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

by Mark Twain

  434.25 your sister] Isabella Cranston Brown (see AD, 5 Feb 1906, note at 328.30–33).

  434.29 (1875)] This letter was undated, and when Hobby transcribed it into this dictation, she typed merely “(18 ).” The date now assigned to it is 25–28 October 1875 (for the text as it was sent, and the letter from Brown that it answered, see OLC and SLC to Brown, 25–28 Oct 1875, L6, 570–72).

  434.39–41 Mr. Clemens is hard at work on a new book now . . . some few are new] The “new book” may have been one of a number of unidentified works Clemens had in mind or in progress in the fall of 1875 (see 4 Nov 1875 to Howells, L6, 585 n. 9). The sketchbook was Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (1875c), which he had his publisher send to Brown on 6 December 1875 (11 Jan 1876 to Bliss, Letters 1876–1880).

  435.3–5 nurse that we had with us . . . quiet lady-like German girl] Ellen (Nellie) Bermingham and Rosina Hay, respectively (“Contract for the Routledge The Gilded Age,” L5, 641 n. 4; SLC and OLC to Brown, 4 Sept 1874, L6, 226 n. 8).

  435.20–21 I was three thousand miles from home . . . sorrowful news among the cable dispatches] Brown died on 11 May 1882, at which time Clemens was in New Orleans gathering material for Life on the Mississippi.

  435.35 Our Susy is still “Megalopis.” He gave her that name] In 1873 Brown gave the nickname to seventeen-month-old Susy because, Clemens later explained, her “large eyes seemed to him to warrant that sounding Greek epithet” (SLC 1876–85, 3).

  435.36–37 one taken in group with ourselves] See the photograph following page 204.

  436.6–8 courier in service until we got back to Liverpool . . . be done with him] Clemens seems to have confused the two couriers he employed during the family’s 1878–79 European sojourn. George Burk, a German, worked for the Clemenses in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy from early August until 1 October 1878, when he was discharged for incompetence. Joseph Verey, a Pole, worked for them in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and probably briefly in England from 8 July until around 20 July 1879, when they reached London, giving great satisfaction during that time. The Clemenses arrived in Liverpool on 21 August and sailed for the United States two days later (N&J2, 48, 52 n. 16, 121 n. 17, 197–98 n. 71, 210–11, 327 n. 67).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 23 March 1906

  436.25–30 Doctor was guessing at our address . . . Near Boston, U.S.A.] Brown sent two letters to Clemens in early 1874 that were returned to Scotland “Unclaimed.” According to a complaint about the post office that Clemens wrote to the editor of the Boston Advertiser on 16 June 1874, one was addressed “Hartford, State of New York.” In his complaint Clemens also mentioned another letter, addressed to him in “Hartford, Near Boston, New York,” which did reach him “promptly” from England (16 June 1874 to the Editor of the Boston Advertiser, L6, 162–63).

  437.3 Menzies, the publisher] John Menzies (1808–79) was an Edinburgh publisher, bookseller, and newsagent, whose company was one of Scotland’s principal book, magazine, and newspaper distributors. The firm continues in business today and despite diversification still derives much of its revenue from newspaper and magazine distribution (Clan Menzies 2009; John Menzies plc 2009).

  437.12 I think Postmaster-General Key was in office then] The postmaster general at the time John Brown’s letters were mishandled was John A. J. Creswell (1828–91), a Republican congressman and senator from Maryland (1863–65, 1865–67, respectively), who served from March 1869 until July 1874. He is considered to have been exceptionally effective, responsible for sweeping reforms that reduced costs and increased speed and efficiency of delivery of both domestic and foreign mail. David McKendree Key (1824–1900), a lawyer, Confederate soldier, and Democratic senator from Tennessee (1875–77), was postmaster general from March 1877 to June 1880.

  437.19–31 Key suddenly issued some boiler-iron rules . . . the letter must go to the Dead Letter Office] Clemens alludes to the United States Postal Laws and Regulations issued by Postmaster General Key on 1 July 1879, and to supplementary orders regarding misdirected letters issued by him in September and October of that year. Postmasters and postal employees could not on their own authority change a letter’s “direction to a different person or different office or different state.” Misdirected matter received at any post office for delivery had to be returned to the sender if his name and address were on it, and if not, the item had to be sent to the dead-letter office. Letter addresses were required to include both city and state, making “New York, N.Y.” the acceptable form, with letters addressed merely to “New York City” consigned to the dead-letter office. These rules occasioned much complaint and criticism. Clemens added his voice to the protests in a letter of 22 November 1879 and two letters of 8 December 1879, all to the Hartford Courant (Letters 1876–1880; Bissell and Kirby 1879, 2, 117; New York Times: “Notes from the Capital,” 10 Oct 1879, 2; “Orders to Postmasters,” 12 Oct 1879, 2; “The Post Office . . .,” 15 Oct 1879, 4; “Imperfectly-Directed Letters,” 31 Oct 1879, 3).

