Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  426.41–42 Steele . . . engaged to one of the daughters] Jessamy Harte married Henry Milford Steele (1866?–1917) in June 1898. At one time Steele served as art editor of Scribner’s Monthly, and later was involved in financial enterprises in Denver as well as oil and mining operations in California. When the couple divorced in 1910, Steele accused Jessamy of desertion, and she charged him with “extreme cruelty” (New York Times: “Bret Harte’s Daughter Weds,” 28 June 1898, 7; “Mrs. Harte-Steele Divorced,” 2 Jan 1910, 4; “Widely-Known Oil Man Passes Away,” Los Angeles Times, 27 Feb 1917, 110).

  427.10 JESSAMY BRET HARTE A PAUPER] This article appeared on the front page of the New York Sun on 29 January; the name of Jessamy’s husband is incorrect in the article (see the note at 426.41–42).

  427.27 She wants to go to London, but the city will pay her fare to New York only] The prominent actress Eleanor Robson organized a benefit performance for Jessamy Harte. On 14 February she and her company performed a stage adaptation of Harte’s story “Salomy Jane’s Kiss.” They hoped to raise at least $5,000 but the benefit realized only $800 (Harte 1898; “Aid Daughter of Bret Harte,” San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Jan 1907, 9; “Mrs. Steele in New York,” Washington Post, 7 Feb 1907, 13; “Benefit for Mrs. Steele Raises $800,” New York Times, 15 Feb 1907, 11). In a letter of 29 January Robson asked for Clemens’s participation (CU-MARK). His initial response is recorded in Isabel Lyon’s Stenographic Notebook #2: “It might be better taste to leave me out. For the past 30 years we were not friends. In the circumstances I do not want a prominent place—never heard of any member of the family who differed much from Bret Harte. I despised him— If there are going to be a lot of names, then well & good” (CU-MARK). Clemens did not attend the benefit, although he did provide a testimonial for public use:

  I feel that the American people owe a debt of gratitude to Bret Harte, for not only did he paint such pictures of California as delighted the heart, but there was such an infinite tenderness, such sympathy, such strength, and such merit in his work that he commanded the attention of the world to our country, and his daughter is surely deserving of our sympathy. (“Aid for Harte’s Daughter,” New York Times, 30 Jan 1907, 18)

  According to Lyon, Clemens gave his permission to use his name to promote the benefit, then revoked it: “He sees through the whole thing as being mainly an advertisement for Eleanor Robson. He is so impulsive, & continually has to withdraw from propositions that he has gone into with enthusiasm” (Lyon 1907, entries for 29 and 30 Jan). In early 1907 Jessamy was already showing signs of the mental illness that led to her commitment to a psychopathic ward in 1915; she remained hospitalized until her death in 1964 at age ninety-two (“Mrs. Steele in New York,” Washington Post, 7 Feb 1907, 13; Scharnhorst 2000a, 232).

  428.9–19 We find no fault with the spider . . . miserable death by gnawing rations from its person daily] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 23 June 1906, note at 138.42–139.6.

  429.40 Stanford White] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 28 February 1907, note at 454.3–7.

  Autobiographical Dictation, 11 February 1907

  430.24–25 Something happened day before yesterday] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 12 February 1907.

  431.21–22 my description in “A Tramp Abroad” . . . of German student life] Mark Twain discussed German student life in chapters 4–7 and appendix C of A Tramp Abroad (1880), drawing on his family’s residence in Heidelberg in May–July 1878.

  431.25–33 our generous soldier-pensions . . . offensive system of vote-purchasing] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 15 January 1907 and the notes at 371.42–372.15, 372.29, and 372.37.

  431.37–39 I had committed an indiscretion. Possibly . . . in taking issue with an opinion promulgated by his Majesty] In the Autobiographical Dictation of 29 March 1906, Clemens claims that his offense on this occasion was an ill-timed exclamation concerning a potato (AutoMT1, 456).

  432.15–18 Prince Heinrich came over . . . prodigious banquet given by the wealthy proprietor of the Staats-Zeitung] Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1862–1929), the brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II , toured the United States in February–March 1902 and was lavishly entertained. Clemens claims to have attended three dinners in the prince’s honor, but only two have been identified: one given by Mayor Low of New York on 25 February, and the one described at length in this dictation, given on 26 February by Herman Ridder (1851–1915), publisher and editor of the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, America’s foremost German-language newspaper. Ridder’s banquet, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, was attended by more than twelve hundred editors and publishers (New York Times: “Prince Guest of Mayor,” 26 Feb 1902, 2; “Press of America Honors Prince Henry,” 27 Feb 1902, 1).

