By June, Isabel had bestowed upon Ashcroft the nickname Benares. The name came from one of Twain and Isabel’s favorite writers, Rudyard Kipling, who had written a story, “The Bride’s Progress,” about the city of Benares. (Isabel had an affinity for Kipling, in particular his stories about loving couples.) Benares, now known as Varanasi, is one of the oldest inhabited cities in India as well as the holiest Hindu city. It is located on the banks of the Ganges in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Twain had visited Benares when he was on his around-the-world-tour in 1896, and recounted the afternoon he spent there with a Hindu holy man in Following the Equator. “The Bride’s Progress” is a portrayal of Benares through the eyes of a young, naïve English newlywed, referred to only as The Bride, and her wealthy husband. Appalled by the strangeness of the city and unimpressed by its two thousand temples, The Bride begs her spouse: “Must we do it, if it smells like this?” After briefly touring, the couple makes an early retreat to their hotel. In the morning they set out on the river to take in the dawn breaking over Scindia’s Ghât, a particularly beautiful setting with a Shiva temple partially submerged in water. Nearly alone on the river the young couple survey the scene:
Day broke over Benares, and The Bride stood up and applauded with both her hands. It was finer, she said, than any transformation scene; and so in her gratitude she applauded the earth, the sun, and the everlasting sky. The river turned to a silver flood and the ruled lines of the ghâts to red gold. “How can I describe this to mother?” she cried, as the wonder grew, and timeless Benares roused to a fresh day.
“A Bride’s Progress” clearly resonated with Isabel, with her longtime hopes for marriage and a romantic’s appreciation of natural beauty, and she echoed Kipling’s lush prose to describe a sublime summer sky at Stormfield in 1908:
The King wandered out from dinner tonight to look at a wonderful sunset & he called Benares & me to look at the mighty show. … We cut the meal short to go out & sit in the archway & watch the sunset that had for its top a great spray of white thin strip-like clouds, & we watched it until the moon came riding up high enough to call the west from the sun to herself. … A few stars were glimmering away up toward the Zenith, & the King said “The sunset is like some Brobdingnagian fire Company that is trying to put out the stars.”
Ashcroft’s supportive presence and keen understanding of the complicated dynamics of the Clemens household must have appeared to Isabel like a godsend. Navigating this uncharted and emotionally rocky terrain had exhausted her over the years, and the continued bickering with Paine had also taken its toll. Isabel valued Ashcroft not just for his intelligence and savvy, but also for his ability to manage Twain.
By the fall of 1908, Ashcroft had become indispensable to Isabel because Twain was simply too mercurial a personality to manage by herself. Clara had proven impossible to please for any extended period, and Jean did not hold any real power when it came to deciding important matters. Also, by that fall Isabel needed an ally because her trust in Paine had utterly deteriorated. She had questioned his motives for some time, and her suspicions were confirmed over the summer, when Ashcroft told her about a conversation that Paine had initiated with him. In July Paine and Ashcroft had been traveling together by train on their way to Stormfield. During the trip, Paine told Ashcroft that Isabel was “ruining [her] mentality etc with drugs.” Isabel recorded that after their arrival, Ashcroft asked about her feelings regarding “Paine’s friendship for me,” and told her that while on the train Paine had “sat with him & talked against me.” Isabel was outraged by Paine’s betrayal: “fenacetine [the drug]—Why I cant even spell the word.”
Isabel had probably told Paine about the medication she had been using, not realizing that Twain believed his nephew Charles L. Webster had been addicted to the drug and (wrongly) blamed it for his ruination and subsequent death. Paine knew about Twain’s views regarding phenacetin, having heard his version of Charles’s death in an autobiography dictation. It would not be much of a leap to assume that in addition to telling Ashcroft, Paine had also told Twain about Isabel’s phenacetin usage in an attempt to weaken his confidence in her. Less than two weeks after this trespass, Isabel did some quiet lobbying of her own, telling Colonel Harvey how Clara had come to be appointed her father’s literary executrix. Isabel shared with the colonel how “nearly Paine had culled that for himself,” and triumphantly noted in her daily reminder, “now Col. Harvey is to do the editing of the Biog.” This latest development was certain to infuriate Paine. Taking stock of the situation, Isabel realized that although she had planned to accompany Jean to Berlin to help her settle into her new surroundings, she had best remain at Stormfield to protect her interests: “Benares & I have a moral obligation now in looking after the King. I shall not leave him for an hour unless Benares or another as good is here to look after him. & Together we must uphold him in our spiritual arms.” The ranks were closing against Paine.
