Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

by Mark Twain

384.24 That graceful and competent speaker, Professor Norton] Author and reformer Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908) presided at the 1887 Boston reading. According to Howells, “he fell prey to one of those lapses of tact” when he introduced Clemens, claiming that Darwin habitually read his books at bedtime in order to feel “secure of a good night’s rest” (Howells 1910, 51).

  384.27–33 Dr. Holmes recited . . . “The Last Leaf,” . . . until silence had taken the place of encores] According to a contemporary account, Holmes read only “The Chambered Nautilus” (1858) and “Dorothy Q.” (1871). Holmes “gave himself completely to the spirit of the poetry, tingling and vibrating with life, rising on his toes and ending with a dash and sparkle which made his hearers beside themselves with delight” (“The Authors’ Readings in Boston,” The Critic, 9 Apr 1887, 177).

  384.35–38 third place on the program . . . did my reading in the ten minutes] Clemens was first on the program, reading selections from “English as She Is Taught,” which appeared in the April 1887 issue of the Century Magazine (SLC 1887).

  385.1–3 At the reading in Washington . . . Thomas Nelson Page . . . all due at the White House] Clemens read at two benefits for the American Copyright League at the Congregational Church, on 17 and 19 March 1888. He had not been scheduled to read at the first one, but as an “unexpected treat” he substituted for Charles Dudley Warner (delayed by a snowstorm), reading “How I Escaped Being Killed in a Duel” (“Authors as Readers,” Washington Post, 18 Mar 1888, 5; SLC 1872a). Here he describes the second event, at which there were ten speakers; he read “An Encounter with an Interviewer” (SLC 1875b). Page (1853–1922), best known for his sympathetic and idealized depiction of the antebellum South, read two pieces in the “peculiar dialect of the Virginia negro.” Afterward the authors and their guests were given a lavish reception and supper in the Blue Parlor of the White House (Washington Post: “Local Intelligence,” 20 Mar 1888, 3; “Society,” 20 Mar 1888, 4).

  385.11–13 I think that it was upon the occasion . . . prepared me for my visit . . . could look after me herself ] See the next Autobiographical Dictation (5 Mar 1906).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 5 March 1906

  385.28–30 upon the occasion referred to . . . Authors’ Reception at the White House] That is, referred to at the end of the previous Autobiographical Dictation (26 Feb 1906). After his first reading at a matinee on 17 March 1888, which Olivia did not attend, Clemens went to a tea at the White House. Olivia joined him in Washington in time for his second reading on 19 March, and accompanied him to the reception afterward (16 Mar 1888 to OLC, CU-MARK, in LLMT, 249–51; Rosamond Gilder 1916, 195–96).

  385.35–36 President Cleveland’s first term. I had never seen his wife . . . the fascinating] Cleveland served two terms, in 1885–89 and 1893–97. He married Frances Folsom (1864–1947) in the White House on 2 June 1886. She became known for her beauty, her advocacy of women’s education, her Saturday receptions for working-class women and the poor, and her liveliness and wit. The anecdote Clemens recounts here must have occurred on 17 March 1888, at the tea after his first Washington reading.

  386.8–9 I asked her to sign her name below those words] The card, now in the Mark Twain Papers, is reproduced here.

  386.25–27 During 1893 and ’94 we were living in Paris . . . other side of the Seine] The Clemens family stayed at the Hotel Brighton from November 1893 until June 1894, when they left the city to travel elsewhere in France, returning to Paris in the fall. There they again stayed at the Hotel Brighton until mid-November, when they relocated to the house at 169, rue de l’Université, where they remained until the end of April 1895.

  386.28 Pomeroy, the artist] The English sculptor Frederick William Pomeroy (1856–1924) won the gold medal and traveling scholarship from the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1885, and subsequently studied in Paris and in Italy. He was associated with the “New Sculpture” movement, which depicted ideal figures drawn from mythology and literature. Nothing is known of his association with Clemens.

  386.42–387.1 Mammoth Cave] An enormous cave in Kentucky, which by the 1890s was thought to be about one hundred seventy-five miles long; it is now known to be over twice that size (Baedeker 1893, 318; National Park Service 2008).

  387.6 Four or five years ago, when we took a house . . . at Riverdale] In early July 1901 the Clemenses toured William H. Appleton’s house in Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, New York, and arranged to rent it from 1 October. They remained there through July 1903. Clemens called it “the pleasantest home & the pleasantest neighborhood in the Republic” (30 June 1903 to Perkins, NRivd2; Stein 2001, B1; 9 July 1901 to Rogers, CU-MARK, in HHR, 465; Wave Hill 2008).