  432.22 George W. Smalley] Smalley was the U.S. correspondent of the London Times (AutoMT1, 635 n. 434.1).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 12 February 1907

  433.27–28 prediction furnished me a week ago by . . . all the palmists] Isabel Lyon recorded that on 26 January Clemens visited the palmist John William Fletcher: “At 4 o’clock he came home full of the amusement of it. Fletcher told him that he was to live close onto a century” (Lyon 1907). Fletcher had read a print of Clemens’s palm two years earlier (see AD, 28 Jan 1907, note at 391.21).

  433.31–33 A couple of days ago a gentleman called . . . tariff-revision] S. N. D. North, the head of an American delegation to Germany concerning tariffs, visited Clemens in New York on 10 February, carrying a message from Wilhelm II (Lyon 1907, entry for 10 Feb; “German Tariff Prospects,” New York Times, 28 Jan 1907, 5).

  434.10 “held the age,”] In draw poker as played in the nineteenth century, the player to the dealer’s left was said to “hold the age,” and had to bet before any of the other players could do so.

  Autobiographical Dictation, 19 February 1907

  434 title February 19, 1907] The real date of this dictation is not known; Clemens’s vague chronological statements in the text, taken literally, yield dates ranging from 1904 to 1907. The text survives in a typescript by an unidentified typist; the date adopted here was written at the top by Isabel Lyon. In correspondence with his friend British librarian John Y. W. MacAlister, Clemens identified this essay as a dictation for the Autobiography. MacAlister, a fellow member of the Savage Club, wrote to him on 6 February 1907 (CU-MARK), seeking an original contribution to a volume celebrating the club’s fiftieth anniversary. Clemens replied on 21 February:

  There has been no time at my disposal in which to write something special, so I have taken this out of my vast pile of autobiographical MS. It will appear after my death, along with the rest of my Memoires. It lacks smoothness in spots, but I seldom apply an after-polish, for dictated things are talk, & talk is all the better & all the more natural when it stumbles a little here & there. (NN-BGC)

  The piece was printed in the Savage Club volume as “Mark Twain’s Own Account” (Aaron Watson 1907, 131–35; for the Savage Club, see the note at 435.36).

  434.24–25 About thirty-five years ago (1872) . . . to go to England and get materials for a book] Acting on a suggestion from Joseph Blamire, the New York agent of his London publisher, George Routledge and Sons, Clemens visited England in August–November 1872, and made extensive notes for a travel book that he never completed. On 21 August he sailed from New York on the Scotia and arrived at Liverpool ten days later, traveling by train from Liverpool to London on 2 September (L5: 21 July 1872 to Blamire, 128–31 n. 3; 11 Aug 1872 to OC, 144–45 n. 1; link note following 1 Sept 1872 to OLC, 153).

  435.28 I drove to my publisher’s place . . . The Routledges] The first English edition of The Innocents Abroad was published in 1870 by John Camden Hotten. In the absence of international copyright agreements, he paid Clemens nothing for the privilege. He divided the text into two volumes, The Innocents Abroad and The New Pilgrim’s Progress. Three years earlier, in 1867, the firm of George Routledge and Sons had reprinted The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, also without permission or paym
ent; its sales were promising, and they began to seek exclusive rights to Clemens’s books in England. In mid-1871, as Clemens was about to publish Roughing It through the American Publishing Company, he wrote Elisha Bliss, “Have you heard anything from Routledge? Considering the large English sale he made of one of my other books (Jumping Frog,) I thought may be we might make something if I could give him a secure copyright” (21 June 1871, L4, 410–11). English copyright could be secured on a book by publishing it in England just before it appeared in the United States. This was done with Roughing It, and in early September 1872, when Clemens was going to visit the Routledges in London, they had just published their own two-volume edition of The Innocents Abroad. They became Mark Twain’s favored British publishers, producing authorized English editions of the Jumping Frog, Mark Twain’s Sketches, A Curious Dream, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and The Gilded Age. In 1876, with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Clemens transferred his loyalties to Hotten’s successors, Chatto and Windus (ET&S1, 546–55, 586–610; RI 1993, 876–77).

