Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography

by Justin Kaplan

  188. “At present”: SLC to Charles Warren Stoddard, Feb. 1, 1875, Hartford (Boston Public Library).

  189. Centennial celebrations: MMT, 39-41. A general account of the festivities is D. B. Little, America’s First Centennial Celebration (Boston, 1961).

  190. “Fur cap”: MTH, 73.

  190. “When I think over”: MTH, 74.

  190. “Arabian Nights”: MMT, 9-10.

  191. “My only author”: MTH, 533.

  191. “Court of Last Resort”: MTH, 107.

  191. “Dearer to me”: L, 268-69.

  191. “Ain’t any risk”: SLC’s correspondence with Dan De Quille is printed in Oscar Lewis’ introduction to The Big Bonanza (New York, 1959).

  192. “Vile, mercenary”: MTH, 92.

  192. “Best boy’s story”: MTH, 110-11.

  192. “Dreary and hateful task”: MTH, 121-22.

  193. “Breadth of parlance”: MMT, 3-4.

  193. “An impassioned study”: MMT, 141.

  195. “Can we recover”: Jesse Madison Leathers to SLC, Sept. 27, 1875, Louisville, (MTP).

  195. “Tackle Gibraltar”: SLC to Leathers, Oct. 5, 1875, Hartford (MTP).

  195. “Mental telegraphy”: W, XXII, 125-28.

  195. “Never mind”: F, 200.

  196. “Every day”: Bowen, 23-24.

  196. “Ignorance, intolerance”: L, 289.

  196. Recalled a conversation: MMT, 30.

  196. “As for a monument”: SLC to John RoBards, Apr. 17 and June 10, 1876, Hartford (MTP).

  197. “Another boy’s book”: MTH, 144. The fullest account of how the book came to be written is Walter Blair’s Mark Twain and Huck Finn (Berkeley, Calif., 1960). The range of critical discussion is indicated in the text and bibliography in Richard Lettis et al., eds., Huck Finn and His Critics (New York, 1962).

  198. “A book of mine”: Notebook No. 28A, MTP.

  199. “About two days”: MTH, 129.

  199. “A subscription harvest”: MTH, 132.

  200. “You are a stockholder”: FBH to SLC, Sept. 5, 1876 (MTP).

  200. “Either Bliss”: FBH to SLC Mar. 1, 1877 (MTP).

  200. “For myself”: EB to SLC, July 18, 1876, Hartford (MTP).

  200. “It seems funny”: F, 220.

  201. “A new distrust”: Isabella Hooker Diary, Dec. 1, 1876 (Conn. Historical Soc.—typescript in MTP).

  202. “Worked rapidly”: SLC’s highly colored account of the collaboration and falling-out with FBH is in AU-1959, 297-99.

  203. “Tell Mrs. Clemens”: FBH to SLC, Dec. 16, 1876, New York (MTP).

  203. “One of the brightest gems”: Speeches, 55. The sources for Isabella Hooker’s New Year’s Eve party are her diary and NF, 59-62.

  204. “Fetch a war whoop”: AU-1924, II, 242-43.

  204. “Mr. Duncan”: N. Y. World, Feb. 18 and 25, 1877.

  204. “Don’t say harsh things”: LL, 203.

  205. “Arse in”: Frank Fuller to SLC, July 20, 1877, Glen Cove, N.Y. (MTP).

  205. “$50 a day”: SLC to OLC, July 30, 1877, New York (MTP).

  205. “Walkee bottom side”: Ah Sin ed. Frederick Andersen (San Francisco, 1961), 10.

  205. The more Daly cut: Joseph Daly, The Life of Augustin Daly (New York, 1917), 235-36.

  205. “Been a long time”: MTH, 187.

  206. “When a humorist”: MTH, 146.

  206. October 1, 1877: The 240th Annual Record of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts (Boston, 1878), 3-30 (this includes the text of SLC’s speech); Boston Evening Transcript, Oct. 2 and 3, 1877.

