Ill at ease: IL, interview by DW, January 5, 1950; Typed transcript, VC.
“she looked badly”: January 2, 1903, 1903 Daily Reminder, VC.
“have been having a sad time”: January 6, 1903, 1903 Daily Reminder, VC.
“Jean’s head got a bad knock”: Lewis Leary, ed., Mark Twain’s Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 430.
“fright, anxiety”: Albert H. Hayes, M.D., Diseases of the Nervous System: Or Pathology of the Nerves and Nervous Maladies (Boston: Peabody Medical Institute, 1875), pp. 74–75.
Based on descriptions: According to Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, “in late adolescence a ‘pruning’ of the neurons in the brain takes place, as the nervous system matures … one of the developmental genes responsible for that pruning may be abnormal (at variance from the usual gene structure) in people who suffer idiopathic epilepsy.” Personal correspondence with the author, August 10, 2004.
At times she took thrice-daily doses: Jean’s primary physician for her epilepsy, Dr. Frederick Peterson, recommended bromides of “sodium salt.” See his Nervous and Mental Diseases (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1911), p. 644.
“constant hebetude”: Ibid.
“vegetable than animal food”: Hayes, Diseases of the Nervous System, p. 76.
Yet, despite the family’s heroic efforts: “Petit mal seizures begin with electrical discharges in a small area of the brain, and the discharges remain confined to that area. Symptoms include abnormal sensations, movements, or psychic aberrations, depending on the part of the brain affected. Convulsive seizures (or grand mal seizures) usually begin with an abnormal electrical discharge in a small area of the brain. The discharge quickly spreads to adjoining parts of the brain, causing the entire area to malfunction. In primary generalized epilepsy, abnormal discharges over a large area of the brain cause widespread malfunction from the beginning. In either case, a convulsion is the body’s reaction to the abnormal discharges. In these convulsive seizures, a person experiences a temporary loss of consciousness, severe muscle spasms and jerking throughout the body, intense turning of the head to one side, clenching of teeth, and loss of bladder control. Afterward, the person may have a headache, be temporarily confused, and feel extremely tired. Usually, the person doesn’t remember what happened during the seizure.” The Merck Manual, Home Edition, chapter 73: “Seizure Disorders.”
“ever achieve control”: John R. Gates, M.D., “Sudden Death in Epilepsy,” The Medical Journal of Allina 6 (2002): 1.
opera glasses: June 21, and June 15, 1903, 1903 Daily Reminder, VC.
“if the little cherubs”: IL to Frank Whitmore, April 20, 1903, MTM.
“I saw Mrs. Clemens twice”: IL, undated, handwritten document, IL Miscellaneous Mark Twain Notes, MTP.
Isabel was “summoned”: June 29, 1903, 1903 Daily Reminder, VC.
“Oh she is sweet”: June 30, 1903, 1903 Daily Reminder, VC.
Bangs and Twain knew: Twain’s publishing company printed Bangs’s novel Toppleton’s Client: Or, A Spirit in Exile (1893), and Twain contributed articles to Bangs’s magazine, the Metropolitan magazine.
“How I kept on a strange sympathy”: April 23, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP; fragment in the 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Twain, thinking that Italy was impossible: June 26, 1903, 1903 Daily Reminder, VC.
“This begins my third trip to Europe”: November 7, 1903, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“where Mr. &Mrs. Clemens are established”: January 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“for someday I shall want”: January 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“It was built for Cosimo I.”: January 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“made it quite plain to her”: January 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“At first the high stone walls on either side”: January 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
He had always been irresistibly drawn: Laura Skandera Trombley, “Mark Twain’s Cross-Dressing Oeuvre,” College Literature 24 (1997): 82–95.
“Perhaps you may be interested”: IL to HW, January 8, 1904, MTM.
“About January 14”: February 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“I’ve struck it!”: Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson, eds., Mark Twain–Howells Letters (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1960), p. 778.
“Last week we began”: January 12, 1904, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“Somewhere in the Bible”: March 18, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“I dropped out of sight”: February 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Miss Lyon was pursued by that donkey”: CC to Dorothea Gilder, February 1904, SC.
“sudden standstill”: SLC to FD, February 8, 1904, MTP.
“I have reached the very lowest stage”: CC to Dorothea Gilder, postmarked February 1904, SC.
Olivia wrote back: The meeting never took place. IL to Olivia Clemens, after March 1, 1904, MTM.
“to have a word with her”: February 14, 1904, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“Mrs. Clemens has not had the good winter”: IL to HW, March 8, 1904, MTM.
