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

by Mark Twain

  204.1–4 one of the procession . . . Clement, by name—helped to sentence Charles to death] The ancestor who went to Spain has not been identified. The other putative ancestor, Gregory (not Geoffrey) Clements (1594–1660), was a London merchant and member of Parliament. In January 1649 he was a member of the high court of justice that tried Charles I and signed the king’s death warrant. In 1660, when the monarchy was restored under Charles II, Clements went into hiding, but was found and executed that October. Extensive genealogical research has not revealed any family connection to Gregory; Clemens’s earliest known ancestor was Richard Clements of Leicester (1506–71) (Lampton 1990, 78; Bell 1984, 4–7).

  204.13–14 I am not bitter against Jeffreys] George Jeffreys (1645–89), lord chief justice of England and later lord chancellor, is known as “hanging Judge Jeffreys” for the punishments he handed out at the “bloody assizes” of 1685, when he tried the followers of the duke of Monmouth after their rebellion against James II. In 1688, when the king fled the country, Jeffreys was placed in the Tower of London, where he died the following year.

  204.25–26 William Walter Phelps was our Minister at the Emperor’s Court] Phelps (1839–94), a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, served several terms as a congressman from New Jersey, and briefly as minister to Austria-Hungary (in 1881–82), before being appointed minister to the court of Wilhelm II, the emperor of Germany, in June 1889. Phelps’s amiability and lavish hospitality made him very popular in Berlin society. This dinner no doubt took place in the winter of 1891, during the Clemenses’ sojourn in that city. Clemens already knew Phelps, but the two families became better acquainted during that time (MTB, 3:933).

  204.26–27 Count S., a cabinet minister . . . of long and illustrious descent] In a passage that Clemens deleted from his manuscript, “Count S.” was identified as “the Empress Frederick’s Hofmeister, Count Seckendorff.” The Empress Frederick (1840–1901), the oldest daughter of Queen Victoria, was the widow of Frederick III and the mother of the current emperor. Her “master of the household” and close confidant was Count Goetz von Seckendorff (1841–1910), a lover of literature and the arts (Washington Post: “Von Seckendorff Dead,” 3 Mar 1910, 9; “Revives Court Gossip,” 4 Mar 1910, 1; Victoria 1913, 300–301). In the deleted manuscript passage Clemens further explained, “This nobleman was descended from the Seckendorff whom Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bayreuth, has made immortal in her Memoirs.” This earlier Seckendorff was a minister to King Frederick William I of Prussia. Clemens owned two copies of the Memoirs of the king’s daughter, Princess Wilhelmine (1709–58), published in 1877 and 1887. In 1897 he composed one chapter of a historical fiction about her before abandoning the project (N&J3, 295; Gribben 1980, 2:771–73; SLC 1897c; see Wilhelmine 1877).

  205.18 Among the Virginian Clemenses were Jere. (already mentioned) and Sherrard] Jeremiah Clemens (1814–65) descended from Ezekiel Clemens of Virginia (see the note at 203.8), and was therefore a distant cousin. A lawyer, army officer, newspaper editor, and author, he was a member of the Alabama legislature, and later represented that state as a Democratic U.S. senator (1849–53). At the start of the Civil War he supported the Confederacy, but in 1864 changed allegiance to the Union. Sherrard Clemens (1820–80), another of Ezekiel’s descendants, was trained as a lawyer. He represented Virginia as a Democratic U.S. congressman in 1852–53, and again in 1857–61. The “James Clemens branch” of the family descended from Ezekiel through his son James (1734–95). Clemens was acquainted with James’s grandson, James Clemens, Jr. (1791–1878), a well-to-do doctor in St. Louis (Lampton 1990, 80; 21 June 1866 to JLC and PAM, L1, 346 n. 6; “Sherrard Clemens,” New York Times, 3 June 1880, 5; N&J1, 36 n. 40; Bell 1984, 31–36; see also AD, 9 Feb 1906).

  205.29–36 I was a rebel . . . with that kind of swine] Clemens alludes to his brief stint, at the beginning of the Civil War, in the Marion Rangers, a company in the Missouri State Guard. Although the guard was officially loyal to the Union (see Dempsey 2003, 256–72), the volunteers themselves believed they were fighting for the South: in “The Private History of a Campaign That Failed,” Clemens’s account of the experience, he claimed that he “became a rebel” (SLC 1885b; see the link note following 26 Apr 1861 to OC, L1, 121). By 1868 he had become a Republican, although his allegiance wavered in 1884, when—with the other so-called “mugwumps”—he backed Grover Cleveland against James G. Blaine. In the 1876 election Clemens supported Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who defeated Samuel J. Tilden, a Democrat. At a large Republican rally in Hartford on 30 September 1876, Clemens made a speech in support of Hayes, concluding with an introduction for Connecticut Senator Joseph R. Hawley (“Just Before the Battle,” Hartford Evening Post, 2 Oct 1876, 2, in Scrapbook 8:25–27, CU-MARK; 13 and 14 Feb 1869 to OLL, L3, 97 n. 5; for Hawley see AD, 24 Jan 1906, note at 317.23–24). The only surviving letter from Sherrard Clemens to Clemens was written several weeks before this event, on 2 September, but it suggests that the description here was not exaggerated. Sherrard, evidently reacting to a newspaper notice, wrote:

