A Family Sketch and Other Private Writings

by Twain, Mark, Griffin, Benjamin

  • • •

  What kind of family is sketched here?

  It revolves, naturally, around Mark Twain. The subject of Susy’s biography is a paragon, perfect except for his teeth; and what a moment she catches him at! Here is “papa,” just turned fifty, with birthday encomia arriving from famous writers around the world; here he is, publishing the memoirs of his friend Ulysses S. Grant, and arranging a personal audience for Susy; here he is, having just published a book called Huckleberry Finn, and writing one called A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The family would have revolved around the father anyway, given the customs of the time; given in addition that he is Mark Twain, this was doubly certain.

  With present good fortune comes apprehensiveness about the future, a quality not absent from Livy’s 1885 diary, and expressed more complexly by Mark Twain. He does not suppress a morbid strain in his accounts of the children’s dangers and narrow scrapes: the fires and dunkings and perilous heights, the near-tragedy in the Oat Bin. What are we to see in his small ghoulishnesses: the parent’s relief at having escaped the worst? Or is it showmanship, the will to keep us at the edge of our seats, like the spellbound audience of “The Golden Arm”? In Mark Twain’s case, can the two impulses even be distinguished?

  The household religion, we gather, is essentially the religion of Livy’s family—endorsed, of course, by her husband, who seems to have muted his skepticism for the children’s sake. It is a liberal and nearly demythologized faith; yet God is distinctly present to the children’s minds. God has ordained whatever exists, and is allowed to stay up all night. The moral and ethical character of Jesus is stressed, and prayer is believed to be efficacious; but spiritualist innovations (“the Mind Cure”) are also tried. Reverence is expected of the children, yet their naïve blasphemies are secretly enjoyed by the parents, and are treasured up in the book of “Small Foolishnesses.” In Susy, the intellectual prodigy, we see a growing theological sophistication. In her observation that, as the Indians “were wrong” heretofore, we may be wrong now, she has rediscovered in her own person the suspension of dogmatic conclusions that defines liberal theology; from which follows naturally her minimalist prayer, simply “that there may be a God—and a heaven—OR SOMETHING BETTER.” Mark Twain watches her moral and intellectual development, fascinated.

  Personal morals are strict. Corporal punishments—spanking (“the spat”), the punitive trip with the parent to “the bathroom”—are employed. Clara has a knack of enjoying her punishments; Susy’s nervous intensity is already punishment enough. Lying is always wrong. (“They did not get this prejudice from me,” Mark Twain comments.) The parents’ campaign against the children’s apparently innate mendacity is unsparing; when it finally takes effect, the girls “lean toward an almost hypercritical exactness”; a subtle revenge. The Golden Rule, attention to how the Other must feel, is consciously driven home.

  The high moral tone is relieved occasionally by clowning, mostly instigated or inspired by Mark Twain. Susy enjoys and records her father’s crude Western anecdotes, his homely ode to the donkey, and his parody (she thinks it is his) of the hymn “There is a happy land.” Gentility and decency are tempered by these eruptions of frontier life, a life the girls knew and enjoyed—at second hand. The legend, for it was already that, of Mark Twain’s life was a shared possession. With his raw Western youth counterpointing his respectable maturity, he seemed to straddle two worlds. Their own world, of genteel femininity, is sharply circumscribed, after the fashion of the time. Clemens was not entirely facetious when he said of his daughters: “I have carefully raised them as young ladies who don’t know anything and can’t do anything.”9 Being a lady excluded most gainful or useful employments; the Clemenses, progressive in many respects, were orthodox in this. But of course the girls were highly educated. With their mother and a series of tutors they studied music, history, languages (German, French, and Latin), and the sciences.

  For all its value as a kind of group biography, this volume is far from complete. In the early 1890s, bad investments and business troubles drove Mark Twain to economize by moving the family to Europe; the Hartford house was shuttered, and the summers at Quarry Farm were no more. Information about the Clemenses’ lives after these events is basically beyond the scope of this collection, and must be sought elsewhere. The sketches of the Clemenses in the Biographical Directory could be a jumping-off point. Neider’s introduction (in Papa) contains information on Susy’s later years. Clara published My Father, Mark Twain in 1931. Mark Twain chronicled his own life, private and public, in his unorthodox Autobiography; the Mark Twain Project is in the process of publishing a critical, annotated edition.10

  One consequence of publishing these private and unpolished documents together is that there are repetitions or reduplications of several sayings or incidents. If the book is read straight through, Jean’s theological perplexity about the ducks will be encountered three times; Rosina Hay will be identified on five separate occasions as a “German nurse”; and so forth. It has been thought better to accept these repetitions than to alter the texts; repetition is the very life of anecdote.

