctored till it will be entirely acceptable & then it will clear a great sum every year. . . . The play entertained me hugely, even in its present crude state” (14 Sept 1876 to Howells, Letters 1876–1880). The play drew on two of Harte’s California short stories, “Mr. Thompson’s Prodigal” and “The Idyl of Red Gulch,” with the addition—for comic effect—of the laundryman Hop Sing. This “delightful Chinaman” was on stage for a few minutes and delivered only nine lines (Harte 1869c, 1870b, 1870c; Scharnhorst 2000a, 118, 124).
418.41–419.5 Harte had earned the enmity of the New York . . . critics were answerable for the failure] On opening night the audience was “good-humored and indulgent,” but the critics were for the most part merciless. For example, the reviewer for the Times declared, “Its sentiment is maudlin and mushy, its plot shallow, its pathos laughable, and its wit lachrymose”—all in all,
a “dismal mass of trash” (“Amusements,” New York Times, 29 Aug 1876, 5). No earlier charges by Harte against drama critics have been found, but he had “never been popular with the press,” according to Stuart Robson, the star of the production (“Mr. Bret Harte’s Critics,” Baltimore Gazette, 12 Oct 1876, 1). After his play’s New York premiere, Harte engaged in an acrimonious public quarrel with the reviewers. It began when he published, in the New York Herald, a letter he had received from Robson charging that critics were known to be influenced by the “largest purse” to write the “longest and strongest editorials.” A nasty article in the San Francisco Chronicle described the incident:
We find Mr. Harte openly accusing “representatives of the most prominent New York papers” of being blackmailers, and demanding money for favorable criticisms. The Sun and the Spirit of the Times loudly importune him for the names of the mercenary critics, but as yet they are not forthcoming. On the other hand, the dramatic critics of the Sun and Tribune have asserted their innocence, and denounced the falsity of the charge. Mr. Harte has damaged his reputation forever, and attracted notice to himself from all classes of persons, many of whom would otherwise never have cared whether he was a gentleman or not. That he possesses talent none will deny; so does a performing mule. . . . His quondam friends despise him, his creditors credit him to loss, and his publishers find no profit in him. . . . California consigns Francis Bret Harte, with his shuffling ways, his debts, his ingratitude and his other brilliant qualities to the mercies of the East, where, Heaven grant! he may always stay. (“Francis Bret Harte,” San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Oct 1876, 6)
After five weeks in New York, Robson took the play on the road to a dozen other cities, performing it last in San Francisco in 1878. He later acknowledged that he had badly misjudged the play, admitting that “its gifted author violated every law of successful dramatic construction” (quoted in Scharnhorst 2000a, 121). He allegedly lost $10,000 on the production (Harte to the editors of the New York Herald, Sun, and Graphic, 2, 13, and 21 Sept 1876 respectively, Harte 1997, 128–31, 135–37, 139–41; Scharnhorst 1995, 186).