  209. Whittier birthday dinner: SLC, “The Story of a Speech” (Speeches, 63-76). Henry Nash Smith, whose Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), 92-112, contains the most searching account of the occasion, concludes that the notion of a great public scandal was largely invented by SLC and WDH.

  210. “My wife’s distress”: Dec. 27, 1877, Hartford (MTP).

  211. “I am sincerely sorry”: F, 217.

  Chapter Eleven (pages 212–227)

  213. “I know you will refrain”: MTN, 131.

  213. “Life has come to be”: L, 319.

  213. “I want to find”: F, 222.

  213. “We are in Europe”: F, 230.

  213. The contract with Francis (Frank) Bliss, dated March 8, 1878, is at Yale. Hamlin Hill summarizes the negotiations over A Tramp Abroad in AL, XXXIII, No. 4 (January 1962), 451-53.

  214. “Noble system”: MTN, 130. In Notebook No. 12, MTP, SLC listed the “biography” of WR and related projects.

  214. Sixty thousand “communists” … “free air of Europe”: Notebook No. 12, MTP.

  214. “Oh, I have such”: MTH, 227.

  215. “It’s goodbye cat”: MTN, 139. SLC quoted JHT’s whispered comment in his letter to Bayard Taylor, Munich, Dec. 14, 1878 (AL, VIII, No. 1 [March 1936], 50).

  215. German translations: E. H. Hemminghaus, Mark Twain in Germany (New York, 1939), 9-11. Higginson’s comment is in his Letters and Journals (Boston, 1921), 300.

  216. “Geborn 1835”: Heidelberg, May 7, 1878 (AL, VIII, No. 1 [March 1936], 48).

  216. “Harte is a liar”: MTH, 235-36. FBH cited the plots against him in an 1877 letter to his wife (The Letters of Bret Harte [Boston, 1926], 67-68).

  216. “The worst reputation”: LinL, I, 251-52.

  216. “Have I offended you”: MTH, 239.

  217. Frank Harris’ account of the Heidelberg encounter is in his Contemporary Portraits, 4th series (New York, 1923), 162-64, 173.

  217. SLC’s comments on the importance of JHT in the writing of A Tramp Abroad are quoted by A. E. Stone, Jr., “The Twichell Papers …,” Yale Univ. Library Gazette, XXXIX, No. 4 (April 1955), 155-64. “If you had staid at home,” SLC wrote on the flyleaf of JHT’s copy of A Tramp Abroad, “it would have taken me 14 years to get the material.”

  219n. “Hell or Heidelberg”: MTN, 216.

  219. “Perceiving, presently”: W, IX, 164.

  219. “My nightmares”: Notebook No. 16, MTP.

  219. “Rebellion in my heart”: MTH, 242.

  220. “I broke the back of life”: L, 343.

  220. “If it remains lost”: Nov. 20, 1878, Munich (Yale).

  220. “Down went my heart”: L, 349.

  220. “It’s about this”: Moncure D. Conway, Autobiography (Boston, 1904), II, 146.

  220. “Those mountains had a soul”: L, 351

  221. Fig leaves: Notebook No. 13, MTP.

  221. SLC and Turgenev exchanged visits on May 8 and 12, 1879 (Notebook No. 14, MTP). SLC’s letter to Andrew Chatto (May 29, 1879, Paris), is in Berg—NYPL.

  221. “Bestial” Venus: Notebook No. 14, MTP.

  222. “It depends on who writes”: MTN, 151.

  222. SLC’s attacks on French character and morality are in Notebook No. 14, MTP; a few excerpts are published in MTN, 153.

  222. “When all other interests fail”: “What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us” (W, XXII, 169).

  223. “Real coffee with real cream”: Notebook No. 13, MTP; published with some minor changes in MTN, 149.

  223. “Do you know Bret Harte?”: Philip Dunne, ed., Mr. Dooley Remembers (Boston, 1963), 244.

  223. Grant’s charisma: Sylvanus Cadwallader, Three Years with Grant (New York, 1955), 181-82; Jesse Grant, In the Days of My Father, General Grant (New York, 1925), 320; W. T. Sherman, quoted in Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore (New York, 1962), 142.