The infighting between Isabel and Paine continued well into the fall. On October 15, Isabel discovered that for the past year Paine had had in his possession letters from Olivia Clemens to her sister Susan Crane without her or Twain’s knowledge. She immediately informed Twain; furious, he ordered her to telephone Paine and “demand those letters.” Isabel did what she was told and Paine immediately sent “Sanford the Grocer” to deliver them to the house. Isabel, though, did not make the call alone. She gratefully acknowledged that “Benares” had stood by her when she was on the phone “to courage me up.” With this newfound support, Isabel had become “unafraid, for always there is Benares to be near me—& to help me.”
Isabel began to regard Ashcroft as a potential partner in more ways than just helping her diminish Paine’s influence. Mixed in with her gratitude was a new note of emotional involvement, expressed with her typical hyperbole:
In the late twilight Benar & I wandered down to the Pergola. The soft light, & the dim trees … put a spell over the place—like that of Debussy music. It was all soft grey harmony. The only pin was the Sound of Benar’s voice, in the still green grayness. And now I know why the Earth was so lonely when he was in Canada, & it seemed as if he never would come back. He is strong. & by his calm judgment he carries me through difficulties, he gives me a support & a knowledge of the values of things.
With her affection for Ashcroft increasing, it was only natural that Isabel would turn to him when she would quarrel with Paine, and that she would run to him after clashing with Clara. Waiting for her at the train station in New York on that morning in late October, Ashcroft possessed the ability to dispel the “gloom that misunderstandings frequently put into my heart.” Glimpsing him standing at the platform, Isabel immediately brightened and the pair spent a contented afternoon shopping in the city. Strolling together down the streets, they entered a new store at 424 Fifth Avenue, located on the corner of Thirty-eighth Street, to purchase an out-of-the-ordinary present for their King.
6
The Arnold Electric Company had opened a shop to sell to the public the latest innovation in home health care. Isabel and Ashcroft purchased the company’s newest invention, an electric handheld vibrator. At first blush the Arnold electric vibrator might appear to be an odd choice for an elderly man frequently under the weather. Twain, however, always had a fondness for gadgets and his curiosity was sure to be piqued. This particular invention came complete with plentiful testimonials from satisfied users avowing its health benefits. The vibrator was part of a whole series of electrified machines newly made available to the public for purchase. With the introduction of the electrified home at the turn of the century, labor-saving devices had begun to be developed and marketed. Steam-powered and battery-equipped vibrators had been in use since the 1870s by physicians, largely for the treatment of female “neurasthenia” or “hysteria.” In the nineteenth century, neurasthenia was considered a new disease afflicting women, caused by the stresses of modern life. Treatment for this disease included massage by electric vibrator of the pelvic area and
sexual organs. The electric vibrator could be self-applied and was much less expensive than the cost of multiple visits to a physician. By 1900 more than a dozen manufacturers had begun producing both battery-powered vibrators and models that operated from line electricity.
Vibrators were primarily marketed in such women’s magazines as Modern Woman and Woman’s Home Companion. Advertisements proclaimed: “Relieves all Suffering” and “American Vibrator … can be used by yourself in the privacy of dressing room or boudoir, and furnish every woman with the essence of perpetual youth.” Men, though, were also determined to be a viable market and the men’s journal Popular Mechanics ran ads for the Arnold electric vibrator touting its glorious benefits.