  438.11–12 Mark Twain, God knows where] Clemens was in London, in 1896, when he received the letter thus addressed, which had been sent (according to Paine) by Brander Matthews and Francis Wilson of The Players club (MTB, 2:565–66). Clemens replied:

  I glanced at your envelope by accident, and got several chuckles for reward—and chuckles are worth much in this world. And there was a curious thing; that I should get a letter addressed “God-Knows-Where” showed that He did know where I was, although I was hiding from the world, and no one in America knows my address, and the stamped legend “Deficiency of address supplied by the New York P.O.,” showed that He had given it away. In the same mail comes a letter from friends in New Zealand addressed, “Mrs. Clemens (care Mark Twain), United States of America,” and again He gave us away—this time to the deficiency department of the San Francisco P.O. (24 Nov 1896 to The Players, New York Tribune, 31 Dec 1896, 6)

  438.20–30 It comes from France . . . Washington postmark of yesterday] The envelope, but not the letter itself, survives in the Mark Twain Papers, and was once pinned to the typescript of this dictation (see the envelope with the redirected address, below).

  438.31–32 In a diary which Mrs. Clemens kept . . . mentions of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe] A diary that Olivia used sporadically between 21 October 1877 and 19 June 1902, with only twenty-five of its leaves bearing her writing, survives in the Mark Twain Papers. Just one entry mentions Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dated 7 June 1885, it describes how Stowe appeared that afternoon

  carrying in her hand a bunch of wild flowers that she had just gathered. She asked if I would like some flowers, of course I said that I should. She handed them to me thanking me most heartily for taking them. Said she could not help gathering them as she walked but that when she took them home the daughters would say “Ma what are you going to do with them, everything is full” meaning with those that she had already gathered. Mrs Stowe is so gentle and lovely. (OLC 1877–1902)

  439.11 Reverend Charley Stowe’s little boy] Charles Edward Stowe’s son was author and editor Lyman Beecher Stowe (1880–1963) (“Charles E. Stowe” in “Hartford Residents” 1974; “Lyman Beecher Stowe Dead,” New York Times, 26 Sept 1963, 35).

  Autobiographical Dictation, 26 March 1906

  439.27 ROCKEFELLER, JR., ON WEALTH] Clemens had a clipping of this article, from the New York Times of 26 March 1906, pasted into the typescript of his dictation.

  440.22–23 I missed his . . . Bible Class last Thursday night] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 20 March 1906.

  440.29 BABY ADVICE IN A CAR] Clemens had a clipping of this article, from the New York Times of 26 March 1906, pasted into the typescript of his dictation.

  442.1–16 Day before yesterday . . . that reporter . . . did his work well] This “happy literary” effort has not been identified. The incident occurred on the morning of 23 March 1906, as confirmed by a detailed account—not the one that Clemens saw, however—that appeared on the same day in the New York Evening Sun (“A Girl’s Despair
,” 6), and by brief reports on the following day in the New York Herald (“No Finery, Takes Poison,” 5) and the New York Tribune (“City News in Brief,” 10).

  442.20 what the Vanderbilts are doing] The activities and pastimes of the descendants of financier and railroad promoter Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) and their families, were, as Clemens says, regular grist for the news and society columns.

  442.21–22 John D. Rockefeller . . . testify about alleged Standard Oil iniquities] In March 1906 Rockefeller was in retreat at his country estate in Lakewood, New Jersey, to avoid a New York subpoena requiring his testimony in an ongoing investigation of Standard Oil. At one point, in response to inquiries about Rockefeller’s whereabouts, his family physician responded, “Mr. Rockefeller is on Mars. That’s a planet, you know, near Jupiter. He’s up there playing golf. One might have heard the whacks quite plainly. One of the golf balls went clear over to Jupiter” (New York Times: numerous articles, 9–25 Mar 1906, especially “Rockefeller on Mars,” 11 Mar 1906, 1).