  224. “The typical hero”: “Grant more nearly impersonated the American character of 1861-5 than any other living man. Therefore he will stand as the typical hero of the great Civil War in America.”—Sherman’s 1885 speech to the Army of the Tennessee, quoted in Lloyd Lewis, Sherman (New York, 1958), 639.

  224. “Man of Destiny”: The broadside is in MTP.

  224. “My sluggish soul”: MTH, 274. SLC made the comparisons of Grant with Napoleon in a letter (unsent) to the chairman of the Chicago reunion committee (L, 364-65).

 
; 225. “Dreadfully conspicuous”: L, 367. Paine, 710-11, is the source for the anecdote about SLC’s impersonation of Sherman.

  225. “He broke up his attitude”: L, 368-69.

  226. “I doubt if America”: MTH, 279-80.

  226. “The babies”: Speeches, 58-62.

  227. “A sort of shuddering silence”: In 1885 SLC dictated an account of the banquet and the speech (AU-1924, 13-19).

  227. “I fetched him”: SLC’s letter to OLC is in L, 370-73; his letter to WDH is in MTH, 278-80; his letter to Orion (Nov. 14, 1879, Chicago) is in MTP.

  Chapter Twelve (pages 228–253)

  228. Bric-a-brac: The purchases were itemized in a blue leather wallet-notebook (MTP).

  228. “Our house”: L. 641.

  228. Over $30,000: BM, 150; F, 245-46.

  229. “You are a blessing”: MTH, 293.

  229. “You Americans”: JHT, “Mark Twain,” Harper’s, May 1896.

  229. Rolling gait: W. L. Phelps, Autobiography (New York, 1939), 63-64, describes SLC’s walks in downtown Hartford.

  229. “Adore babies”: Wood’s account of the West Point visit and the encounter with Miss Wood was published by Dixon Wecter in Mark Twain in Three Moods (San Marino, Calif., 1948), 28-32.

  230. “It is wonderful”: MTH, 277. Conway wrote about his services as amanuensis and the boy’s visit in his Autobiography (Boston, 1904), II, 143-45).

  231. “I hope you will send me”: Wattie Bowser’s letter to SLC and SLC’s answer are from Pascal Covici, Jr., “Dear Master Wattie: The Mark Twain—David Watt Bowser Letters,” Southwest Review, XLV, No. 2 (spring 1960), 105-21.

  232. “Papa, I have hunted”: Paine, 845.

  233. “The loan business”: L, 389-90.

  233. Orion’s absent-mindedness: SLC listed “Orion’s 3 famous adventures” in Notebook No. 13, MTP. In 1906 he dictated an account of Orion’s later career (AU-1959, 218-24). WDH’s objection: MTH, 803.

  233. “Orion is a field”: MTH, 269.

  233. “I believe I told you”: BM, 142-44.

  234. “Don’t let anyone else”: MTH, 315. The post-mortem is discussed in Dixon Wecter, Sam Clemens of Hannibal (Boston, 1952), 115-17.

  234. “You cannot achieve”: SLC to Orion, Feb. 22, 1883, Hartford (MTP). SLC demanded Orion’s pledge in a letter from Hartford Feb. 27 (MTP).

  235. “He casually observed”: MTH, 255.

  235. Spent about $100,000: The figures on SLC’s income and expenditures during 1881 are from Paine, 729.

  235. “Sacred as whiskey”: quoted in BM, 176.

  237. “Not proposing”: SLC to Orion, Feb. 9, 1879, Munich (MTP).

  237. “Bane of Americans”: SLC to Orion, May 12 [1880], n.p. (MTP).

  238. “Rank as a writer”: Dec. 22, 1880 (MTP).

  238. “I thank you”: SLC to E. P. Parker, Christmas Eve 1880, Hartford (Berg-—NYPL).

  239. “Rather strong milk for babes”: MTH, 338.

  239. “A lovely book”: F, 245n.

  239. “Unquestionably the best book”: Susy Clemens’ biography of SLC, quoted in AU-1924, II, 88.