Snap, ginger, punch in every
thought and action! The joy of glorious health, strength, power, life—yours through vibration.
Wake up that sluggish circulation! Send the rich, red blood leaping
along through every vein and artery!…
Flood your whole body with health!
Don’t be satisfied with mere existence! Begin to live!
Isabel and Ashcroft understood that their highest priority was to keep Twain in good health. Perhaps this miracle invention would also keep Twain in high spirits. More calculatingly, the longer Twain lived, the more time the two had to position themselves to financially and socially benefit from their association with him. The Arnold vibrator must have seemed the ideal treatment; Ashcroft and Isabel hoped that its “magic” would revivify Twain. Returning to Stormfield that evening, the twosome “drove home in the twilight, along these darling roads & through the woods made so stately by their naked trees.” Before sharing their gift with Twain, Isabel and Ashcroft “tested it on me—& on him—Benar.” The results were apparently satisfactory, as Isabel recorded in her daily reminder: “We had a most lovely evening.”
Twain loved his slightly used Arnold electric vibrator. The contraption weighed approximately ten pounds and cost around $20. Included were four massage heads made of various materials and profiles. Two days after being presented with his gift, Twain raved about it in a letter to Emilie Rogers, Henry Rogers’s wife:
I want Mr. Rogers to buy and try the Arnold electric vibrating machine … and you must try it too. It seems to do all that the human massageur does with his hands—and more, and better, and pleasanter, and simpler, and more effectively. It stops headaches for Miss Lyon and cures and limbers lame and stiff backs for me. It claims to ease all sorts of pains, and I judge it can do it, for it stirs up the circulation quite competently and tones up the nerves—and that is really the essential function of osteopathy and kindred treatments.
Twain was so enthralled with his gift that he subsequently purchased a second vibrator that ran on batteries. Could Twain have known about the vibrator’s most common use, namely as a masturbation aid for women? It seems almost impossible that he would not. As a faithful user of “odorless” condoms in his early thirties and as the author of “1601,” an ode to masturbation and other ribaldry (published anonymously in 1880), he would have appreciated the “capital-labor substitution innovation” aspects of the device.
7
With the residents of Stormfield seemingly well massaged and refreshed, it appears reasonable to expect that some measure of peace would follow. Peace, however, would prove to be in very short supply that year. Isabel attempted to view the hurtful “misunderstandings fired” at her by Clara as what she had to endure in order to “hold so great a Treasure as the King,” and that meant, “the price one must pay can never be too high a one. It will be a high one. But to know that you know the King is to send big roots down to support your tree.” As for the “mud of criticism,” she rationalized that “mud can clarify things in time—& can build a foundation from which I’ll be the better able to see the King.” And while she had undoubtedly entertained thoughts of a possible marriage to Twain immediately after Olivia’s death, by this time she had shifted her affections to Ashcroft. On October 28, Isabel wrote an eloquent response to a request by a Mrs. Furnas for her thoughts about Olivia. Isabel’s message was lyrical in its unconcealed appreciation for the deceased:
Arnold electric vibrator, manufactured by Arnold Electric
Dear Mrs. Furnas:
Your letter was answered while I was ill, or I Should have tried to tell you a few of Mrs Clemens’s very remarkable & beautiful characteristics. To begin with, she was not an “unknown” wife, for her qualities were such that wherever Mr. Clemens was personally known & loved, she had her full share of the love & admiration that were bestowed upon him. From the time of the publishing of his first book, she was his only critic, & edited Everything that he wrote. She was a brilliant woman, highly Cultivated & Educated; & the house that she was queen of, was the rendezvous of the great literary lights of all Countries, who came to do honor to her, as well as to Mr. Clemens. There never was a woman more universally loved in this Country, in Europe, India & Australia, than Mrs Clemens was; & she was entertained at the courts of Europe when she & Mr. Clemens were living abroad. There was never a more perfect wife, & mother of 3 beautiful daughters, than Mrs Clemens was. It is impossible for me to do her justice, but I am glad to pay this tribute to her memory.