  Brief explanations of some of the less readily grasped allusions will be found in About the Texts at the back of this volume, which also describes the manuscripts and their treatment by the editor. The Biographical Directory identifies persons, focusing on their relation to the Clemens family; it includes somewhat fuller entries on the Clemens family themselves.

  The Mark Twain Project hopes that this publication will be welcome to that elusive person to whom our author is so much indebted—the general reader; and that easy access to sound texts of these manuscripts will be useful to Mark Twain specialists, literary researchers, and historians of the family.

  Benjamin Griffin

  Berkeley, 2014

  NOTES

  (Book titles abbreviated here are given in full in Works Cited.)

  1. Lyon 1907, entry for 14 January.

  2. Letter to William Dean Howells, 2 September 1874: L6, 217.

  3. In his study of the manuscript of “A True Story,” Makoto Nagawara notes that some of these spatial effects are the result of careful revision (Nagawara 1989).

  4. AutoMT2, 222.

  5. On 12 August 1877, Livy wrote her husband from Quarry Farm:

  This afternoon Susie and I had a rather sad time because she told me a lie—she felt very unhappy about it—This evening after her prayer I prayed that she might be forgiven for it, then I said “Susie don’t you want to pray about it and ask for your self to be forgiven?” She said “Oh one is enough”—(Mark Twain Papers).

  6. This quotation, and the block quotation which follows it, are from the Susy Memorial Manuscripts, Box 31a, no. 4a (Mark Twain Papers). The quotation beginning “the dearest compliment . . .” is from “Small Foolishnesses”; see page 93.

  7. Clemens spoke to his secretary Isabel Lyon of doing this even after he had quoted much of Susy’s book in his Autobiography. She wrote:

  Then after dinner when I had played the Lohengrin Wedding March 3 times while he lay curled up in a corner of the couch with his black cape wrapped about him, we talked a little about music, & then he talked about what he wants done with the parts of Susy’s biography of him as it appears in the Autobiography. When he is gone he would like to have it published in book form,—Susy’s biography of him & his comment upon it, for that will stand as a memorial of her (Lyon 1907, entry for 14 January).

  8. AutoMT1, 338.

  9. Clemens made this remark in a statement before the Senate and House Committees on Patents, 7 December 1906; see AutoMT2, 338.

  10. Clara Clemens 1931. A selective list of further reading on the Clemens family might start with Albert Bigelow Paine’s authorized biography of Mark Twain (MTB), and continue with Lawton 1925; Harnsberger 1960 and 1982; Salsbury 1965; and Jerome and Wisbey 2013. “The Loveliest Home That Ever Was” (Courtney 2011) is a finely illustrated book on the Clemenses’ Hartford house.
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  MARK TWAIN

  A Family Sketch

  Susy was born in Elmira, New York, in the house of her grandmother, Mrs. Olivia Langdon, on the 19th of March, 1872, and after tasting and testing life and its problems and mysteries under various conditions and in various lands, was buried from that house the 20th of August, 1896, in the twenty-fifth year of her age.

  She was a magazine of feelings, and they were of all kinds and of all shades of force; and she was so volatile, as a little child, that sometimes the whole battery came into play in the short compass of a day. She was full of life, full of activity, full of fire, her waking hours were a crowding and hurrying procession of enthusiasms, with each one in its turn differing from the others in origin, subject and aspect. Joy, sorrow, anger, remorse, storm, sunshine, rain, darkness—they were all there: they came in a moment, and were gone as quickly. Her approval was passionate, her disapproval the same, and both were prompt. Her affections were strong, and toward some her love was of the nature of worship. Especially was this her attitude toward her mother. In all things she was intense: in her this characteristic was not a mere glow, dispensing warmth, but a consuming fire.

