How Not to Get Rich

by Alan Pell Crawford

  “as a solemn fast-day”: Harriet Elinor Smith and Richard Bucci, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 2, 1867–1868 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 57.

  “As security”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 303.

  12. “HOW THE IGNORANT AND INEXPERIENCED SUCCEED”

  “Mr. Samuel L. Clemens”: Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 6, 1874–1875 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 668.

  “big-hearted man”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 56.

  “Certainly there is”: Peter Krass, Ignorance, Confidence, and Filthy Rich Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain, Chronic Speculator and Entrepreneur (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2007), 95–96.

  “an institution”: Ibid.

  “went to pieces”: Frank, Letters, 6, 171.

  “a line of artificial”: Ibid., 55–56.

  “waiting for Jones”: Ibid.

  “There are not many”: Ibid.

  “was prepared to seek”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 305.

  “He believed”: Ibid.

  “The device”: Deborah Smith Pegues and Ricky Temple, Why Smart People Make Dumb Choices (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1982), 158.

  “was driving around”: Neider, Autobiography, 305.

  “the first one”: Ibid.

  “like adding a hundred servants”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 139.

  “profanity-breeding”: Carole Thomas Harnsberger, Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2009), 469.

  “It is my heart-warm”: Ibid.

  13. “A LIE & A FRAUD”

  “I can get along”: Harriet Elinor Smith and Richard Bucci, eds., Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. 2, 1867–1868 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 254.

  “an engine or a furnace”: Charles Neider, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 301.

  “He was a specialist”: Ibid.

  “on a salary”: Ibid., 302.

  “the other dollar”: Ibid.

  “The steam pulley”: Ibid.

  “We’ve quit being poor”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 120.

  “suggested that I reserve it”: Ibid., 127.

  “I am so sorry”: Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 471.

  to Titian: Hamlin Hill, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, 1867–1894 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 117.

  “the best process”: Ibid., 116.

  “will utterly annihilate”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 142.

  “increase the value”: Ibid., 148.

  “I never saw people”: Ibid.

  “If the utility”: Ibid.

  “for wall-paper stamps”: Ibid.

  “who seemed”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 54.

  complete authority: Fred Kaplan, The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 364.

  “were to be”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 154.

  “the case is”: Ibid.

  “took advantage”: Peter Krass, Ignorance, Confidence, and Filthy Rich Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain, Chronic Speculator and Entrepreneur (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2007), 113.

  “be proceeded against”: Ibid., 112.

  “The bubble has burst”: Frederick Anderson, Lin Salamo, and Bernard L. Stein, eds., Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Vol. II (1877–1883) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 393.

  “stole from me”: Griffin, Autobiography, 2, 490.

  “That raven flew out”: Ibid., 54.

  “to a man”: Ibid.

  “I have some good news”: Henry Nash Smith, ed.,Mark Twain–Howells Letters: The Correspondence of Samuel L. Clemens and William D. Howells, 1872–1910(Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1960), 236.

  “that hated property”: Smith, Autobiography, 1, 471.

  14. “THE PROPORTIONS OF MY PROSPERITY”

  “insults, for two months”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 139.

  “Charley, do you”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 358.

  “ten years of swindlings”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 52.

  “skinny, yellow, toothless”: Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 241.

  “nothing about subscription”: Griffin, Autobiography, 2, 53.

  “even Noah got”: Ibid., 58.

  “something entirely new”: Ibid.

  “starting life”: Ibid.

  “to complain about”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 482.

  “No one seems”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 279.

  “greater than literature”: Ibid., 218.

  “thought of nothing else”: Ibid.

  “If you haven’t”: Albert Bigelow Paine, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917), 436.

  “I think that”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 221–23.

  “looked like a cross”: Peter Krass, Ignorance, Confidence, and Filthy Rich Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain, Chronic Speculator and Entrepreneur (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2007), 99.

  “put it aside”: Hamlin Hill, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, 1867–1894 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 307.

  “invented a more expensive”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 279.