  388.13 Buck Fanshaw’s riot, it broke up the riot before it got a chance to begin] In chapter 47 of Roughing It, “Scotty” Briggs tells how Buck Fanshaw had an election riot “all broke up and prevented nice before anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow” (RI 1993, 314).

  388.17–20 The Cleveland family . . . passed away] Ruth (“Baby Ruth,” 1891–1904), who died at twelve of heart failure during a bout of diphtheria, was the first of five Cleveland children, followed by sisters Esther (1893–1980) and Marion (1895–1977), and brothers Richard (1897–1974) and Francis (1903–95) (“Ruth Cleveland Dead,” New York Times, 8 Jan 1904, 7). Clemens wrote to her on 3 November 1892, when she was one year old, just before her father’s election to his second term (DLC):

  Dear Miss Cleveland:

  If you will read this letter to your father, or ask your mother to do it if you are too busy, I will do something for you someday—anything you command. For I mean to come & see you in the White House before the four years are out. I am going to have Congress enlarge it, for you will take up a good deal of room, probably. And I am writing a book for you to practice your gums on—the very thing, for I know, myself, it is a very tough book. I shall bring my arctics, but that is all right—I know what to do with them now. . . .

  No Administration could be more creditable than your father’s & mother’s last one was—& yet it ain’t agoing to begin with this one, now that you are on deck.

  You have my homage, & I am

  Affectionately Yours

  S. L. Clemens.

  388.29–30 kindly send a sealed greeting under cover to me . . . South to him] Clemens complied with Gilder’s request the following day. See the Autobiographical Dictation of 6 March 1906 for the text of his letter, which Gilder sent to Cleveland in Stuart, Florida. Gilder had first met President Cleveland in the White House before Cleveland’s marriage in 1886, but their friendship began in 1887 (Richard Watson Gilder 1910, 7; Rosamond Gilder 1916, 142; Lynch 1932, 533).

  388.36–39 Mason, an old and valued friend . . . Frankfort in ’78] Clemens first became acquainted with Frank H. Mason (1840–1916), his wife, Jennie V. Birchard Mason (1844?–1916), and their son, Dean B. Mason (b. 1867), in Cleveland in 1867–68. Mason worked as reporter, editorial writer, and finally managing editor of the Cleveland Leader from 1866 to 1880, when he was appointed U.S. consul at Basel, Switzerland. Clemens must be misremembering when he “spent a good deal of time” with Mason, since neither family sojourned in Frankfurt in 1878. The families did socialize, however, during the summer of 1892 in Bad Nauheim: Mason wrote in 1905 that his family had “kept you all in the same old warm corner of our hearts,” and recalled, “We were at the Hotel Kaiserhof, in the suite of rooms just above the ones in which Mrs. Clemens and you and the girls lived during that happy summer” (Mason to SLC, 30 July 1905, CU-MARK; “Mrs. Frank H. Mason Dead,” Washington Post, 26 Nov 1916, 2).

  389.1 ignorant, vulgar, and incapable men . . . political heelers] Heelers, or ward heelers, were apparently so called because they followed at the heels of a political boss, sometimes acting unscrupulously in the hope of future reward.

  389.4–5 Mason, in ’78, had been Consul General in Frankfort several years . . . He had come from Marseilles with a great record] Although Clemens’s account of Mason’s career is essentially correct
, his dates are not. In early 1884, Mason was appointed U.S. consul at Marseilles, where within months a cholera epidemic broke out, followed by a widespread panic and flight from the city. During the ensuing year he distinguished himself by his detailed dispatches about the origins, treatment, and social effects of the disease (which was complicated by a concurrent outbreak of typhus and typhoid fever), and by his efforts to prevent its spread. By late August 1885 he reported that the panic of 1884 had subsided somewhat, but the death rate in the “reeking city” was still a “frightful record.” From 1889 through 1898 he served as consul general at Frankfurt, and from 1899 to 1905 as consul general at Berlin; his next post was in Paris (Washington Post: “The Cholera at Marseilles,” 8 Sept 1885, 4; “Capt. Frank H. Mason Dead,” 25 June 1916, ES11; New York Times: “The Cholera Panic in France,” 4 July 1884, 1; “Origin of the Epidemic,” 1 Aug 1884, 3; Department of State 1911).