  I regret, very deeply, to see, that you have announced your adhesion, to that inflated bladder, from the bowels of Sarah Burchard, Rutherford Burchard Hayes. You come, with myself, from Gregory Clemens, the regicide, who voted for the death of Charles and who was beheaded, disembolled, and drawn in a hurdle. It is good, for us, to have an ancestor, who escaped, the ignominy of being hung. But, I would rather have, such an ancestor, than adhere, to such a pitiful ninnyhammer, as Hayes, who is the mere, representative, of wall street brokers, three ball men, Lombardy Jews, European Sioux, class legislation, special priviledges to the few, and denial of equality of taxation, to the many—the mere convenient pimp, of the bondholders and office holders, about 150 thousand people, against over 40.000.000. If you, have, any more opinions for newspaper scalpers, it might be well, for your literary reputation, if you, should keep them to yourself, unless you desire to be considered a “Political Innocent Abroad.” (Sherrard Clemens to SLC, 2 Sept 1876, CU-MARK)

  205.41 married my father in Lexington in 1823, when she was twenty years old and he twenty-four] In autobiographical notes written in 1899 for Samuel Moffett, his nephew, to use as a basis for a biographical essay, Clemens asserted that his parents “began their young married life in Lexington, Ky., with a small property in land & six inherited slaves. They presently removed to Jamestown, Tennessee” (SLC 1899a, 2). Upon reading her son’s essay, which repeated these facts, Pamela Moffett objected: “There are plenty of people who know that your grandma did not belong to the bluegrass region of Kentucky. She was born and brought up in Columbia Adair Co. in the southern part of the state, quite outside of the bluegrass region. She never lived in Lexington, and I doubt if she ever saw the place” (PAM to Moffett, 15 Oct 1899, CU-MARK; Moffett 1899, 523–24). “Lexington” was altered to “Columbia” when the essay was reprinted in book form the following year (SLC 1900a, 314–33). See the Appendix “Family Biographies” (pp. 654–55).

  206.2–6 their first crop of children . . . may have been others] Clemens had six siblings, three of whom died in childhood. Five were born in Tennessee: Orion, Pamela Ann, Pleasant Hannibal (b. 1828 or 1829, died at three months), Margaret (1830–39), and Benjamin (1832–42). Henry (1838–58) was born in Missouri (MTB, 1:5–12; Wecter 1952, 33–36; see “Genealogy of the Clemens Family,” L1, 382–83, and Inds, 311–15).

  206.10–11 “Gilded Age,” a book of mine] In this novel, written by Mark Twain with Charles Dudley Warner (SLC 1873–74), the fictional Tennessee village of Obedstown is based on Clemens’s knowledge of Jamestown.

  206.11–12 My father left a fine estate behind him in the region round about Jamestown—75,000 acres] See the note at 208.37.

  206.19–20 Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati . . . as good wine as his Catawbas] Longworth (1782–1863), known as the “father of American grape culture,” was trained as a lawyer, but his primary interest was in horticulture. His cultivation of the Catawba grape made vit
iculture feasible in Ohio and resulted in a viable wine-making industry in the Cincinnati area.

  206.25–26 James Lampton, who figures in the “Gilded Age” as “Colonel Sellers,”] Colonel Sellers, the irrepressible speculator and visionary in The Gilded Age, was based on James J. Lampton (1817–87), one of Jane Clemens’s first cousins. He was trained in both law and medicine, but later in life had his own business as a cotton and tobacco agent. In the late 1850s he lived in St. Louis, where Clemens often visited when he was a Mississippi River pilot (Inds, 329).

  206.35–36 John T. Raymond’s audiences . . . dying with laughter over the turnip-eating scene] Comic actor John T. Raymond (1836–87), born John O’Brien, achieved his most notable success as Colonel Mulberry Sellers in Colonel Sellers, a theatrical adaptation of The Gilded Age. He opened in the play in New York City on 16 September 1874, and continued to perform the popular role intermittently for the rest of his life. The “turnip-eating scene” is in chapter 11 of the novel (L6: 22? July 1874 to Howells, 195 n. 4; 11 Jan 1875 to Raymond, 346 n. 1; 24 or 25 Aug? 1875 to Raymond, 528 n. 2; “Notes of the Stage,” New York Times, 7 Feb 1887, 4).

