Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

by Mark Twain

  185.15–16 revising the Confession of Faith ... chapters 3 and 10 of the Confession] The connection between Clemens’s screed on self-interest and the newspaper clippings that follow it is Presbyterian doctrine, the subject of Trent’s book (see the note at 181.3). In the late nineteenth century, American Presbyterians began to consider revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Debate centered on chapter 3, which states that some souls have been predestined “unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death” (section 3); and chapter 10, which asserts that “elect infants” are saved, while infants (as well as adults) who are “not elected” cannot be saved (sections 3–4). Historically, this latter chapter has been interpreted as damning not only many Christian infants, but also all non-Christians (a fact which may bear upon Clemens’s inclusion of the clipping that follows, about the massacre of Russian Jews). In 1902, the year before the writing of the present essay, the Presbyterian church had adopted a statement endorsing a liberal construction of the disputed chapters; it was appended to the Confession in 1903 (Macpherson 1881, 48, 85–86; Briggs 1890, 21–22, 98–130; “Presbyterian Creed Revision Adopted,” New York Times, 23 May 1902, 5).

  186.27 Westminster Catechism] The catechism based on the Westminster Confession would have been familiar to Clemens from his early religious training (see Fulton 2006, 140–55).

  [Something about Doctors] (Source: MS in CU-MARK, written in 1903)

  188.19–20 Dr. Meredith ... village of Hannibal] Dr. Hugh Meredith (1806–64), born in Pennsylvania, was a personal friend and business associate of Clemens’s father in Florida, Missouri, and then in Hannibal. The two men collaborated in planning improvements in both towns. Dr. Meredith joined the 1849 Gold Rush, but returned in early 1851. For several weeks in the winter of 1851–52 he edited Orion Clemens’s Hannibal Journal while Orion attended to the family’s property in Tennessee (Inds, 335; Wecter 1952, 55; see AD, 28 Mar 1906).

  188.21–22 I have already said ... furnished the drugs himself] See “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It],” written in 1897–98 (215.3–6).

  189.1 his own son Charles] Charles (b. 1833?) was the oldest of Dr. Meredith’s five children. He accompanied his father to the California gold fields, and later made a second trip west (Inds, 335).

  189.21–22 our old family physician, Dr. Taft ... neglected successor] Cincinnatus A. Taft (1822–84) began practicing homeopathic medicine in Hartford in 1846, and became the Clemenses’ physician after they moved there in 1871. He was well loved by his patients; after his death Clemens praised him as a man “full of courteous grace and dignity” whose “heart was firm and strong ... and freighted with human sympathies” (18 July 1884 to the Editor of the Hartford Courant, CtHMTH; 17 Feb 1871 to JLC and family, L4, 333 n. 3). Taft’s “successor” has not been identified; the family did not find another satisfactory physician for several years (19 Apr 1888 to Langdon, CtHMTH).

  189.25 Theron Wales] Theron A. Wales (b. 1842) received his medical degree in 1873 from the University of Pennsylvania, and immediately established a practice in Elmira. According to A History of the Valley and County of Chemung, his “superior literary attainments” earned him a “reputation as a writer upon various topics” (Towner 1892, “Personal References,” 133; L4: SLC and OLC to the Langdons, 9 Feb 1870, 68 n. 6; 22 Feb 1871 to OC, 335 n. 2).

  189.37 our old ex-slave cook, Aunty Cord] Mary Ann (“Auntie”) Cord (1798–1888) was the cook at Quarry Farm, the Cranes’ property near Elmira. Thirteen years after she had been separated from her family by the slave market, she was miraculously reunited with her youngest son, who had escaped to Elmira and become a Union soldier. Clemens wrote a moving account of her history, “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It,” which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in November 1874 (SLC 1874b; 2 Sept 1874 to Howells, L6, 219 n. 2).

  190.10–12 I lectured every night for twenty-three nights ... ship at Vancouver] To recover financially from the failure of the Paige typesetting-machine venture, and the collapse of Charles L. Webster and Company in 1894, Clemens undertook a year-long world lecture tour in July 1895, accompanied by his wife and their daughter Clara. He opened in Cleveland, and made more than twenty appearances in the United States and Canada before embarking from Vancouver for Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, India, Mauritius, and South Africa. In July 1896 they returned to England, where Clemens wrote Following the Equator, based on the trip.