  “You haven’t asked”: Robert Pack Browning, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo, eds., Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Vol. III (1883–1891) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 74.

  “Try again”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 291.

  “I was used”: Ibid., 266.

  “I might have”: Ibid., 297.

  “Some people”: Ibid., 279.

  “heave your surplus energies”: Ibid., 267.

  “put in ten or twelve thousand”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015),332.

  “had a number”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. III (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 1151.

  “an early example”: “Not on Mark Twain’s Watch,” Robb Report, August 1, 2007, http://robbreport.com/watches/editors-not-mark-twains-watch.

  “He would remember me”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 652.

  “sweeping out the offices”: Griffin, Autobiography, 2, 61.

  “commercial magnitude”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 800.

  “General, if that”: Ibid.

  “General,” he went on: Ibid., 801.

  “given us”: Paine, Letters, 452.

  “totally free from debt”: Ibid., 467.

  “frightened by the proportions”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 301.

  15. “THIS AWFUL MECHANICAL MIRACLE”

  “which was my study”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 903.

  “I knew all about”: Ibid., 903–4.

  “always taking little chances”: Harriet Elinor Smith, e
d., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 101.

  “bright-eyed, alert”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 904.

  what it “now costs”: Robert Pack Browning, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo, eds., Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Vol. III (1883–1891) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 424.

  “does not get drunk”: Ibid., 147.

  “10 will get work”: Ibid., 437.

  “It is thus”: Frederic Bastiat, The Bastiat Collection (Auburn, AL: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2007), 34.

  “What will it cost?”: Smith, Autobiography, 1, 104.

  “can bankrupt you”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 906.

  “began to calculate”: Ibid.

  “It takes a thousand”: Albert Bigelow Paine, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917), 731–32.

  “inside of twelve months”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 215.

  “all ready to talk”: Ibid.

  “The machine is”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. III (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 907–8.

  “to have unlimited”: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 173.

  “I expect to write”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 515.

  “What a talker”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 965.

  “EUREKA!”: Ibid., 908.

  “This is by far”: Ibid.

  “All the other”: Ibid.

  16. “OUR PROSPERITY BECAME EMBARRASSING”

  “in a sort of delirious”: William Dean Howells, My Mark Twain: Reminiscences and Criticisms, ed. Marilyn Austin Baldwin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1967), 61–62.

  “a couple of pounds”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 361.

  “would cost nearer”: Ibid.

  “You did well”: Ibid., 364.

  “Ah,” she said: Resa Willis, Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 170.

  “coat of bleu stuff”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 388.

  “We were very short”: Ibid.

  “are nearer my size”: Ibid., 364.

  “stir in this household”: Ibid., 261.

  “to send some money”: Ibid., 367.

  “The Greatest Book”: Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 289.

  “going to go ”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 377.

  “We did not consider”: Howells, My Mark Twain, 62.

  “had decided that”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912).

  “sanguine soul”: Kaplan, Mr. Clemens, 290.

  “what we call menial work”: Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) 248–49.

  “I do not love”: Robert Pack Browning, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo, eds., Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Vol. III (1883–1891) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 272.

  “Beecher,” it was said: Barry Werth, Banquet at Delmonico’s (New York: Random House, 2009), 20.

  “If he writes”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 514.

  “a chance to play”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 74.

  “to pass some marked”: Ibid., 73.

  “color went out”: Ibid., 75.

  “the finest suburb”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 323.

  “It was easy”: Griffin, Autobiography, 2, 75.

  “War literature of any kind”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 430.

  “Probably everybody”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 387.

  “Father of Ovariotomy”: Powers, Mark Twain, 536.

  “infinitely grander & finer”: Hamlin Hill, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters to His Publishers, 1867–1894 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 245.

  “Customers had to pay”: Richard Zacks, Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain’s Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 7–8.

  “The faster installment”: Ibid., 8.

  “I am not whining”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 375.

  “the slightest thing”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 386.

  “How long he has been”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 374.

  “an exceedingly hard summer”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 386.