When Isabel showed Twain the letter before sending it, he responded emotionally: “‘That is good! Very very!’ & his Dear voice shakes.”
Although Twain and Isabel appeared to have settled into an agreeable routine at Stormfield, conflict with Clara was always looming. Stunned and upset by Clara’s criticisms, Isabel visited Dr. Quintard and received his recommendation that she “was badly in need of rest & change.” Yet, despite his warning, she stubbornly refused to take a break. Instead, Isabel and Twain spent the first weeks of November attending the trial of the men who had burgled Stormfield and stolen the silver, and they both testified on November 6 and 10. On the eleventh, after another “trying and terrible” day spent in court, Isabel finally “went to pieces” at dinner. She spent the next few days ill in bed. On November 14, possibly in response to Isabel’s fraying nerves, Twain asked that a new legal document be drawn up to replace the previous power of attorney, dated May 7, 1907, which had granted her sole control over his affairs. With his daughters continuing to be excluded from their father’s legal agreement, Twain now legally appointed Isabel and Ashcroft his “true and lawful attorneys for me and in my name, place and stead, to exercise a general supervision over all my affairs and to take charge of and manage all my property both real and personal and all matters of business relating thereto; to lease, sell and convey any and all real property wheresoever situated which may now or which may hereafter at any time belong to me.” The document was signed and sealed by Twain.
Why would Twain continue to exclude his daughters from such an agreement? A reasonable explanation is that neither one had the slightest experience in managing money, nor did they understand what his annual income was nor how long his royalties would extend. They were primarily interested in the spending of money, and Twain likely thought that trusted employees with financial acumen would best administer his estate. His actions were also influenced by his knowledge of the awful fate that befell Bret Harte’s only surviving daughter, Jessamy Steele, who was reduced to living in a poorhouse because her father had given up the rights to his royalties, leaving her penniless after his death, in 1902. The close partnership that Twain had now formed with Isabel and Ashcroft was symbolized in the Christmas card mailed to his close friends in December 1908. It featured a photograph of Twain sitting in the window at Stormfield, with Isabel and Ashcroft protectively hovering at each side. This was Twain’s family now, the photograph seemed to say, and his daughters had become invisible.
Photograph used in Twain’s 1908 Christmas card, with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon and Ralph Ashcroft
A little over a month later, after the power of attorney had been revised, another legal document was drawn up and approved by Twain. As early as October Isabel had noted how “very nervous,
very worried,” Twain was in anticipation of the expiration of copyright for The Innocents Abroad. Twain likely viewed the expiration of copyright on his first publishing success as a precursor of his own death. After much planning and consultation with Ashcroft throughout the previous year, on December 23, 1908, the Mark Twain Corporation was formed. The purpose of incorporating his nom de plume, The Washington Post reported, was to allow Twain’s “two daughters Clara L. and Jean L. Clemens, to receive the financial benefits of his works for the greatest possible length of time,” instead of permitting them “to be filched away by strangers.” Incorporating the Mark Twain name would be “the surest way to keep the earnings of Mr. Clemens’ books continually in the family, even after the copyright on the books themselves expires.”
Twain assigned his existing copyrights and his pen name to his new corporation. The Washington Post reported that the officers of the corporation included Twain as president, Ashcroft as secretary and treasurer, and Clara, Jean, and Isabel as the three directors. In the article about the corporation that appeared in The New York Times, Ashcroft was quoted:
The knowledge that the copyright of his works would soon expire and that strangers instead of his own kin would reap the financial benefit from his literary works has troubled Mr. Clemens for a year. He has been in consultation with Mr. Hobbs and myself practically every week. We finally hit on the plan of incorporating the Mark Twain name itself. We believe that when this name is the property of a perpetual corporation Mr. Clemens’s heirs will be in a position to enjoin perpetually the publication of all of the Mark Twain books not authorized by the Mark Twain Company, even after the twenty-year first copyright and ten-year secondary copyright have expired.
Mark Twain's Other Woman Page 22