“Mrs. Clemens has not had the good winter”: IL to HW, March 8, 1904, MTM.
“The past week”: Hamlin Hill, Mark Twain: God’s Fool (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 83.
“We sat out of doors”: Webster Manuscript, MTP.
“And we came over here”: April 14, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Mr. Clemens ran right up”: Mary Lawton, A Lifetime with Mark Twain (1925; reprinted Amsterdam: Fredonia Books, 2004), pp. 228–29.
“June 5—Mrs. Clemens”: June 5, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Today is the anniversary”: June 5, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“The trunks are pulled out”: June 16, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“to get the 16 Trunks booked”: July 15, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“strain”: SLC to C. J. Langdon, June 13, 1904, MTM.
At the cemetery: Lawton, A Lifetime with Mark Twain, p. 231.
“pale weak exhausted”: July 16, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Dear Susy—”: July 25, 1904, MTP.
“[Gorky] could not offend”: August 26, 1906, fragment in the 1906 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“No, I want her here”: Doris Webster wrote, “When they moved from Redding to Fifth Ave. Clara thought Isabel should have a room outside, but M.T. said ‘no, I want her here. She’s like an old pair of slippers to me.’” Doris probably meant Lee instead of Redding, because when Twain moved from Fifth Avenue to Redding, Isabel was provided with a cottage of her own separate from the main house. Webster Interview, 1953, VC.
“I wonder if I am glad”: July 18, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Oh stretching straining heart”: July 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Today I have an uplift”: August 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“lost money”: February 12, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Santa Clara went away”: July 22, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“a broken tendon”: July 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“hysterical”: August 3, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
Rudyard Kipling’s Five Seas: Isabel mentions a Kipling book with this title. She is likely confusing two titles by Kipling: The Seven Seas (1896) and The Five Nations (1903).
“[Alice] Hegan Rice”: July 26, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“This house is”: November 30, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“the real picture”: August 12, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“Tonight at dinner”: December 3, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“The attitude that one has to assume”: December 4, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“This evening after dinner we played”: November 30, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“When
Jean is in Mr. Clemens’s room”: January 2, 1905, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“a truly wonderful instrument”: December 2, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
The Aeolian was delivered: SLC to CC, September 3, 1905, MTP. The Aeolian resides today at the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Missouri.
Over the next few years: IL’s Orchestrelle repertoire was composed primarily of classical pieces: Schubert’s “Impromptu” (possibly op. 90, no. 3; the “Impromptu” was Jean’s favorite), “Unfinished Symphony,” first movement, and “Erlkönig” (Twain nicknamed the piece “König Stutil”); Wagner’s “Wedding March” from Lohengrin and “O du mein holder Abendstern;” the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 6; Beethoven’s Adagio from the Piano Sonata op. 13, no. 8, and Andante from Symphony no. 5; Stabat Mater (probably Rossini’s version); Wagner’s Tannhäuser’s Overture; Chopin’s Sonata no. 2 (“Funeral March”) and “Nocturne,” op. 37; and the popular “The Last Rose of Summer.”
“Aeolian satisfies”: January 30, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“I have been playing”: March 2, 1906, 1906 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“He is weak”: December 23, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“He seems quite helpless”: January 3, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
When he felt a cold coming on: May 26, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
His daily intake was approximately forty: “I have been all my life in the habit of taking at least 40;” Twain quoted in “Down to Four a Day,” Boston Daily Globe, August 3, 1909, p. 9.
“Sometimes I think”: October 4, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“I doubt if any smoker”: August 12, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“Fuel”: December 31, and January 1, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Today Mr. Clemens”: July 24, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Like a dream edifice”: January 2, 1905, 1908 Daily Reminder, MTP.
This morning when I went into Mr. Clemens’s room he asked me something about Moses & the 10 Commandments, and that led up to making Mr. Clemens say “If those ten Commandments had never been written, man would be making some for himself. He has to have a code—he’d be saying—Thou shalt not sit up all night. Thou shalt not drink Coffee at midnight—Thou shalt not eat Cabbage & beans—” “They would all be Commandments that he is in need of and he couldn’t be happy if he wasn’t making them to break—”
March 26, 1905, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
Twain entertained the group: Kent R. Rasmussen, Mark Twain A–Z (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 105.
“Prosper appeared just then”: June 23, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“[Samuel] had been left”: December 4, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“‘This is the day’”: March 24, 1906, 1906 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“He went with his father”: March 22, 1907, loose page, 1906–07 Box, VC.
