by Mark Twain
SLC
I want Fred Grant (in uniform) on the stage; also the rest of the officials of the Association; also other distinguished people—all the attractions we can get. Also, a seat for Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine, who may be useful to me if he is near me and on the front.
SLC
Private and Confidential.
Wednesday, March 21, 1906
Mental telegraphy—Letter from Mr. Jock Brown—Search for Dr. John Brown’s
letters a failure—Mr. Twichell and his wife, Harmony, have an adventure
in Scotland—Mr. Twichell’s picture of a military execution—Letter relating
to foundation of the Players Club—The mismanagement which caused
Mr. Clemens to be expelled from the Club—He is now an honorary member.
Certainly mental telegraphy is an industry which is always silently at work—oftener than otherwise, perhaps, when we are not suspecting that it is affecting our thought. A few weeks ago when I was dictating something about Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh and our pleasant relations with him during six weeks there, and his pleasant relations with our little child, Susy, he had not been in my mind for a good while—a year, perhaps—but he has often been in my mind since, and his name has been frequently upon my lips and as frequently falling from the point of my pen. About a fortnight ago I began to plan an article about him and about Marjorie Fleming, whose first biographer he was, and yesterday I began the article. To-day comes a letter from his son Jock, from whom I had not previously heard for a good many years. He has been engaged in collecting his father’s letters for publication. This labor would naturally bring me into his mind with some frequency, and I judge that his mind telegraphed his thoughts to me across the Atlantic. I imagine that we get most of our thoughts out of somebody else’s head, by mental telegraphy—and not always out of heads of acquaintances but, in the majority of cases, out of the heads of strangers; strangers far removed—Chinamen, Hindoos, and all manner of remote foreigners whose language we should not be able to understand, but whose thoughts we can read without difficulty.
7 GREENHILL PLACE
EDINBURGH
8th March, 1906.
Dear Mr Clemens,
I hope you remember me, Jock, son of Dr John Brown. At my father’s death I handed to Dr J. T. Brown all the letters I had to my father, as he intended to write his life, being his cousin and life long friend. He did write a memoir, published after his death in 1901, but he made no use of the letters and it was little more than a critique of his writings. If you care to see it I shall send it. Among the letters which I got back in 1902 were some from you and Mrs Clemens. I have now got a large number of letters written by my father between 1830 and 1882 and intend publishing a selection in order to give the public an idea of the man he was. This I think they will do. Miss E. T. MacLaren is to add the necessary notes. I now write to ask you if you have letters from him and if you will let me see them and use them. I enclose letters from yourself and Mrs Clemens which I should like to use, 15 sheets typewritten. Though I did not write as I should to you on the death of Mrs Clemens, I was very sorry to hear of it through the papers, and as I now read these letters, she rises before me, gentle and loveable as I knew her. I do hope you will let me use her letter, it is most beautiful. I also hope you will let me use yours....
I am
Yours very sincerely
John Brown
We have searched for Doctor John’s letters but without success. I do not understand this. There ought to be a good many, and none should be missing, for Mrs. Clemens held Doctor John in such love and reverence that his letters were sacred things in her eyes and she preserved them and took watchful care of them. During our ten years’ absence in Europe many letters and like memorials became scattered and lost, but I think it unlikely that Doctor John’s have suffered this fate. I think we shall find them yet.
These thoughts about Jock bring back to me the Edinburgh of thirty-three years ago, and the thought of Edinburgh brings to my mind one of Reverend Joe Twichell’s adventures. A quarter of a century ago, Twichell and Harmony, his wife, visited Europe for the first time, and made a stay of a day or two in Edinburgh. They were devotees of Scott, and they devoted that day or two to ransacking Edinburgh for things and places made sacred by contact with the Magician of the North. Toward midnight, on the second night, they were returning to their lodgings on foot; a dismal and steady rain was falling, and by consequence they had George street all to themselves. Presently the rainfall became so heavy that they took refuge from it in a deep doorway, and there in the black darkness they discussed with satisfaction all the achievements of the day. Then Joe said:
“It has been hard work, and a heavy strain on the strength, but we have our reward. There isn’t a thing connected with Scott in Edinburgh that we haven’t seen or touched—not one. I mean the things a stranger could have access to. There is one we haven’t seen, but it’s not accessible—a private collection of relics and memorials of Scott of great interest, but I do not know where it is. I can’t get on the track of it. I wish we could, but we can’t. We’ve got to give the idea up. It would be a grand thing to have a sight of that collection, Harmony.”