  239. “I find myself a fine success”: SLC to H. H. Boyesen, Jan. 11, 1882, Hartford (Barrett Coll.—photostat in MTP).

  240. The reviews have been analyzed in Arthur L. Vogelback, “The Prince and the Pauper: A Study in Critical Standards,” AL, XIV, No. 1 (March 1942), 48-54.

  240. English reviews: SLC to Chatto & Windus, Mar. 3, 1882, Hartford (MTP).

  240. “I am reading”: Mrs. Stowe is quoted in SLC to Charles L. Webster, Apr. 26, 1887, Hartford (Berg—NYPL).

  240. “That is the kind of review”: MTH, 377.

  241. “I took into account”: John Hay to WR, New York, Sept. 4, 1881 (Whitelaw Reid Papers, Vol. 106, Library of Congress).

  241. “Outspoken and hearty”: MTH, 56.

  241. “It isn’t good journalism”: WR’s letter (John Hay Library, Brown Univ.) is published in George Monteiro, “A Note on the Mark Twain—Whitelaw Reid Relationship,” Emerson Society Quarterly, XIX, 2nd quarter 1960, 20-21.

  241. “A kind of crusade”: SLC gives a rueful version of the vendetta in MTH, 386-89.

  241. “Skunk,” “idiot,” “eunuch”: SLC’s notes for the biography of WR run through Notebooks Nos. 15 and 16, MTP.

  242. “I did not know how you would take”: MTH, 386.

  242. “An hour or two”: BM, 183.

  243. “Flowery and gushy”: Notebook No. 16, MTP. By contrast with the South, SLC felt, Boston was “about the prettiest city in the world.”

  244. R. E. Elliott, Esq.: draft of the letter in River Notebook, 1882, dictated to Roswell Phelps (MTP).

  244. In New Orleans: details of the meeting are in Record, 5-8, 132, and Arlin Turner, George W. Cable (Durham, N. C., 1956), 121.

  245. “Never seen anything”: LL, 212.

  246. “I like the Heathen Chinee”: New Orleans Times-Democrat, May 6, 1882, quoted in Arlin Turner, “Notes on Mark Twain in New Orleans,” McNeese Review, VI, spring 1954, 10-22. Cable repeated this story at the memorial service for SLC on Nov. 30, 1910.

  246. “Everything was changed”: MTN, 163.

  246. “That world which I knew”: L, 419.

  246. Reached St. Paul: J. T. Flanagan, “Mark Twain on the Upper Mississippi,” Minnesota History, XVII, December 1936, 369-84.

  247. “Bed full of baskets”: MTH, 435. WDH comments on SLC’s reliance on “superstition, usually of a hygienic sort” in MMT, 81.

  247. Fictional pathology: The list is in Notebook No. 17, MTP.

  247. Cable’s visit: Record, 12-13, 16-18.

  248. “Dear Charley”: BM, 195.

  248. “I hope the public”: MTH, 405.

  248. Thomas Hardy: WDH quoted Hardy in MTH, 434.

  248. “By fits and starts”: W, XII, 19.

  248. “Put the great river”: Notebook No. 18, MTP.

  249. “Not edited the book yet”: SLC to Osgood & Co., Jan. 6, 1883, Hartford (Newberry Library, Chicago); first published in Benjamin Lease, “Mark Twain and the Publication of Life on the Mississippi, AL, XXVI, No. 2 (May 1954), 248-50.

  249. “Wretched God-damned book”: BM, 207.

  249. “She says the chapter”: quoted in Caroline Ticknor, “Mark Twain’s Missing Chapter,” Bookman, XXXIX (May 1914), 298-309.

  250. “Dearest and sweetest”: Eruption, 157.

  250. “The publisher who”: SLC to J. R. Osgood, Dec. 21, 1883, Hartford (MTP).

  250. “Great and sublime fool”: MTH, 215.

  251. “Booming these days”: MTH, 435.

  251. “Booming working-days”: L, 434.

  251. “I shall like it”: MTH, 435.

