10–31 October 1875? • Hartford, Conn. (Cyril Clemens 1965, 3, UCCL 11431)
That was a blunder of mine, an egregious blunder, & Ⓐemendationone peculiarly calculated to confuse & mislead. What I meant to say was that the twins were born at the same time but of different mothers. 2explanatory note
Samuel Harden Church (1858–1943) grew up in Pittsburgh, and in 1875 went to work as an office boy with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in that city. He remained with the company for over fifty years, becoming vice-president of the western lines by the time of his retirement in 1928. Church also enjoyed success as a writer. His first novel, Horatio Plodgers: A Story of To-Day, was published in 1878; his numerous later works included a highly praised biography, Oliver Cromwell: A History (1894).
In Mark Twain’s Test Book (the only source of this letter text), Cyril Clemens reported that in the late 1890s or early 1900s, Church and Clemens sometimes were dinner guests together at the home of Andrew Carnegie. (Church was secretary of the Carnegie Institute, founded in 1896.) But, according to Cyril, Church’s “contact with Mark really began years before, when he was a young man”:
He had finished an absorbing reading of his short stories, “The Jumping Frog and Other Tales.” Among them was one on “The Siamese Twins “ —those two unhappy mortals who were unseverally joined by a cruel ligament into perpetual companionship. He described their troubles, chief of which was that one having fallen in love, insisted on moonlight walks with his inamorata, although the other was crippled with inflammatory rheumatism. Then, at the end of the story, he remarked.
“Having forgotten to mention it sooner, I will remark in conclusion that the ages of the Siamese Twins are respectively fifty-one and fifty-three years.”
Church wrote the editor that he had read this story with deep emotion, but that he had been utterly nonplused by this concluding statement and would like him to clear it up. (Cyril Clemens 1965, 2–3)
At one of these Carnegie dinners, Mark asked Church if he had not written to him years ago about the Siamese Twins; and he was laughingly interested when his admirer quoted his letter back to him, as he had always been able to do, from memory. Then he said—and his mood was humorous rather than sentimental:
“I have always held you in affectionate regard. Your letter was one to remember!” (Cyril Clemens 1965, 2–3)
Cyril Clemens 1965, 3.
L6 , 551–552.