A voice out of the darkness said “Come up stairs and I will show it to you!”
And the voice was as good as its word. The voice belonged to the gentleman who owned the collection. He took Joe and Harmony up stairs, fed them and refreshed them; and while they examined the collection he chatted and explained. When they left at two in the morning they realized that they had had the star time of their trip.
Joe has always been on hand when anything was going to happen—except once. He got delayed in some unaccountable way, or he would have been blown up at Petersburg when the mined defences of that place were flung heavenward in the Civil War.
When I was in Hartford the other day he told me about another of his long string of providential opportunities. I think he thinks Providence is always looking out for him when interesting things are going to happen. This was the execution of some deserters during the Civil War. When we read about such things in history we always have one and the same picture—blindfolded men kneeling with their heads bowed; a file of stern and alert soldiers fronting them with their muskets ready; an austere officer in uniform standing apart who gives sharp terse orders, “Make ready. Take aim. Fire!” There is a belch of flame and smoke, the victims fall forward expiring, the file shoulders arms, wheels, marches erect and stiff-legged off the field, and the incident is closed.
Joe’s picture is different. And I suspect that it is the true one—the common one. In this picture the deserters requested that they might be allowed to stand, not kneel; that they might not be blindfolded, but permitted to look the firing file in the eye. Their request was granted. They stood erect and soldierly; they kept their color, they did not blench; their eyes were steady. But these things could not be said of any other person present. A General of Brigade sat upon his horse white-faced—white as a corpse. The officer commanding the squad was white-faced—white as a corpse. The firing file were white-faced, and their forms wobbled so that the wobble was transmitted to their muskets when they took aim. The officer of the squad could not command his voice, and his tone was weak and poor, not brisk and stern. When the file had done its deadly work it did not march away martially erect and stiff-legged. It wobbled.
This picture commends itself to me as being the truest one that any one has yet furnished of a military execution.
In searching for Dr. Brown’s letters—a failure—we have made a find which we were not expecting. Evidently it marks the foundation of the Players Club, and so it has value for me.
Daly’s Theatre
UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF AUGUSTIN DALY. MANAGERS OFFICE.
New York, Jan 2d 1888.
Mr Augustin Daly will be very much pleased to have Mr S. L. Clemens meet Mr Booth, Mr Barrett and Mr Palmer and a few friends at Lunch on Friday next January 6th (at one oclock in
Delmonico’s) to discuss the formation of a new club which it is thought will claim your interest.
R.S.V.P.
All the founders, I think, were present at that luncheon—among them Booth, Barrett, Palmer, General Sherman, Bispham, Aldrich, and the rest. I do not recall the other names. I think Laurence Hutton states in one of his books that the Club’s name—The Players—had been already selected and accepted before this luncheon took place, but I take that to be a mistake. I remember that several names were proposed, discussed, and abandoned at the luncheon; that finally Thomas Bailey Aldrich suggested that compact and simple name, The Players; and that even that happy title was not immediately accepted. However the discussion was very brief. The objections to it were easily routed and driven from the field, and the vote in its favor was unanimous.