  435.34–35 I was present in the Sandwich Islands . . . hadn’t had anything to eat for forty-five days] In 1866 Clemens was in Honolulu when the survivors of the Hornet reached the Sandwich Islands after forty-three days adrift at sea. He promptly interviewed the emaciated crew and wrote up the story for the Sacramento Union. Later that year he also wrote “Forty-three Days in an Open Boat,” published in the December issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (SLC 1866a, 1866b). More than thirty years later, in 1898, he wrote about this early experience as an author in “My Debut as a Literary Person”, calling it “Chapter XIV of my unpublished Autobiography” (AutoMT1, 127–49 and notes on 501–6).

  435.36 In the evening Edmund Routledge took me to the Savage Club] Edmund Routledge (1843–99) became a partner in his father’s publishing company in 1865. Clemens’s first visit to the Savage Club was not on his first day in London, but about three weeks later, on 21 September (his after-dinner speech on that occasion is printed as the enclosure with 22 Sept 1872 to Conway [2nd], L5, 172–78). The Savage Club was founded in 1857 as a private and informal club for authors, journalists, and artists. Some believed that the club took its name from poet and playwright Richard Savage (d. 1743), best known from Samuel Johnson’s biography of him. Journalist and novelist George Augustus Sala, on the other hand, asserted that “we dubbed ourselves Savages for mere fun” and “practised a shrill shriek or war-whoop, which was given in unison at stated intervals” (Aaron Watson 1907, 21; L5: 21 Nov 1873 to OLC, 480 n. 2; 22 Sept 1872 to OLC, 169–70 n. 3).

  435.41–42 Tom Hood, Harry Lee, and . . . Frank Buckland] Clemens mentions the following Savage Club members: Tom Hood (1835–74), poet, journalist, anthologist, and son of poet and humorist Thomas Hood (1799–1845); Henry S. Lee (1826–88), self-educated naturalist and author of popular works on marine life; and Francis Trevelyan Buckland (1826–80), physician and prominent natural historian and pisciculturist.

  436.1–15 five five-pound notes . . . tail-coat pocket of my dress suit] On 22 September 1872 Clemens reported the loss of bank notes worth thirty or forty pounds (but not their recovery) in a letter to his wife (L5, 169–70).

  436.20–22 I was a member of the Lotos . . . honorary member of the Savage] Clemens was elected to membership in the Lotos Club in 1873; he became a life member in 1895. He seems to have become an honorary member of the Savage Club in 1897 (Pardee to SLC, 13 Feb 1873, CU-MARK; “Mark Twain a Life Member of the Lotos,” New York Tribune, 25 Apr 1895, 11; Notebook 40, TS p. 19, CU-MARK).

  436.23–24 the King—and Nansen the explorer, and another—Stanley] The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) had been elected to honorary life membership in 1882. Henry M. Stanley received that honor in 1890. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) was elected in 1897, after his historic effort to reach the North Pole in April 1895 (“The Savage Club,” London Morning Post, 13 Feb 1882, 3; Aaron Watson 1907, 135; “Stanley a Savage,” Boston Herald, 26 Feb 1890, 2; for Stanley’s life and exploits see AD, 20 Nov 1906, note at 280.28–33).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 25 February 1907

  436.36–437.7 First came the Larchmont disaster . . . the rest of that great company of men and women and children quickly perished] On the night of 11 February, the Joy Line steamboat Larchmont, bound from Providence to New York, collided with a schooner in Block Island Sound. Nearly all of its estimated one hundred and sixty passengers were killed; fourteen of them froze to death in a lifeboat. Captain George W. McVay and the other Larchmont officers were accused of cowardice for their inadequate rescue efforts. The New York newspapers all printed detailed reports of the disaster; Clemens’s particular source has not been identified (New York Times: “Probably 150 Lost in Wreck,” 13 Feb 1907, 1; “How Survivors Escaped,” 14 Feb 1907, 2; “Another Larchmont Victim,” 16 Feb 1907, 3; “Did All I Could for Others—M’Vay,” 17 Feb 1907, 4).

  438.4 LAST SURVIVORS RESCUED] This article is from the New York Sun of 24 February.

  440.8 BOLT WRECKS 18 HOUR TRAIN] This article appeared in the New York Sun on 24 February.

  441.7–9 official statistics . . . our railroads killed 10,000 persons outright and injured 60,000 others] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 6 January 1907 and the note at 361.2–5.

  441.39 an elder sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe] Either Catharine Beecher (1800–1878) or Mary Beecher Perkins (1805–1900), both of whom lived in Hartford’s Nook Farm neighborhood (Andrews 1950, 17).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 26 February 1907

  442.17–18 I started a club . . . its name is The Human Race] On 6 February 1907 Clemens composed an invitation to William Dean Howells, George Harvey, and Finley Peter Dunne, summoning them to the first meeting of The Human Race on 15 February (CtHMTH). The club’s full name was “The God Damned Human Race,” as is shown by Clemens’s inscription, on 7 February, of a copy of Christian Science to Isabel Lyon in her capacity as “Hon. Sec. G. D. H. R.” (NN-BGC).