  Her mother was able to govern her, but any others that attempted it failed. Her mother governed her through her affections, and by the aids of tact, truthfulness barren of trick or deception, a steady and steadying firmness, and an even-handed fairness and justice which compelled the child’s confidence. Susy learned in the beginning that there was one who would not say to her the thing which was not so, and whose promises, whether of reward or punishment, would be strictly kept; that there was one whom she must always obey, but whose commands would not come in a rude form or with show of temper.

  As a result of this training, Susy’s obediences were almost always instant and willing, seldom reluctant and half-hearted. As a rule they were automatic, through habit, and cost no noticeable effort. In the nursery—even so early—Susy and her mother became friends, comrades, intimates, confidants, and remained so to the end.

  While Susy’s nursery-training was safeguarding her from off ending other people’s dignity, it was also qualifying her to take care of her own. She was accustomed to courteous speech from her mother, but in a Record which we kept for a few years of the children’s small sayings and doings I find note—in my handwriting—of an exception to this rule:

  One day Livy and Mrs. George Warner were talking earnestly in the library. Susy, who was playing about the floor, interrupted them several times; finally Livy said, rather sharply, “Susy, if you interrupt again, I will send you to the nursery.” A little later Livy saw Mrs. W. to the door; on the way back she saw Susy on the stairs, laboring her way up on all fours, a step at a time, and asked—

  “Where are you going, Susy?”

  “To the nursery, mamma.”

  “What are you going up there for, dear—don’t you want to stay with me in the library?”

  Susy was tempted—but only for a moment. Then she said with a gentle dignity which carried its own reproach—

  “You didn’t speak to me right, mamma.”

  She had been humiliated in the presence of one not by right entitled to witness it. Livy recognised that the charge was substantially just, and that a consideration of the matter was due—and possibly reparation. She carried Susy to the library and took her on her lap and reasoned the case with her, pointing out that there had been provocation. But Susy’s mind was clear, and her position definite: she conceded the provocation, she conceded the justice of the rebuke, she had no fault to find with those details; her whole case rested upon a single point—the manner of the reproof—a point from which she was not to be diverted by ingenuities of argument, but stuck patiently to it, listening reverently and regard fully, but returning to it in the pauses and saying gently, once or twice, “But you didn’t speak to me right, mamma.” Her position was not merely well selected and strong—by the laws of conduct governing the house it was impregnable; and she won her case, her mother finally giving the verdict in her favor and confessing that she had not “spoken to her right.”

  Certain qualities of Susy’s mind are revealed in this little incident—qualities which were born to it and were permanent. It was not an accident that she perceived the several points involved in the case and was able to separate those which made for her mother from the point which made for herself, it was an exercise of a natural mental endowment which grew with her growth and remained an abiding possession.

  Clara Langdon Clemens was born June 8th, 1874, and this circumstance set a new influence at work upon Susy’s development. Mother and father are but two—to be accurate, they are but one and a tenth—and they do their share as developers: but along a number of lines certain other developers do more work than they, their number being larger and their opportunities more abundant—i.e. brothers and sisters and servants. Susy was a blonde, Clara a brunette, and they were born with characters to match. As time wore along, the ideals of each modified the ideals and affected the character of the other; not in a large degree of course, but by shades.

  Both children had good heads, but not equipped in the same way; Susy, when her spirit was at rest, was reflective, dreamy, spiritual, Clara was at all times alert, enterprising, business-like, earthy, orderly, practical. Some one said Susy was made of mind, Clara of matter—a generalization justified by appearances, at the time, but unjust to Clara, as the years by and by proved. In her early years Clara quite successfully concealed some of the most creditable elements of her make-up. Susy was sensitive, shrinking; and in danger timid; Clara was not shrinking, not timid, and she had a liking for risky ventures. Susy had an abundance of moral courage, and kept it up to standard by exercising it.

  In going over the Record which we kept of the children’s remarks, it would seem that we set down Susy’s because they were wise, Clara’s because they were robustly practical, and Jean’s because they happened to be quaintly phrased.a

  In Susy’s and Clara’s early days, nine months of the year were spent in the house which we built in Hartford, Connecticut. It was begun the year that Susy was born—1872—and finished and occupied in Clara’s birth year—1874.