  442.23 Mr. Carnegie’s movements and sayings] Clemens’s friend Andrew Carnegie was much in the news at this time for his charitable works, and especially for his funding of a Simplified Spelling Board, whose membership included Clemens and was committed to controversial orthographic reform (New York Times: numerous articles, 12–26 Mar 1906; Clemens discusses Carnegie and simplified spelling in AD, 10 Dec 1907).

  442.30–31 they got married and went under cover and got quiet] Alice Lee Roosevelt (1884–1980), the oldest of Theodore Roosevelt’s six children, married Nicholas Longworth (1869–1931), Republican congressman from Ohio (1903–13, 1915–31), on 17 February 1906 in an elaborate White House wedding (“Alice Roosevelt Longworth Dies; She Reigned in Capital 80 Years,” New York Times, 21 Feb 1980, 1). The official announcement of the wedding that Clemens received from the White House survives in the Mark Twain Papers. On the back of it Isabel Lyon wrote: “We ought to drop them a note & say we’d heard it.” No such note has been discovered.

  443.4 The Swangos] Clemens had a clipping of this article, from the New York Times of 26 March 1906, pasted into the typescript of his dictation.

  443.22 CAPT. E. L. MARSH] Clemens had a clipping of this unidentified article pasted into the typescript of his dictation; the wording suggests that it was from an Elmira newspaper (not a Des Moines newspaper, as claimed at 444.1). It may have been sent either by Charles J. Langdon, Clemens’s brother-in-law, or by another member of the Langdon family.

  443.41 General Charles J. Langdon] Langdon’s title derived from his 1880 service as commissary general on the New York gubernatorial staff (Towner 1892, 615).

  444.4–7 in his Company of the Second Iowa Infantry was Dick Higham . . . in my brother’s small printing-office in Keokuk] On 4 May 1861 Marsh enlisted as a corporal in Company D of the Second Regiment of the Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and Higham (1839–62) enlisted as a private in Company A. Marsh rose to the rank of captain before his resignation on 23 May 1864 (Guy E. Logan 2009; Youngquist 2001). In 1856 Higham had been an apprentice in the Ben Franklin Book and Job Office, which Orion Clemens owned while living in Keokuk, Iowa, from June 1855 until June 1857. Both Samuel Clemens and Henry Clemens worked for Orion as well (L1: link note following 5 Mar 1855 to the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal, 58–59; 10 June 1856 to JLC and PAM, 63, 65 n. 3; 5 Aug 1856 to HC, 67, 69 n. 13; 9 Mar 1858 to OC and MEC, 79 n. 11; 2 Apr 1862 to JLC, 184 n. 6).

  444.14–24 Second Iowa . . . Dick fell with a bullet . . . furled in disgrace] The Second Regiment of the Iowa Volunteer Infantry gave important service both before and after the engagement at Fort Donelson, in Tennessee, its first great battle, where it distinguished itself as “the bravest of the brave” and was given “the honor of leading the column” that entered the conquered stronghold (Guy E. Logan 2009). The regiment had been disgraced by general order for having failed to prevent vandals from stealing taxidermic specimens from McDowell College in St. Louis, which was being used as a prison. Higham died at Fort Donelson, on 16 February 1862. After learning of his death, Clemens, in a letter from Carson City, recalled the prankish “musket drill” he put Higham through in the Ben Franklin Book and Job Office in Keokuk (2 Apr 1862 to JLC, L1, 181–82; Ingersoll 1866, 36–37).

  445.4–13 my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie . . . Captain John Nye . . . too late to save our fortune from the jumpers] Higbie (1831?–1914) was Clemens’s cabinmate for a time in 1862 in Aurora. He not only figures in chapters 37 through 42 of Roughing It, including the “blind lead” episode and the hunt for “the marvelous Whiteman cement mine,” but was the “Honest Man . . . Genial Comrade, and . . . Steadfast Friend” to whom the book was dedicated (RI 1993, 637). John Nye, the brother of Nevada Territorial Governor James W. Nye, was a mining, timber, and railroad entrepreneur in Nevada in 1861–62, when Clemens first knew him, and then for many years was a San Francisco real estate agent. He appears in chapters 35 and 41 of Roughing It, in the latter of which Clemens reported nursing him through nine days of “spasmodic rheumatism” (RI 1993, 644).