  444.42 Queen Wilhelmina and her husband, Prince Henry] Wilhelmina (1880–1962), daughter of King William III of the Netherlands, was married to Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1876–1934). She reigned from 1890 (at first under a regency) until she abdicated in 1948.

  Autobiographical Dictation, 27 February 1907

  445.17 1904. Villa Quarto, Florence, January] This account of Clemens’s first typewriter was dictated in Florence in 1904; Hobby presumably copied a now-lost typescript made at that time by Jean Clemens, who transcribed longhand notes made by Isabel Lyon (see AutoMT1, 19–23).

  445.26–27 I saw a type-machine for the first time . . . I suppose it was 1871—because Nasby was with me] Clemens saw and purchased his first typewriter in the course of a visit to Boston in November 1874. He and Twichell had attempted to walk to that city from Hartford, but gave up at Webster, Massachusetts, and completed the journey by rail. There is no mention of Petroleum V. Nasby (David Ross Locke) either in Clemens’s letters or in Twichell’s journal account of the Boston visit, although Nasby was in fact lecturing in Boston at the time. The typewriter was delivered to Hartford, where Clemens typed his first letter on 9 December (L6: 9 Dec 1874 to OC, 308–10; 13 Nov 1874 to Redpath, 281; for Locke see AutoMT1, 506 n. 146.1–5).

  446.8–9 “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,”] The first line of Felicia Hemans’s poem “Casabianca” (1826), ubiquitous in school recitations (see Tom Sawyer, chapter 21).

  446.13–15 I hired a young woman, and did my first dictating . . . Gothic capitals] Clemens conflates this early period and typewriter with later events and a later typewriter. In Hartford in 1882 Clemens hired a woman typist, whose name is not known, to take down his dictated letters in shorthand and type up her notes. Both the 1874 and the 1882 machines produced all-capital “Gothic” (sans-serif) letters (HF 2003, 687 n. 75; A. A. Stewart 1912, 91; see also the note at 446.29–31).

  446.16 the first letter I dictated . . . was to Edward Bok] Bok (1863–1930) was born in the Netherlands and c
ame to the United States at the age of six. Educated in the Brooklyn public schools, he worked his way into the publishing business. He founded and edited the Brooklyn Magazine (later Cosmopolitan) and, as editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, piloted that magazine to unprecedented popularity. From the great personal fortune he amassed as a publisher and syndicate owner, he funded philanthropic activities and promoted social reforms. The letter Clemens recalls was dated 24 February 1882 (Bok 1922, 204–5):

  I HOPE I SHALL NOT OFFEND YOU; I SHALL CERTAINLY SAY NOTHING WITH THE INTENTION TO OFFEND YOU. I MUST EXPLAIN MYSELF, HOWEVER, AND I WILL DO IT AS KINDLY AS I CAN. WHAT YOU ASK ME TO DO, I AM ASKED TO DO AS OFTEN AS ONE-HALF DOZEN TIMES A WEEK. THREE HUNDRED LETTERS A YEAR! ONE’S IMPULSE IS TO FREELY CONSENT, BUT ONE’S TIME AND NECESSARY OCCUPATIONS WILL NOT PERMIT IT. THERE IS NO WAY BUT TO DECLINE IN ALL CASES, MAKING NO EXCEPTIONS, AND I WISH TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO A THING WHICH HAS PROBABLY NOT OCCURRED TO YOU, AND THAT IS THIS: THAT NO MAN TAKES PLEASURE IN EXERCISING HIS TRADE AS A PASTIME. WRITING IS MY TRADE, AND I EXERCISE IT ONLY WHEN I AM OBLIGED TO. YOU MIGHT MAKE YOUR REQUEST OF A DOCTOR, OR A BUILDER, OR A SCULPTOR, AND THERE WOULD BE NO IMPROPRIETY IN IT, BUT IF YOU ASKED EITHER OF THOSE FOR A SPECIMEN OF HIS TRADE, HIS HANDIWORK, HE WOULD BE JUSTIFIED IN RISING TO A POINT OF ORDER. IT WOULD NEVER BE FAIR TO ASK A DOCTOR FOR ONE OF HIS CORPSES TO REMEMBER HIM BY.