  190.27–30 We were living in Berlin ... congestion of the wind’ard lung] The Clemenses sojourned in Berlin in the winter of 1891–92. Clemens lectured there on 13 January (the occasion has not been further identified), and wrote in his notebook, “Went to our cousin’s (Frau Generalin von Versen) ball, after the lecture; we all came home at 2 am., & I have been in bed ever since—three weeks—with congestion of lungs and influenza” (Notebook 31, TS p. 21, CU-MARK; see AD, 29 Mar 1906, note at 456.25–26).

  190.39–42 Sidney Smith . . . I paid half the bill] Clemens wrote to Dr. Smith on 1 February 1896, complaining about his fee:

  Twenty-five rupees per visit seems unaccountably large, & I have waited, in order to make some inquiries. I find from conversation with some of your well-to-do patients in Bombay that you charge them Rs. 10 per visit.

  There may be some mistake somewhere & it may be that you can explain it. . . . Meantime I enclose cheque for Rs. 40 & will await an explanation of the seemingly extra charge. (CU-MARK)

  [Henry H. Rogers] (Source: TS in CU-MARK, made in 1906 from a 1904 typescript [now lost] of Clemens’s dictation)

  192.15–17 Standard Oil Trust . . . keeps them alive and going] From a small beginning as an oil investor, Rogers had advanced to a position of immense power and wealth. In 1890 he became a vice-president and a director of the Standard Oil Company, and his financial interests extended to natural gas, copper, steel, banking, and railroads. Although generous and amiable with his friends, he earned the sobriquet “hell hound” for his ruthless (and, by more rigorous standards, unethical) business practices (HHR, 2–7).

  194.21 gas suit, wherein Mr. Rogers was sued for several millions of dollars] The lawsuit stemmed from a war for control of gas distribution in Boston that began in 1894. The principal combatants were Rogers, of Standard Oil, and J. Edward Addicks, of the Bay State Gas Company of Delaware (see the note at 196.40). In 1896 the Standard Oil interest won control over all the Boston gas companies, and Addicks abandoned the competition. In the ensuing years, however, a number of disputes developed over control of the various companies and the price of stocks traded in the consolidation transactions. The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed in 1903, was the Bay State Gas Company. Among the defendants were the Massachusetts Gas Companies, a trust formed in 1902 that now controlled the industry in Boston; Kidder, Peabody and Company, the investment banking firm that handled the stock sales; and Henry H. Rogers. The plaintiff alleged that in 1902 some of the stocks were sold at artificially low prices, defrauding the Delaware Company and forcing it into a “fictitious default” (“Industrial Affairs,” Wall Street Journal, 17 June 1903, 5). One of the disputed transactions—the 1896 sale of his Brookline Gas Company—earned Rogers a $3 million profit, money that should have gone to investors. The case was not resolved until 1907, when Rogers agreed to return half of the $3 million (HHR, 76 n. 1, 306 n. 3; New York Times: “Standard Oil in Control,” 1 Nov 1896, 6; “Bay State Gas War Ended,” 21 Jan 1898, 1; “Decision on Gas Merger,” 13 Dec 1903, 17; “Rogers a Defendant in Boston Gas Suit,” 3 Apr 1904, FS2; Chicago Tribune: “Gas Suit for $3,000,000,” 16 Apr 1904, 6; “Rogers to Share Gas Deal Profits,” 1 Feb 1907, 2).

  194.42 Here follows that Boston sketch] The article that follows, a “pen picture” of Rogers as a witness in the gas lawsuit, appeared in the Boston Sunday Post of 27 March 1904. Katharine Harrison, Rogers’s secretary, forwarded Clemens a clipping of the sketch, which he acknowledged in a letter to Rogers of 12 April 1904:

  The Boston sketch has just arrived & I thank that ten
-thousand-dollar secretary of yours for sending it: the one I have read so much about, recently as being as unpumpable as the Sphynx, & the only secretary of her sex that either earns that salary or gets it. That sketch is fine, superfine, gilt-edged; you will live one while before you see it bettered. It is a portrait to the life—in it I see you & I hear you, the same as if I were present; & by help of its vivid suggestiveness my fancy can fill in a lot of things the writer had to leave out for lack of room. (Salm, in HHR, 562)

  195.18 Mr. Winsor] Robert Winsor (1858–1930), a prominent financier, was a partner in the investment banking firm of Kidder, Peabody and Company (“Robert Winsor Dies,” New York Times, 8 Jan 1930, 25).