  445.20 Greenville, Plumas co. California] Higbie’s letter and the letter from Miner that follows were transcribed into this dictation from Higbie’s original manuscript and transcript, now in the Mark Twain Papers.

  446.16–17 Geo. R. Miner, Sunday Editor] Miner (1862–1918) had been a reporter and editor for several newspapers before becoming the New York Herald’s Sunday editor, a post he held from 1902 until 1908.

  446.18 I have written Higbie] Clemens dictated and sent the following letter (CU-MARK):

  21 FIFTH AVENUE

  March 26. 1906

  New York.

  Dear Higbie:

  I went down to Aurora about midsummer of ’62. I suppose it must have been toward the end of October, ’62 that I went to Walker River to nurse Capt. John Nye. I crossed the Sierras into California for the first time along about the middle of ’64, I should say.

  Send me your manuscript. I shall be as competent as anybody to sit in judgment upon its value and arrive at a verdict. Then I will ask the New York Herald to name a price & come to my house and talk with me, in case he finds that your narrative comes up to his expectations. If he should decide that he doesn’t want it—but that is further along. If you have told your story with your pen in the simple unadorned & straightforward way in which you would tell it with your tongue, I think it cannot help but have value.

  I was very glad to hear from you, old comrade, & shall be also glad to be of service to you in this matter if I can.

  Sincerely Yours,

  SL. Clemens.

  Clemens nursed John Nye in late June 1862. He first left Nevada for California in May 1863, on a two-month visit to San Francisco, and then moved to San Francisco almost exactly a year later (see L1: 9 July 1862 to OC, 224, 226 n. 1; 11 and 12 Apr 1863 to JLC and PAM, 250 n. 7; 18? May 1863 to JLC and PAM through 20 June 1863 to OC and MEC, 252–59; and the link note following 28 May 1864 to Cutler, 302–3). Clemens continues the story of Higbie’s literary ambition in the Autobiographical Dictation of 10 August 1906.

  Autobiographical Dictation, 27 March 1906

  447.4–5 silver-mining claim . . . in partnership with Bob Howland and Horatio Phillips] For Howland, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 19 January 1906, note at 295.20. Clemens probably first met Phillips in Carson City in August 1861. Shortly afterward they became partners in several claims in the Esmeralda mining district. Among them were the Horatio and Derby ledges, in which Howland was also a partner. Clemens and Phillips lived together in Aurora, in the Esmeralda district, in the spring of 1862 (LI: 29 Oct 1861 to Phillips, 140–43; 8 and 9 Feb 1862 to JLC and PAM, 156, 161 n. 2; 13 Apr 1862 to OC, 186; 11 and 12 May 1862 to OC, 207; 30 July 1862 to OC, 232–33 n. 2).

  447.9 I secured a place in a near-by quartz mill] Clemens described his experience at the quartz mill in chapter 36 of Roughing It.

  447.25 Pioneer] The Pioneer Mill, erected in June 1861, was the first in Aurora (13 Apr 18
62 to OC, L1 188 n. 8).

  449.3–7 I parted from Higbie . . . told all about this in “Roughing It.”] Clemens arrived in Virginia City, to take up his new post on the Territorial Enterprise, by late September 1862 (see AD, 9 Jan 1906, note at 251.32–38). He told about his experiences there in chapters 42–49, 51–52, and 54–55 of Roughing It.

  450.13–19 This young man wrote me two or three times a year . . . any more] Clemens recalled William James Lampton (1851?–1917), a second cousin, who wrote on 20 May 1875 from St. Louis, where he was a bookkeeper for a dealer in pig iron, introducing himself and asking for Clemens’s assistance in getting a position as a reporter. Clemens’s reply survives only as a notation he made on the envelope of Lampton’s letter: “Told him to serve an apprenticeship for nothing & when worth wages he would get them.” Contrary to the account in this dictation, however, Lampton did not take Clemens’s advice, but in 1877 instead made his entry into journalism by using his father’s money to start his own newspaper. In February 1882 he became city editor of the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal. It seems unlikely that he wrote Clemens “two or three times a year.” Only two additional letters from Lampton survive, dated 26 June 1876 and 18 February 1882, neither of them reporting encouragingly on Clemens’s employment “scheme” and neither of them received with enthusiasm (see 22? May 1875 to Lampton, L6, 484–85). Just one letter from Clemens to Lampton is known to survive. Written in 1901, evidently in March, it is a sarcastic response to Lampton’s patriotic poem, “Ready If Needed.”