I lost my interest in the Club three years ago—for cause—but it has lately returned to me, to my great satisfaction. Mr. Booth’s bequest was a great and generous one—but he left two. The other one was not much of a benefaction. It was Magonigle, a foolish old relative of his who needed a support. As Secretary he governed the Club and its Board of Managers like an autocrat from the beginning until three or four months ago, when he retired from his position superannuated. From the beginning, I left my dues and costs to be paid by my business agent in Hartford—Mr. Whitmore. He attended to all business of mine. I interested myself in none of it. When we went to Europe in ’91 I left a written order in the Secretary’s office continuing Whitmore in his function of paymaster of my club dues. Nothing happened until a year had gone by. Then a bill for dues reached me in Europe. I returned it to Magonigle and reminded him of my order, which had not been changed. Then for a couple of years the bills went to Whitmore, after which a bill came to me in Europe. I returned it with the previous remarks repeated. But about every two years the sending of bills to me would be resumed. I sent them back with the usual remarks. Twice the bills were accompanied by offensive letters from the Secretary. These I answered profanely. At last we came home, in 1901. No bills came to me for a year. Then we took a residence at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, and straightway came a Players bill for dues. I was aweary, aweary, and I put it in the waste-basket. Ten days later the bill came again, and with it a shadowy threat. I waste-basketed it. After another ten days the bill came once more, and this time the threat was in a concreted condition. It said very peremptorily that if the bill were not paid within a week I would be expelled from the Club and posted as a delinquent. This went the way of its predecessors into the waste-basket. On the named day I was expelled and posted—and I was much gratified, for I was tired of being Magonigled every little while.
1901
Robert Reid, David Munro, and other special friends in the Club were astonished and put themselves in communication with me to find out what this strange thing meant. I explained to them. They wanted me to state the case to the Management and require a reconsideration of the decree of expulsion, but I had to decline that proposition. And therefore things remained as they were until a few months ago when the Magonigle retired from the autocracy. The boys thought that my return to the Club would be plain and simple sailing now, but I thought differently. I was no longer a member. I could not become a member without consenting to be voted for like any other candidate, and I would not do that. The Management had expelled me upon the mere statement of a clerk that I was a delinquent. Neither they nor the clerk could know whether I ever received those bills and threats or not, since they had been transmitted by the mail. They had not asked me to testify in my defence. Their books would show that I had never failed to pay, and pay promptly. They might properly argue from that that I had not all of a sudden become a rascal, and that I might be able to explain the situation if asked. The Board’s whole proceeding had been like all the Board’s proceedings from the beginning—arbitrary, insolent, stupid. That Board’s proper place, from the beginning, was the idiot asylum. I could not allow myself to be voted for again, because from my view of the matter I had never lawfully and legitimately ceased to be a member. However, when Providence disposed of Magonigle, a way fair and honorable to all concerned was easily found to bridge the separating crack. I was made an honorary member, and I have been glad to resume business at the old stand.
Thursday, March 22, 1906
Susy’s Biography—Langdon’s illness and death—Susy tells of interesting
men whom her father met in England and Scotland—Dr. John Brown,
Mr. Charles Kingsley, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, Sir Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry
Irving, Robert Browning, Sir Charles Dilke, Charles Reade, William
Black, Lord Houghton, Frank Buckland, Tom Hughes, Anthony Trollope,
Tom Hood, Dr. MacDonald, and Harrison Ainsworth—Mr. Clemens tells
of meeting Lewis Carroll—Of luncheon at Lord Houghton’s—Letters
from Mr. and Mrs. Clemens to Dr. Brown—Mr. Clemens’s regret that
he did not take Mrs. Clemens for last visit to Dr. Brown.
I stopped in the middle of mamma’s early history to tell about our tripp to Vassar because I was afraid I would forget about it, now I will go on where I left off. Some time after Miss Emma Nigh died papa took mamma and little Langdon to Elmira for the summer. When in Elmira Langdon began to fail but I think mamma did not know just what was the matter with him.