  251. “Just finished writing a book”: SLC to Andrew Chatto, Sept. 1, 1883, Hartford (British Museum); first published AL, XI, No. 1 (March 1939), 78-81.

  251. “Right after Huck”: BM, 249.

  251. “Not your best”: MTH, 443-44.

  252. “Never care for fiction”: Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea (New York, 1912), II, 180.

  252. “It took me eight hours”: Paine, 752.

  253. “Made me feel ridiculous”: MTH, 439.

  253. “Being smirched”: Notebook No. 17, MTP.

  Chapter Thirteen (pages 254–279)

  254. “If I dared laugh”: SLC to E. H. House, Feb. 27, 1884, Hartford (Barrett—photostat in MTP).

  254. “Don’t give yourself any discomfort”: The letter is in MTP. The episode is discussed in Arlin Turner, “Mark Twain, Cable, and ’a Professional Newspaper Liar,’” New England Quarterly, XXVIII, March 1955, 18-33.

  254. “Tell the truth”: Notebook No. 19, MTP.

  255. In the library: Cable left a detailed account of the morning, and of the later visit to Grant, in letters to his wife, published in Record, 31 ff. SLC told WDH (MTH, 471) that the talk went on for four hours after breakfast.

  255. “Drive and push and rush”: Speeches, 145.

  255. The human race had made more progress: This was th
e gist of the letter SLC wrote on the occasion of Walt Whitman’s seventieth birthday (Camden’s Compliment to Walt Whitman, ed. Horace Traubel [Philadelphia, 1889], 64-65).

  255. “The reparation due”: MMT, 35, and Paine, 701.

  256. Negro supremacy: Notebook No. 18, MTP.

  256. “Whom Mark knows well”: Record, 33-34.

  256. “If the book business”: BM, 230.

  256. “Tom might be played”: BM, 236.

  257. “Altogether too thin”: MTH, 485.

  257. “If the play is altered”: BM, 236.

  257. “Never mind”: MTH, 507.

  257. “Corn-dodgers”: SLC to J. R. Osgood, March 20, 1884, Hartford (MTP).

  257. “I haven’t a paragraph”: BM, 274.

  258. “I am like everybody else”: MTH, 493.

  258. “I want good company”: Minneapolis Tribune, Jan. 25, 1885, quoted in Minnesota History, XVIII, No. 1 (March 1937).

  258. “Recession” or “depression”: E. C. Kirkland, Dream and Thought in the American Business Community (Ithaca, N. Y., 1956), 6-7.

  258. “Microscopic trichina”: MTN, 170.

  259. “The Great Loneliness”: SLC to OLC, Jan. 11, 1885, St. Louis (MTP).

  260. “Thinking of cutting”: LL, 236.

  260. “I may possibly”: SLC to J. B. Pond, July 28, 1884, Elmira (Berg—NYPL).

  260. $17,000: My figures come from the entries in Pond’s cash book (Berg—NYPL). The fullest accounts of the Twain-Cable tour and relationship are: Guy A. Cardwell, Twins of Genius (East Lansing, Mich., 1953); Arlin Turner, George W. Cable (Durham, N. C., 1956) ; and Record.

  260. “As much yourself”: MTH, 513.

  260. “Mr. Charles Warner”: OLC to SLC, Nov. 10, 1884, Hartford (MTP).

  260. “Jump out of their skins”: SLC to OLC, Nov. 24, 1884, Washington (MTP). SLC’s other reports of success are quoted from LL, 230-31.

  261. “Been lecturing”: Eruption, 170. In the account he wrote in 1885 (AU-1924, I, 32) SLC said that it was at a “late supper” at Gilder’s house that he heard about the Century’s plans.

  261. “Very disgusted”: Letters of Richard Watson Gilder (Boston, 1916), 123-24.

  261. “I wanted”: AU-1924, I. 36.

  262. “Cold-blooded attempt”: Notebook No. 19, MTP.

  262. “There’s many a woman”: LL, 219-20.

  263. “The book is to be issued”: BM, 248.