  207.12 Frank Mayo] Clemens met Mayo (1839–96) on the West Coast, probably between 1863 and 1865 in San Francisco, when Mayo was the leading actor at Maguire’s Opera House. By the mid-1860s he was appearing in classical roles and character parts on the Boston and New York stages. He was best known for his title role in Davy Crockett, which he enacted more than two thousand times. In 1894 Clemens granted him permission to dramatize Pudd’nhead Wilson, and he appeared as the title character for the first time in April 1895. He died the following year while taking the play on a western tour. Clemens told Mayo’s wife, in his letter of condolence, “We were friends—Frank Mayo and I—for more than thirty years; & my original love for him suffered no decay, no impairment in all that time. All his old friends can say the same; & it is a noble testimony to the sweetness of his spirit & the graces of his character” (16 July 1896 to Mayo, CU-MARK; 9–22 Mar 1872 to Mayo, L5, 61–62 n. 2).

  207.23–28 his name was Eschol Sellers! . . . we changed the name back to Colonel Mulberry Sellers, in the plates] Early impressions of the first edition read “Eschol Sellers”; the American Publishing Company changed the name to “Beriah Sellers” in the plates for later printings. The name became “Mulberry Sellers” in the Gilded Age play and remained so for The American Claimant in 1892 (SLC 1874a, 1892; 8? Nov 1874 to Watterson, L5, 274 n. 2).

  208.1–2 Cable and I were stumping the Union on a reading-tour] See “About General Grant’s Memoirs,” note at 86.12.

  208.6 his son] Lampton had one son, Lewis (b. 1855) (Lampton 1990, 141).

  208.31 Chapter] This is the first of three unnumbered “Chapter” headings within the piece (the others are at 214.31 and 218.24). Although Clemens never supplied the numbers for these headings, he did not delete them, and they have therefore been retained in the present text.

  208.37 That ended the Tennessee Land] See “The Tennessee Land.” Orion’s trade has not been documented. In an 1881 letter, however, Pamela wrote to Orion and his wife, Mollie, “I have some good news to tell you: Charley [Webster] has sold the very last acre of Tennessee land. Is not that something to rejoice over? He traded it for a lot in St. Paul Minn. which was assessed last year at $800. or $850. and this year at $1,050” (20 May 1881, CU-MARK).

  209.24–33 I remember it very well . . . place was alive with ghosts] Clemens’s recollection cannot be entirely accurate: he was nearly four when his family moved to Hannibal in November 1839. Paine asserted that the incident occurred on a summer visit to the Quarles farm in Florida, and Dixon Wecter noted that Clemens was seven or eight at the time (MTB, 1:24–25, 30; Wecter 1952, 52–53; see also AD, 23 Feb 1906). A cousin and childhood playmate of Clemens’s, Tabitha Quarles Greening, related a version of the story that closely resembles his. According to her, the family rode off “leaving little Sam making mud pies on the opposite side of the house”:

  A half hour later my grandfather, Wharton Lampton . . . came riding along and found Sam busily engaged in his culinary work. He appreciated the situation, and, lifting the boy up in front of him, rode after the movers, and when he had traveled seven or eight miles caught up with them. So busy were they contemplating what was then considered a long journey and making plans for their future that the absence of the to-be “Mark Twain” had not been noticed. The matter was taken as a huge joke by all concerned, Sam included, and the journey resumed.

  To those who didn’t know the Clemens family this may seem a little overdrawn, but it is absolutely true. (“Mark Twain’s Boyhood,” New York Times, 11 Nov 1899, 5)

  209.34–38 My brother Henry . . . at that age] Henry did in fact burn his feet sometime before he was fifteen months old, when the family left Florida. Jane Clemens recalled in 1880:

  Henrys nurse was a negro boy they were playing in the yard. Henry was high enough to hold the top of the kettle and peep over. This time there was hot embers he ran into the hot embers bare footed. I set on one chair with a wash bowl on another & held Henry in my armes & his feet in the cold water or he would have gone in to spasems before your father got there from the store with the Dr. Mrs Penn came every day for some time & made egg oil to put on his feet. (JLC to OC, 25 Apr 80, CU-MARK)

  209.41 incident of Benvenuto Cellini and the salamander] Traditional lore asserted that the salamander lived in fire. In his autobiography, the Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71) recalled that when he was five, his father saw a salamander “sporting” in the flames of the fireplace. He boxed his son’s ears to make him “remember that that lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen before by any one of whom we have credible information” (Cellini 1896, 7–8; it is not known which edition of this work Clemens owned: see Gribben 1980, 1:134).