“I was a little bit of a girl”: July 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
With her father, uncle, and brother gone: January 8, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Isabel constantly worried: December 3, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“very lonely”: March 27, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“strange, nervous”: July 10, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP; February 10, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“shut me away”: July 9, 1905, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Never never on Sea”: March 14, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“tampering with the sentinel”: Fragment, 1906 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“She showered very sweet speech”: February 15, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“His love for another woman”: April 1, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Isabel declined: January 10, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“For 3 days”: December 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“trying to find places”: January 2, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP; December 28, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Quite an interesting man”: January 7, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“among Mr. C’s papers”: February 28, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“he Said that a few days ago”: April 22, 1905, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
After the individual had departed: December 13, 1904, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
Twain later explained to Isabel: IL, annotated copy of Mark Twain: A Biography (1924).
“Today Mr Clemens”: Scrap piece of paper dated January 14, 1935, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“with the Sure enough touch”: June 2, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“writing an appreciation”: FD to SLC, April 7, 1905, MTP.
“That they lay Their homage”: April 22, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
In early June, after discussing the matter: June 6, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“you and Jean to arrange”: SLC to CC, “Mid-June” 1905, MTP.
“Tonight as Mr. Clemens lay”: September 5, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
In April 1906: “Mark Twain Letter Sold; Written to Thomas Nast, It Proposed a Joint Tour,” New York Times, April 3, 1906.
Twain’s fetched a higher price: Budd, Our Mark Twain, p. 204.
“All the days”: September 21, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“piled up 172 little pincushions”: October 18, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Away back when General Grant”: September 5, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“that really if publishers had any sense”: August 19, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“Mr Clemens closed the matter”: Fragment, 1906 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“solemn joy of living”: January 19, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“his great—very great beauty”: December 13, 1904, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“He is at his best”: January 30, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“another Soliloquy King Leopold’s”: February 10, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Breathless we sat”: February 22, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Doubleday arranged for publication: May 9, 1906, 1906 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“The disinterested reception”: IL, “IVL notes on What Is Man?,” Berg Collection, NYPL.
“He is so wonderful”: March 5, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“This morning I played”: August 31, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Jean loved the heavily wooded area: March 3, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP; March 8, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“eternal Slap”: March 10, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“didn’t think it would do”: March 22, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“Tonight Mr. Clemens read”: March 21, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Life in this way”: March 18, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Clara spent the fall: Hill, Mark Twain: God’s Fool, p. 98.
“gained 5 1/2 pounds”: February 2, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #1, MTP; February 3, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“A Little change”: March 30, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“The view is wonderful”: May 5, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“found her plump”: May 10, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“Oh the anxious hours”: May 11, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Today Mr. Clemens arrived”: May 18, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Twain delighted in his summer accommodations: May 23, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Mr. Clemens spends too much Time”: May 21, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“This evening”: May 22, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“A great faith has come”: June 7, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
She was disappointed: June 2
4, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #1, MTP.
“when I had leisure”: June 30, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“For himself there are”: July 4, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“This summer is so exquisite”: July 13, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“I study to be useful to him”: Shelley Fisher Fishkin, ed., The Diaries of Adam and Eve (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 29.
“This afternoon I read”: July 25, 1905, loose page, 1903–05 Box, VC.
“vividly enlarged and clarified”: Amy L. Blair, “Misreading The House of Mirth,” American Literature 76, no. 1 (March 2004): 150, 153.
“We began here”: Rudyard Kipling, Selected Stories from Kipling, William Lyon Phelps, ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1919), p. 324.
“We’re two little orphans”: Ibid., p. 337.
“Here was nothing but silence”: Ibid., p. 339.
Sophie soon becomes pregnant: Ibid., p. 349.
“The mug was worn and dented”: Ibid., p. 352.
“Santissima has given me a creed”: July 27, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Kipling has given me another”: July 25, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Never take anything for granted—’”: October 17, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“Jean has told me”: July 16, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“It’s terribly Thin ice”: May 9, 1905 [printed date], June 10, 1905 [handwritten date], 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
From May to July 1905: Memoranda, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“my Sacred charge”: August 17, 1904, 1903–06 Journal, MTP.
“Now it is a book”: May 16, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“feel the uselessness”: October 7, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“a prodigious piece of work”: September 30, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
“A calm dreamlike concentration”: IL, 1933 File, VC.
“This morning Mr. Clemens”: October 1, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
She and Clara had not seen each other: November 1, 1905, Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
TWO: THE GATHERING STORM
“I am the only person”: February 16, 1908, Notebook #4, MTP.
“weak & tired & discouraged”: September 26, 1905, 1905 Daily Reminder #2, MTP.
Mark Twain's Other Woman Page 32