  195.18–19 famous telephone conversation with Mr. Lawson] Wealthy businessman and stockbroker Thomas W. Lawson (1857–1925) had become an active player in the gas company maneuvers in 1895. In the late 1890s he was the chief promoter and stockbroker in the consolidation of mining properties to form the Amalgamated Copper Company, which made millions for himself, Rogers, and William Rockefeller, but brought financial ruin to many investors. In 1902 he was involved in the transactions that led to the gas lawsuit. He testified that Rogers had offered him $1 million to withdraw his opposition to the reorganization of the New England Gas and Coke Company, a supplier whose indebtedness had forced it into receivership (see the note at 197.14). Rogers denied the charge, offering a different version of a telephone conversation that took place on 8 March 1902. Rogers’s “foul act of perjury,” as Lawson called it, ended their association, and in July 1904 Lawson began a series of articles in Everybody’s Magazine, exposing the rapacious and unethical business machinations of the financial world in general, and Addicks, Standard Oil, and Rogers in particular. In 1905 the articles were collected in a book: Frenzied Finance: The Crime of Amalgamated (Lawson 1905, 2–4, 23–31, 117, 123, 343–45; Adams 1903, 270–71; “Massachusetts Gas Trial,” Wall Street Journal, 26 Mar 1904, 5; New York Times: “Rogers Denies He Got Lawson Million,” 5 Apr 1904, 1; “Calls Rogers Bad Trustee,” 14 Apr 1904, 5).

  195.23 Mr. Whipple] Sherman L. Whipple (1862–1930), the attorney for the plaintiff, was a graduate of Yale Law School and well known for his skill at examining witnesses (“Bay State Gas Hearing,” Washington Post, 3 Oct 1903, 1).

  196.22 Shakspere says one may smile and smile and be a villain] “My tables! Meet it is I set it down / That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” (Hamlet, act 1, scene 5).

  196.40 Mr. Addicks] J. Edward Addicks (1841–1919) was an aggressive financier who established the Bay State Gas Company in 1884. After accumulating a fortune from his gas investments, he turned to speculation in copper mining, participating with Lawson and Rogers in promoting the Amalgamated Copper Company (see the note at 195.18–19). Beginning in 1889 he spent seventeen years trying to win a seat in the U.S. Senate, but failed despite spending an estimated $3 million (“J. E. Addicks of Boston Finance Fame Dies at 78,” Chicago Tribune, 8 Aug 1919, 16).

  197.14 Mr. Whitney] Henry M. Whitney (1839–1923), a Boston “captain of industry,” was largely responsible for the development of the electric streetcar system in the Boston area. In early 1896 he entered the gas business as a new supplier of cheap gas, in competition with the Standard Oil and Addicks interests. His company, the New England Gas and Coke Company, ran into debt in 1902 and was forced to reorganize. Its assets passed to a new trust, the Massachusetts Gas Companies. This trust’s purchase of the stock of the Bay State Company in 1903, allegedly at artificially low prices, was the basis of the current lawsuit (Adams 1903, 259, 266–67, 270–72; Lawson 1905, 134).

  197.14–16 those other people . . . Yacht Club matter] In 1901, a boat that Lawson had built expressly to enter the New York Yacht Club Race was disqualified on the grounds that only members of the club were eligible to compete. A club member was quoted as saying Lawson had previously applied for membership and been blackballed; Lawson denied ever having made an application (“A Club of Snobs,” Washington Post, 9 Mar 1901, 6; “Mr. Lawson Will Challenge Any Yacht,” New York Times, 10 Mar 1901, 1).

  197.49 Senator Allee] James Frank Allee (1857–1938) served as a Republican senator from Delaware from 1903 to 1907.

  [Anecdote of Jean] (Source: MS in CU-MARK)

  199 title Jean] Jean’s life is briefly outlined in the Appendix “Family Biographies” (p. 657).

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN

  Sources: Unless otherwise noted, the texts of Autobiography of Mark Twain are based on one or more typescripts in the Mark Twain Papers: TS1, TS2, TS3, or TS4. These are described in References and, in more detail, in the Introduction and Note on the Text.