  In those long-past days we were diligent in the chase, and the library was the hunting-ground—“jungle,” by fiction of fancy—and there we hunted the tiger and the lion. I was the elephant, and bore Susy or Clara on my back—and sometimes both—and they carried the guns and shot the game. George, the colored ex-slave, was with us then; first and last he was in our service 18 years, and was as good as he was black—servant, in the matter of work, member of the family in the closer ties and larger enthusiasms of play. He was the lion—also the tiger; but preferably tiger, because as lion his roaring was over-robust, and embarrassed the hunt by scaring Susy. The elephant is left, and one of the hunters; but the other is at rest, and the tiger; and the hunting days are over.

  The Clemenses’ Hartford house, 351 Farmington Avenue; today the Mark Twain House and Museum.

  In the early days Patrick McAleer, the coachman, was with us—and had been with us from our wedding day, February 2, 1870. He was with us twenty-two years, marrying soon after he came to us, and rearing eight children while in our service, and educating them well.

  Rosa, the German nurse, was a part of the household in the early years, and remained twelve.

  Katy was a cotemporary of hers and George’s and Patrick’s; was with us in Europe twice, and is with us now. To the majority of our old personal friends these names will be familiar; they will remember their possessors ,and they will remember, also, that each was an interesting character, and not commonplace.

  They would not be able to forget George, the colored man. I can speak of him at some length, without impropriety, he being no longer of this world nor caring for the things which concern it.

  George was an accident. He came to wash some windows, and remained half a generation. He was a Maryland slave by birth; the Proclamation set him free, and as a young
fellow he saw his fair share of the Civil War as body servant to General Devens. He was handsome, well built, shrewd, wise, polite, always good-natured, cheerful to gaiety, honest, religious, a cautious truth-speaker, devoted friend to the family, champion of its interests, a sort of idol to the children and a trial to Mrs. Clemens—not in all ways but in several. For he was as serenely and dispassionately slow about his work as he was thorough in parts of it; he was phenomenally forgetful; he would postpone work any time to join the children in their play if invited, and he was always being invited, for he was very strong, and always ready for service as horse, camel, elephant or any other kind of transportation required; he was fond of talking, and always willing to do it in the intervals of work—also willing to create the intervals; and finally, if a lie could be useful to Mrs. Clemens he would tell it. That was his worst fault, and of it he could not be cured. He placidly and courteously disposed of objections with the remark—

  “Why, Mrs. Clemens, if I was to stop lying you couldn’t keep house a week.”

  He was invaluable; for his large wisdoms and his good nature made up for his defects. He was the peace-maker in the kitchen—in fact the peace keeper, for by his good sense and right spirit and mollifying tongue he adjusted disputes in that quarter before they reached the quarrel-point. The materials for war were all there. There was a time when we had a colored cook—Presbyterian; George—Methodist; Rosa, German nurse— Lutheran; Katy, American-Irish—Roman Catholic; Kosloffska, Pole, wet-nurse—Greek Catholic; “English Mary,” some kind of a non-conformist; yet under George’s benignant influence and capable diplomacy it was a Barnum’s Happy Family, and remained so.

  There was nothing commonplace about George. He had a remarkably good head; his promise was good, his note was good; he could be trusted to any extent with money or other valuables; his word was worth par, when he was not protecting Mrs. Clemens or the family interests or furnishing information about a horse to a person he was purposing to get a bet out of; he was strenuously religious, he was deacon and autocrat of the African Methodist Church; no dirt, no profanity, ever soiled his speech, and he neither drank nor smoked; he was thrifty, he had an acute financial eye, he acquired a house and a wife not very long after he came with us, and at any time after his first five years’ service with us his check was good for $10,000. He ruled his race in the town, he was its trusted political leader, and (barring election-eve accidents) he could tell the Republican Committee how its vote would go, to a man, before the polls opened on election day. His people sought his advice in their troubles, and he kept many a case of theirs out of court by settling it himself. He was well and creditably known to the best whites in the town, and he had the respect and I may say the warm friendly regard of every visiting intimate of our house. Added to all this, he could put a lighted candle in his mouth and close his lips upon it. Consider the influence of a glory like that upon our little kids in the nursery. To them he was something more than mortal; and to their affection for him they added an awed and reverent admiration.