  209.42–210.1 that remarkable and indisputable instance in the experience of Helen Keller] Keller (1880–1968) became blind and deaf after an illness at nineteen months. Taught by Anne Sullivan to communicate with sign language and Braille, she graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904 with honors. Keller was world famous as a writer and social activist, working especially as a tireless advocate for the blind. Clemens had felt great admiration and affection for her since meeting her in March 1894, praising her as “this wonder of all the ages” in chapter 61 of Following the Equator. In Midstream: My Later Life she wrote a moving account of her 1909 visit with Clemens at Stormfield. In a speech later that year he called her “the most marvelous person of her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc” (Fatout 1976, 642). The “indisputable instance” was presumably the recollection of her early illness, especially the tender care of her mother, which she recorded in her autobiography (see AD, 30 Mar 1906, and AD, 20 Nov 1906; Keller 2003, 16; Keller 1929, 47–69).

  210.12–13 In “Huck Finn” and in “Tom Sawyer Detective” I moved it down to Arkansas] The Quarles farm was the prototype for the Phelps farm in Huckleberry Finn and “Tom Sawyer, Detective” (SLC 1896c; Inds, 342).

  211.36–42 “Uncle Dan’l,” a middle-aged slave . . . and even across the Desert of Sahara in a balloon] Quarles freed his “old and faithful servant Dann” in 1855. Daniel appears as Uncle Dan’l in The Gilded Age, and as Jim in Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer Abroad (SLC 1894a), and the stories “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians” (SLC 1884) and “Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy” (SLC 1897–?1902) (Inds, 316–17).

  212.32–34 I used Sandy once, also; it was in “Tom Sawyer;” . . . I do not remember what name I called him by in the book] Sandy appears in chapters 1 and 2 of Tom Sawyer as Jim, “the small colored boy” (Inds, 346).

  213.20 coleoptera] Bats belong to the order Chiroptera, not Coleoptera (beetles).

  213.33–36 “Injun Joe” the half-breed . . . I starved him entirely to death in the cave, but that was in the interest of art; it never happened] Injun Joe is found dead in chapter 33 of Tom Sawyer. His prototype has
not been identified. Several Hannibal residents thought that he was based on a half-Cherokee man named Joe Douglas, but Douglas himself claimed that he did not arrive in Hannibal until 1862, nine years after Clemens had left. In 1902 Clemens noted, “If this man you speak of is Injun Jo . . . he must be about 95 years old. The half-breed Indian who gave me the idea of the character was about 35 years old 60 years ago” (“Tom Sawyer Characters in Hannibal,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, 2 June 1902, 5; “Recalling Days of Old,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1 June 1902, 4; “Mark Twain’s Reunion,” New York Herald, 15 June 1902, section V:9; Wecter 1952, 151, 299 n. 30; Edgar White 1924, 53).

  213.36–37 “General” Gaines, who was our first town-drunkard before Jimmy Finn got the place] Gaines was one of the sources for the character of Huck’s father in Huckleberry Finn, and Clemens used his expression “Whoop! Bow your neck and spread!” in the speech of a raftsman in chapter 3 of Life on the Mississippi. Gaines also appears in chapter 1 of “Huck and Tom among the Indians” and in the working notes for “Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy” (20 Feb 1870 to Bowen, L4, 50; HF 2003, 110, 407–11; Inds, 33–81, 134–213, 319–20; HH&T, 383). James Finn (d. 1845) was the primary model for Huck’s father. In chapter 56 of Life on the Mississippi, Clemens wrote that he died “a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination of delirium tremens and spontaneous combustion.” He also mentioned Finn in a letter to the San Francisco Alta California published on 26 May 1867 (SLC 1867h), and in chapter 23 of A Tramp Abroad (Inds, 318–19; see also AD, 8 Mar 1906).

  214.3–4 The girl was the daughter of a St. Louis surgeon of extraordinary ability and wide celebrity] Joseph Nash McDowell (1805–68), originally from Kentucky, was a brilliant anatomist and teacher who was notorious for his eccentric behavior. (For example, after an armed mob attacked him for robbing a grave, he claimed that the light from a halo worn by his mother’s ghost had helped him to escape.) In 1840 he founded McDowell College in St. Louis, the first medical school west of the Mississippi, where for twenty years he had a thriving surgical practice. During the Civil War he served as a surgeon for the Confederacy. In the 1840s he bought a large cave near Hannibal (the model for “McDougal’s cave” in chapters 29–33 of Tom Sawyer), locked it, and stored his daughter’s corpse there to see if the limestone in the cavern would “petrify” it. In chapter 55 of Life on the Mississippi, Clemens wrote that McDowell turned the cave into a “mausoleum for his daughter” (Ober 2003, 81–93; see AD, 16 Mar 1906, 418.29–419.8 and notes).