  389.10–15 This great record of Mason’s . . . save him from destruction] Mason’s letter is not known to survive. For Clemens’s response to his request, see the next Autobiographical Dictation (6 Mar 1906).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 6 March 1906

  390.2–12 I wrote the little child . . . to keep Mason in his place would be a benefaction to the nation] Clemens made his plea for Mason in a second letter to one-year-old Ruth Cleveland, probably written in January or early February 1893, before the formal beginning of her father’s second term:

  My dear Ruth,—

  I belong to the Mugwumps, & one of the most sacred rules of our order prevents us from asking favors of officials or recommending men to office, but there is no harm in writing a friendly letter to you & telling you that an infernal outrage is about to be committed by your father in turning out of office the best Consul I know (& I know a great many) just because he is a Republican and a Democrat wants his place. . . .

  I can’t send any message to the President, but the next time you have a talk with him concerning such matters I wish you would tell him about Captain Mason & what I think of a Government that so treats its efficient officials. (1 Jan–15 Feb 1893 to Ruth Cleveland, MTB, 2:864)

  390.14 I received a letter from the President] In reply—probably after Cleveland’s 4 March 1893 inauguration—Clemens received a “tiny envelope” with a note in President Cleveland’s hand:

  Miss Ruth Cleveland begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Twain’s letter and say that she took the liberty of reading it to the President, who desires her to thank Mr. Twain for her information, and to say to him that Captain Mason will not be disturbed in the Frankfort Consulate. The President also desires Miss Cleveland to say that if Mr. Twain knows of any other cases of this kind he will be greatly obliged if he will write him concerning them at his earliest convenience. (Cleveland to SLC, MTB, 2:864)

  Mason remained consul general at Frankfurt through 1898.

  390.19–27 beginning of Mr. Cleveland’s second term . . . Mason wrote me again . . . wrote Ruth Cleveland once more] Mason’s second letter requesting Clemens’s aid is also lost. But Clemens replied on 25 February 1893, promising to “inquire after that letter I sent to Mr. Cleveland” (IaDmE). If he wrote a third letter, it has not survived.

  390.39–391.5 Honored Sir . . . March 18/06] The manuscript of this letter—written to honor Cleveland’s birthday on 18 March—survives in the Cleveland Papers at the Library of Congress (DLC). The text of the letter in this dictation, however, was transcribed by Hobby from Clemens’s own security copy (now in NN-BGC), which omits the original’s letterhead (“21 Fifth Avenue”), the date and salutation (“March 6, 1906. | Grover Cleveland, Esq. | Ex-President”), and the complimentary close (“With the profoundest respect”).

  391.6–20 When Mr. Cleveland . . . his part] The incident Clemens describes has not been identified. On another occasion, however, Cleveland refused an offer from the New York Central Railroad that his Buffalo law partner, Wilson S. Bissell (1847–1903), wanted to accept. In about 1880 Chauncey M. Depew, president of the railroad, tried to persuade the firm to become its general counsel in western New York. Cleveland claimed that “if they accepted they would . . . practically be at the disposal of the railroad with its many interests and its large volume of work—acquiring land, defending damage suits, representing it in all its dealings with the city and, of course, with the other cities and towns of western New York” (Tugwell 1968, 47; Depew 1922, 124–25, 227). After Cleveland took up his post as mayor of Buffalo in 1882, he became known as the “veto mayor” for his refusal to adopt civic bills and award contracts whose overriding purpose was to enrich a ring of corrupt politicians, companies, and contractors at the expense of the city (Tugwell 1968, 53–61; Lynch 1932, 74, 85–95).

  391.20 in Buffalo in ’70 and ’71, Mr. Cleveland was sheriff ] From 1871 through 1872 Cleveland was sheriff of Erie County, New York, of which Buffalo was the county seat.

  392.6–8 There was a cluster of sixteen bell-buttons . . . I came to hatch out those sixteen clerks] While Clemens was on his 1884–85 reading tour with Cable, he wrote about this incident to his wife:

  On the train, Dec. 3/84.

