Autobiography of Mark Twain (153 page)

336.3 Twichell’s littlest cub, now a grave and reverend clergyman] Joseph Hooker Twichell (1883–1961), Joseph and Harmony Twichell’s eighth child and youngest son, graduated from Yale in 1906 and four years later earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Hartford Theological Seminary (Hartford Seminary Record 1910, 222; Courtney 2008, 224, 261–62). He was the only Twichell child to become a clergyman; presumably Clemens was making a joke about his youth.

336.18 Will Gillette, now world famous actor and dramatist] William Hooker Gillette (1853–1937) was Lilly Warner’s younger brother. After graduating from Hartford Public High School in 1873, he studied acting in St. Louis and New Orleans, playing minor roles with a stock company. In 1875, assisted by Clemens’s personal recommendation and financial support, he secured a role in the touring production of the
Gilded Age
play, and went on to a long and successful career as an actor and dramatist. He became particularly associated with the role of Sherlock Holmes (OLC and SLC to Langdon, 14 Mar 1875,
L6
, 413–14 n. 8).

337.12 the divine Sarah] Sarah Bernhardt (stage name of Rosine Bernard, 1844–1923) was the most famous actress of her time. Susy saw her perform at least twice in Florence in 1893, in two of her most famous vehicles,
Adrienne Lecouvreur
and
La Tosca
. At the time of this dictation, Clemens had recently spoken at a Bernhardt performance benefiting the Jews of Russia (OSC to CC, 24 Jan 1893, TS in CU-MARK; “Mark Twain Speaks After Bernhardt Acts,” New York
Times
, 19 Dec 1905, 9).

337.20–24 When Susy was thirteen . . . writing of a biography of me] Clemens wrote in his notebook in early April 1885, “Susie, aged 13, (1885), has begun to write my biography—solely of her own motion—a thing about which I feel proud & gratified” (
N&J3
, 112; quoted more fully in the Introduction, p. 9). She worked on the biography until July 1886.

338.8 I shall print the whole of this little biography] Clemens ultimately used most, but by no means all, of Susy’s text.

338.10 The spelling is frequently desperate, but it was Susy’s, and it shall stand] Collation of Susy’s manuscript with Hobby’s typescript demonstrates that the text was transmitted orally to Hobby—that is, Clemens evidently read Susy’s text aloud and directed Hobby to spell many of the words incorrectly, as in the original (see the Textual Commentary for AD, 2 Feb 1906,
MTPO
). Occasionally Susy spelled something properly that was rendered erroneously in the typescript, and vice versa. Clemens also sometimes adapted her prose to the surrounding dictation.

338.30 John Robards] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 9 March 1906, note at 401.7–16.

339.17–18 I took the precaution of sending my book, in manuscript, to Mr. Howells, when he was editor of the
Atlantic Monthly
] William Dean Howells was assistant editor (to 1871) and then editor (1871–81) of the
Atlantic Monthly
. During that time he reviewed in its pages
The Innocents Abroad
(1869),
Roughing It
(1872),
Sketches New and Old
(1875),
Tom Sawyer
(1876), and
A Tramp Abroad
(1880). Of these, the only ones he read “in manuscript” were
Tom Sawyer
and
A Tramp Abroad;
he did, however, continue to read many of Clemens’s books in manuscript and review them in other journals (Budd 1999, 71–73, 105–6, 151–52, 157–58, 186–88, 215, 292–95, 407).

339.28–340.5 “The Gilded Age,” . . . Chicago
Tribune
. . . adopted the view of the humble
Daily Graphic
, dishonesty-charge and all] Clemens is incorrect in asserting that the New York
Daily Graphic
“scooped” the
Atlantic Monthly
in reviewing
The Gilded Age
. The
Atlantic
did not review
The Gilded Age
at all: since Howells felt he could not recommend it, he merely noted it as “received” (Howells 1874b, 374; Howells 1979, 46). As for the
Daily Graphic
, almost a year earlier its editor, David G. Croly, had given Clemens space to advertise the forthcoming novel. Clemens’s letter, reproduced by the
Graphic
in facsimile, read in part:

I consider it one of the most astonishing novels that ever was written. Night after night I sit up reading it over & over again & crying. It will be published early in the fall, with plenty of pictures. Do you consider this an advertisement?—& if so, do you charge for such things, when a man is your friend & is an orphan? (17 Apr 1873 to Croly,
L5
, 341–44; see “Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles, 1872–73,”
L5
, 668–71)

The
Graphic
reviewed
The Gilded Age
rather roughly, calling it an “incoherent series of sketches” and “a rather dreary failure.” But it seems to have been the Chicago
Tribune
that originated the charges of “fraud,” “deliberate deceit,” and “abus[ing] the people’s trust.” The imputed offense was the authors’ sale of substandard goods, not the use of Mark Twain’s name to sell Warner’s work (“Literary Notes,” New York
Daily Graphic
, 23 Dec 1873, 351; “The Twain-Warner Novel,” Chicago
Tribune
, 1 Feb 1874, 9).

340.28–31 I found this clipping . . . of the date of thirty-nine years ago . . . I will copy it here] The clipping itself does not survive, but the “correspondent of the Philadelphia
Press”
has been identified as Emily Edson Briggs (1830–1910), who wrote under the pen name “Olivia.” The passage, drawn from her column datelined 2 March 1868 (in Briggs 1906, 45–47), was reprinted in one of the newspapers for which Clemens corresponded from Washington in early 1868—the Chicago
Republican
, the San Francisco
Alta California
, or the Virginia City
Territorial Enterprise
.

341.19–20 Emmeline . . . an impressionist water-color] This painting was by Italian society portraitist Daniele Ranzoni (1843–89). Clemens bought it in Milan as a birthday present for Olivia in 1878. Its nickname of “Emmeline” may be related to the fictional picture made by Emmeline Grangerford described in chapter 17 of
Huckleberry Finn (N&J2
, 187 n. 50).

341.22 oil painting by Elihu Vedder, “The Young Medusa.”] American painter Elihu Vedder (1836–1923) had been resident in Rome since 1867. Clemens bought “The Young Medusa” after a visit to Vedder’s studio on 9 November 1878. If the painting was anything like the drawing by Vedder on the same theme, it depicted “the calm face of a woman with flowing locks. Tiny serpents are just springing from her forehead” (Soria 1964, 603–4;
N&J2
, 244–45 and n. 60).

342.11 Our burglar alarm] By 1877 the Clemenses’ Hartford house had been outfitted with what one newspaper referred to as “Jerome’s famous burglar alarm.” By 1880 the house had an electrically operated system, installed (and repeatedly serviced) by the New York firm of A. G. Newman. Doors and windows were fitted with magnetic contacts linked to an electrical
circuit; when the system was armed, opening a door or window closed the circuit and sounded the alarm. A central device called the “annunciator” indicated which door or window had been opened; the annunciator also had switches for disconnecting all or part of the house from the alarm, and a clock for automatic regulation. Clemens’s struggles with the alarm form the basis of his 1882 story “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm” (17 July 1877 to OLC [1st],
Letters 1876–1880;
“Burglar Alarms,” Hartford
Courant
, 12 Mar 1878, 2; Newman to SLC, 18 May 1880, CU-MARK; 22 Feb 1883 to Webster, NPV; Houston 1898, 11, 22; SLC 1882b).

342.31 Ashcroft] Ralph W. Ashcroft (1875–1947), born in Cheshire, England, was secretary and treasurer of the Plasmon Company of America in 1905 when Clemens considered legal action against it for mismanagement of his investments. Impressed with Ashcroft, Clemens took him to England in June 1907, and began to rely on him as his business adviser. At Ashcroft’s suggestion, the name “Mark Twain” was registered as a trademark, a step in the formation of The Mark Twain Company (1908). In 1909 Ashcroft married Isabel Lyon, Clemens’s secretary. For a time Ashcroft and Lyon managed Clemens’s business affairs, but in April 1909 he dismissed them. His lengthy and accusatory “Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript” (SLC 1909b) describes their mismanagement as he saw it. Ashcroft subsequently worked as an advertising director for various Canadian business firms; he and Lyon divorced in 1926 (
HHR
, 735–36; Ashcroft 1904; Ashcroft to Lyon, 1 Mar 1906, CU-MARK; “Memorandum for Mr. Rogers re. Clemens’ Matter,” CU-MARK; “Business Leader, Friend and Aide of Mark Twain,” Toronto
Globe and Mail
, 9 Jan 1947, 7; Lystra 2004, 265).