I was the cause of the child’s illness. His mother trusted him to my care and I took him a long drive in an open barouche for an airing. It was a raw, cold morning, but he was well wrapped about with furs and, in the hands of a careful person, no harm would have come to him. But I soon dropped into a reverie and forgot all about my charge. The furs fell away and exposed his bare legs. By and by the coachman noticed this, and I arranged the wraps again, but it was too late. The child was almost frozen. I hurried home with him. I was aghast at what I had done, and I feared the consequences. I have always felt shame for that treacherous morning’s work and have not allowed myself to think of it when I could help it. I doubt if I had the courage to make confession at that time. I think it most likely that I have never confessed until now.
From Susy’s Biography.
At last it was time for papa to return to Hartford, and Langdon was real sick at that time, but still mamma decided to go with him, thinking the journey might do him good. But after they reached Hartford he became very sick, and his trouble prooved to be diptheeria. He died about a week after mamma and papa reached Hartford. He was burried by the side of grandpa at Elmira, New York. (Susy rests there with them. S.L.C.) After that, mamma became very very ill, so ill that there seemed great danger of death, but with a great deal of good care she recovered. Some months afterward mamma and papa (and Susy, who was perhaps fourteen or fifteen months old at the time—S.L.C.) went to Europe and stayed for a time in Scotland and England. In Scotland mamma and papa became very well equanted with Dr. John Brown, the author of “Rab and His Friends,” and he met, but was not so well equanted with, Mr. Charles Kingsley, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, Sir Thomas Hardy grandson of the Captain Hardy to whom Nellson said “Kiss me Hardy,” when dying on shipboard, Mr. Henry Irving, Robert Browning, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. William Black, Lord Houghton, Frank Buckland, Mr. Tom Hughes, Anthony Trollope, Tom Hood, son of the poet—and mamma and papa were quite well equanted with Dr. Macdonald and family, and papa met Harison Ainsworth.
I remember all these men very well indeed, except the last one. I do not recall Ainsworth. By my count, Susy mentions fourteen men. They are all dead except Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Tom Hughes.
We met a great many other interesting people, among them Lewis Carroll, author of the immortal “Alice”—but he was only interesting to look at, for he was the stillest and shyest full-grown man I have ever met except “Uncle Remus.” Dr. MacDonald and several other lively talkers were present, and the talk went briskly on for a couple of hours, but Carroll sat still all the while except that now and then he answered a question. His answers were brief. I do not
remember that he elaborated any of them.
At a dinner at Smalley’s we met Herbert Spencer. At a large luncheon party at Lord Houghton’s we met Sir Arthur Helps, who was a celebrity of world-wide fame at the time, but is quite forgotten now. Lord Elcho, a large vigorous man, sat at some distance down the table. He was talking earnestly about Godalming. It was a deep and flowing and unarticulated rumble, but I got the Godalming pretty clearly every time it broke free of the rumble, and as all the strength was on the first end of the word it startled me every time, because it sounded so like swearing. In the middle of the luncheon Lady Houghton rose, remarked to the guests on her right and on her left in a matter-of-fact way, “Excuse me, I have an engagement,” and without further ceremony she went off to meet it. This would have been doubtful etiquette in America. Lord Houghton told a number of delightful stories. He told them in French, and I lost nothing of them but the nubs.
I will insert here one or two of the letters referred to by Jock Brown in the letter which I received from him a day or two ago, and which we copied into yesterday’s record.
June 22, 1876.
Dear Doctor Brown,
Indeed I was a happy woman to see the familiar handwriting. I do hope that we shall not have to go so long again without a word from you. I wish you could come over to us for a season; it seems as if it would do you good, you and yours would be so very welcome.
We are now where we were two years ago when Clara (our baby) was born, on the farm on the top of a high hill where my sister spends her summers. The children are grown fat and hearty, feeding chickens and ducks twice a day, and are keenly alive to all the farm interests. Mr. J. T. Fields was with us with his wife a short time ago, and you may be sure we talked most affectionately of you. We do so earnestly desire that you may continue to improve in health; do let us know of your welfare as often as possible. Love to your sister. Kind regards to your son please.