  We arrived at Albany at noon, & a person in authority met us & said Gov. Cleveland had expressed a strong desire to have me call, as he wanted to get acquainted with me. So as soon as we had fed ourselves the gentleman, with some additional escort, took us in two barouches to the Capitol, & we had a quite jolly & pleasant brief chat with the President-elect. He remembered me easily, hav[ing] seen me often in Buffalo, but I didn’t remember him, of course, & I didn’t say I did. He had to meet the electors at a banquet in the evening, & expressed great regret that that must debar him from coming to the lecture; so I said if he would take my place on the platform I would run the banquet for him; but he said that that would be only a one-sided affair, because the lecture audience would be so disappointed. Then I sat down on four electrical bells at once (as the cats used to do at the farm,) & summoned four pages whom nobody had any use for. (CU-MARK)

  392.11–18 Abbott Thayers . . . knew Miss Lyon, my secretary, very well] Clemens’s neighbors were the artists Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921) and his second wife, Emeline (Emma) Beach Thayer (1850–1924), and his three children by his first marriage, Mary (b. 1876), Gerald (1883–1939), and Gladys (1886–1945). Emma Beach Thayer was Clemens’s old shipmate and friend from the Quaker City voyage in 1867. Witter Bynner (1881–1968), who later won fame as a poet, had been an editor for S. S. McClure, publisher of the muckraking McClure’s Magazine, since his graduation from Harvard in 1902. Barry Faulkner (1881–1966), an artist and former classmate of Bynner’s at Harvard, was a cousin and student of Abbott Thayer’s. (Clemens evidently misremembered his first name.) They had first introduced themselves to Isabel Lyon at Ceccina’s Restaurant in New York City on 3 May 1905 (link note following 2?–7 Feb 1867 to McComb, L2, 15; AskART 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2008d; Patricia Thayer Muno, personal communication, 30 July 2008; Lyon 1905, 108–9, 123, 276).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 7 March 1906

  392 title Wednesday, March 7, 1906] The first page of this dictation is reproduced in facsimile in the Introduction (figure 16).

  392.29 next day] Susy described the morning of 30 April 1885 in New York City, the day after Clemens’s participation in an Authors’ Reading (see AD, 26 Feb 1906, note at 383.10–11).

  393.34–35 Liebes Geshchenk . . . Susy’s spelling, not mine] Correctly spelled, it should read, “Liebes Geschenk an die Mama,” which can be roughly translated as “Loving gift to Mama.”

  393.43 went to see the Brooklyn Bridge] The Brooklyn Bridge had been open to the public for less than two years, since 24 May 1883, after nearly fourteen years of construction.

  394.12 O heilige . . . Jesus!] “O holy Mary mother of Jesus!”

  394.15–18 that pretty little German girl . . . knew no English] Jean’s young German nurse with a penchant for cursing first came to work for the Clemenses on 16 August 1883, replacing Rosina Hay, who left that day to p
repare for her wedding. Clemens wrote his mother the same day, “We like the new girl exceedingly, & she speaks a good clean German, as easy to understand as English” (16 Aug 1883 to JLC, CU-MARK).

  394.30 Gott sei Dank . . . Haar!] “Thank God I’m really finished with the God damned hair!”

  394.41 lady principal] Abby F. Goodsell was the lady principal of Vassar, “chief executive aid of the President in the direction of the Teachers, and in the government of the students” in 1875–77 and 1881–91. Among other duties she offered “maternal supervision” of the students, provided housing, and oversaw public and social events (Vassar College 2008a).

  395.12 He read “A Trying Situation” and “The Golden Arm,”] Both “A Trying Situation,” taken from chapter 25 of A Tramp Abroad, and “The Woman with the Golden Arm” (which Clemens sometimes called “A Ghost Story”) were regularly on the program for the 1884–85 “Twins of Genius” tour with George Washington Cable (N&J3, 69; see “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It],” note at 217.25–27).

  395.29–42 President of the College . . . I detest his memory] Samuel L. Caldwell (1820–89), a Baptist minister, had been president of Vassar College since 1878. Caldwell wrote Clemens on 3 April 1885, thanking him for his willingness to speak and inviting him and Olivia to stay, and again on 9 April 1885, assuring him that they had sufficient guest chambers for him and Susy and that “the Lady Principal, I am sure, can make your daughter happier than she will be at a hotel” (CU-MARK). Clemens immediately accepted (11 Apr 1885 to Caldwell, NPV). Caldwell was an inexperienced administrator, and in 1884 the alumnae became especially dissatisfied with his inadequate efforts to attract students. They were backed by the Board of Trustees, and on 9 June 1885, five weeks after Clemens gave his readings in honor of Founder’s Day, they accepted Caldwell’s resignation (Vassar College 2008b; Daniels 2008).