342.33 Henry Butters, Harold Wheeler, and the rest of those Plasmon thieves] Plasmon, a powdered milk extract, was first marketed in Vienna while Clemens was living there in 1897–99. He came to see the product as a remedy for everything from Olivia’s illness to world famine. In his 1909 “Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript,” he recounted his Plasmon entanglements, which began with an investment in the British branch of the firm:

By May, 1900, we had the enterprise on its feet & doing a promising business. Then some Americans wanted the rights for America. . . . The American company was presently started in New York. Henry A. Butters of California was one of the promoters & directors. He swindled me out of $12,500 & helped Wright, a subordinate, to swindle me out of $7,000 more.

Two of the directors—Butters and another—proceeded to gouge the company out of its cash capital. By about 1905 they had sucked it dry, & the company went bankrupt. (SLC 1909b, 8–9)

Clemens’s grievance was set forth in more detail by his lawyer, John B. Stanchfield:

Mr. Clemens contributed to the enterprise $25,000 . . . and believed that he was purchasing stock in the corporation, and that for every share that he bought, he was entitled to another share as a bonus. This was the arrangement Butters had told him had been made. . . .

It seems that Butters, who was the directing agent of the American corporation at the time, had the avails of Mr. Clemens’ moneys credited to his personal account, and transferred his own shares to the extent of 250 to Mr. Clemens. (Enclosure with Stanchfield to SLC, 4 Mar 1905, CU-MARK)

Henry A. Butters (1830–1908) was a San Francisco capitalist; his associates Howard E. Wright and Harold Wheeler successively managed the American Plasmon Company. Clemens began threatening Butters with a suit for grand larceny early in 1905. He returned to the subject of the Plasmon fiasco in the Autobiographical Dictations of 30 August 1907 and 31 October 1908 (8–9 Apr 1900 to Rogers, Salm, in
HHR
, 438–42; Ober 2003, 169–72; “Death Claims Railroad Man,” Los Angeles
Times
, 27 Oct 1908, 15; Ashcroft 1904; 11 and 14 Mar 1909 to CC, MS draft in CU-MARK).

343.28–29 I can’t see how it is ever going to fetch me out right when we get to the door] Clemens’s perplexity in this matter of the spoon-shaped drive of the house in Hartford can be better understood with the aid of a diagram he sketched in an 1892 notebook, reproduced here. No matter which way the buggy rounds the loop, a passenger seated to the right of the driver will end up on the side away from the house (Notebook 31, TS p. 37, CU-MARK).

345.9 ombra] The term that the Clemenses used for the veranda that surrounded the house; it means “shade” in Italian.

346.9 Susy Warner] Charles Dudley Warner’s wife (1838?–1921) was a talented pianist and a close friend of Olivia’s. Susy Clemens’s manuscript biography left a blank for Susan Warner’s name. Clemens supplied it in his dictation, but when he prepared the text for publication in the
North American Review
, he toyed with a pseudonym (“Tabitha Wilson”) before settling on “your wife” for the text he published there (24 and 25 Nov 1869 to OLL,
L5
, 407 n. 3; NAR 4).

349.18–23 His mother is Grandma Clemens . . . F.F.V’s of Virginia . . . always strongly interested in the ancestry of the house] In Clemens’s lifetime the phrase “First Families of Virginia” was used informally to designate those who claimed descent from the earliest settlers of the state. The present-day Order of First Families of Virginia was founded in 1912. Susy apparently read an interview with her grandmother published in the Chicago
Inter-Ocean
sometime in March or April 1885 which was widely reprinted. The last paragraph read:

Mrs. Clemens was Miss Jane Lampton before her marriage and was a native of Kentucky. Mr. Clemens was of the F. F. V.’s of Virginia. They did not accumulate property and the father left the family at his death nothing but, in Mark’s own words, “a sumptuous stock of pride and a good old name,” which, it will be allowed, has proved in this case at least a sufficient inheritance. (“Mark Twain’s Boyhood. An Interview with the Mother of the Famous Humorist,” New York
World
, 12 Apr 1885, 19, reprinting the Chicago
Inter-Ocean
)