  “an attack of grip”: Columbus (GA) Enquirer, April 29, 1891, 1.

  “Publisher of Gen. Grant’s Memoirs”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 625.

  “want him to drop it”: Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man, 391.

  “You and I”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 395.

  17. “GET ME OUT OF BUSINESS!”

  “I tell [Livy] that”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 961.

  “keep the ship afloat”: Ibid.

  “Mrs. Clemens says”: Ibid., 962.

  “hoped to sell”: Robert Pack Browning, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo, eds., Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Vol. III (1883–1891) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 574.

  “about the same length”: Ibid., 640.

  “I have a vote”: Ibid., 574.

  “the Paradise of the Rheumatics”: Ibid., 623.

  “the disease world’s bathhouse”: Harriet Elinor Smith, ed., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 74.

  “private feed”: Ibid.,456.

  “making a joyful”: Ibid.

  “that baby”: Samuel Charles Webster, Mark Twain, Business Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 396.

  “beyond description”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. III (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 965.

  “is superb, it is perfect”: Browning, Notebooks & Journals, III, 573.

  “It does not seem credible”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 965.

  “That’s a mistake”: Ibid., 964.

  “a most daring and majestic liar”: Fred Kaplan, The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 472.

  “The bloody machine”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 967.

  “Paige and I”: Richard Zacks, Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain’s Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 6.

  “flirting with a good-looking clerk”: Corban Goble, “Mark Twain’s Nemesis: The Paige Compositor,” a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, August 3–6, 1985.

  “We are skimming along”: Kaplan, The Singular Mark Twain, 473.

  “unless we sell”: Ibid., 441.

  “I am terribly tired”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 966.

  18. “HIS MONEY IS TAINTED”

  “drank almost a whole bottle”: Lewis Leary, ed., Mark Twain’s Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers, 1893–1909 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 10.

  “if they go”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 968.

  “Nothing,” he said: Leary, Correspondence with H. H. Rogers, 114.

  “telling her”: Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2005), 554.

  “raced around Wall Street”: Leary, Correspondence with H. H. Rogers, 11.

  “so physically exhausted”: Peter Krass, Ignorance, Confidence, and Filthy Rich Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain, Chronic Speculator and Entrepreneur (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2007), 190.

  “had ventured”: Leary, Correspondence with H. H. Rogers, 11.

&nbs
p; “I want you”: Paine, Mark Twain, II, 970.

  “an irascible and contemptuous”: Leary, Correspondence with H. H. Rogers, 3.

  “as fine a pirate”: Ibid., 5.

  “giant trust”: Ibid., 4–5.

  “grinding up the poor”: Ibid., 7.

  “was of that class”: Ibid., 8.

  “the Artful Dodger”: Richard Zacks, Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain’s Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 25.

  “It’s a pity”: Powers, Mark Twain, 562.

  19. “MARK TWAIN LOSES ALL”

  “men who were there”: Lewis Leary, ed., Mark Twain’s Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers, 1893–1909 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 4.

  “serene, patient”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. III (New York: Chelsea House, 1980), 1659.

  “time is worth”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 161.

  “The only man”: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 231.

  “stop walking”: Albert Bigelow Paine, ed., Mark Twain’s Letters (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917), 596.

  “better than a circus”: Leary, Correspondence with H. H. Rogers, 17.

  “to hang this last”: Ibid., 19.

  “bankrupt, deep in debt”: Richard Zacks, Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain’s Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 19.

  “is the only one”: Ibid.

  “I came up”: Leary, Correspondence with H. H. Rogers, 20.

  “Farewell—a long farewell”: Ibid., 20.

  “a classic hedge”: Zacks, Chasing the Last Laugh, 23–24.

  “devouring every pound”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. II (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912), 984.

  “Failure of Mark Twain,”: Zacks, Chasing the Last Laugh, 28.

  “It is another”: Ibid., 29.

  “my second is to those others”: Ibid., 31.

  “It was confoundedly difficult”: Ibid., 32.

  20. “KNOCKED FLAT ON MY BACK”