  An Early Attempt

  203.1–2 The chapters which immediately follow . . . to put my life on paper] Clemens wrote the title page and “Early Attempt” preface for Autobiography of Mark Twain in June 1906, when he conceived his final plan for the work; his manuscript survives in the Mark Twain Papers. See the Introduction for a discussion of this plan and a facsimile of the manuscript (figures 2–3).

  My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It]

  203 title My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It] ] Clemens wrote this long reminiscence, with several internal chapter breaks, in Vienna over the winter of 1897–98; his manuscript survives in the Mark Twain Papers. A forty-four-page typescript that was made from the manuscript is now lost. Clemens revised the typescript, almost certainly in 1906, shortly before he asked Josephine Hobby to transcribe it (see AD, 9 Jan 1906, note at 250.19–21). Clemens identified this manuscript as “From Chapter II” of his autobiography (see p. 14 for a facsimile of its first page). The manuscript begins with two stanzas from Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám:

  We are no other than a moving row

  Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go

  Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held

  In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

  But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays

  Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;

  Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,

  And one by one back in the Closet lays.

  Collation establishes that Clemens deleted both the chapter designation and the poem on the missing stage, and they are therefore omitted from the text here (see the Textual Commentary, MTPO). He had known and loved Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát since 22 December 1875, when he saw it excerpted on the front page of the Hartford Courant. He recalled in 1907, “No poem had ever given me so much pleasure before, and none has given me so much pleasure since; it is the only poem I have ever carried about with me; it has not been from under my hand for twenty-eight years” (AD, 7 Oct 1907).

  203.8 * * * * So much for the . . . New England branch of the Clemenses] No earlier section about the “New England branch” survives, and it remains unclear whether any previous text was ever written. In his draft of the preface entitled “An Early Attempt,” Clemens first wrote “The chapters which immediately follow constitute a fragment of one of my many attempts (after I was in my forties) to put my life on paper. The first part of it is lost.” He then deleted the second sentence. Clemens’s ancestor Robert Clements (1595–1658) emigrated from England in 1642 and settled in Massachusetts, where he helped establish the town of Haverhill. Robert’s great-grandson Ezekiel (1696–1778)—presumably the “other brother who settled in the South”—first went to Virginia (not Maryland, as Clemens claimed) in about 1743, but did not settle there permanently until about 1765. Clemens descended from Ezekiel through his son Jeremiah (1732–1811) (Lampton 1990, 78–79; Bell 1984, 4–8, 13, 24–25).

  203.10–18 He went South with his particular friend Fairfax . . . American earl . . . Virginia City, Nevada] Clemens was slightly mistaken about the Fairfax family. The title of baron (not earl) was granted to the Fairfax family in 1627, and was not of “recent date.” It was Thomas Fairfax, the third baron (1612–71), grandson of the first baron, who served as general-in-chief of the parlia
mentary armies and won several crucial battles against the forces of Charles I. He resigned his command to Cromwell in 1650, and had no role in the king’s execution. Nine years later he helped to restore the monarchy. In describing the “particular friend” of the “other brother” Clemens probably meant William Fairfax, who emigrated to New England, and later settled in Virginia to manage the family estates. Clemens’s friend was Charles Snowden Fairfax (1829–69), the tenth baron, who was William’s great-great-grandson. Clemens probably met Charles in San Francisco in the early 1860s. He served in the California legislature in 1853 and 1854, and in 1856 was appointed clerk of the state supreme court. The town of Fairfax, in Marin County, where he owned a large estate, was named after him (Burke 1904, 587–88; Ellis 1939, 48–49; Gudde 1962, 100).

  203.21–30 A prominent and pestilent creature . . . let the rascal go] This altercation took place in Sacramento, California, in 1859. Fairfax, the clerk of the state supreme court, quarreled with Harvey Lee (not “Ferguson”) over Lee’s recent appointment as the official reporter of court decisions. Fairfax slapped Lee, who drew a sword from his cane and wounded him in the lung. Fairfax thereupon threatened Lee with a pistol, but refrained from shooting him out of pity for his family (Ellis 1939, 49).

  203.32–33 some of them were pirates . . . so were Drake and Hawkins] Sir Francis Drake (1540–96) and his cousin Sir John Hawkins (1532–95) raided Spanish ships under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I.