Rev. Dr. Burton swung his leonine head around, focussed me with his eye, and said:
“When was it that this happened?”
“In June, ’58.”
“It is a good many years ago. Have you told it several times since?”
“Yes, I have, a good many times.”
“How many?”
“Why,Ⓐapparatus note I don’t know how many.”
“Well, strike an average. How many times a year do you think you have told it?”
“WellⒶapparatus note I have told it as many as six times a year, possibly oftener.”
“Very well, then you’ve told it, we’ll say,Ⓐapparatus note seventy or eighty times since it happened?”
[begin page 277]“Yes,”Ⓐapparatus note I said, “that’s a conservative estimate.”
“Now then, Mark, a very extraordinary thing happened to me a great many years ago, and I used to tell it a number of times—a good many times—every year, for it was so wonderful that it always astonished the hearer, and that astonishment gave me a distinct pleasure every time. I never suspected that that tale was acquiring any auxiliary advantages through repetition until one day after I had been telling it ten or fifteen years it struck me that either I was getting old, and slow in delivery, or that the tale was longer than it was when it was born. Mark, I diligently and prayerfully examined that tale with this result: that I found that its proportions were now, as nearly as I could make out, one part fact, straight fact, fact pure and undiluted, golden fact, and twenty-four parts embroidery. I never told that tale afterwards—I was never able to tell it again, for I had lost confidence in it, and so the pleasure of telling it was gone, and gone permanently. How much of this tale of yours is embroidery?”
“Well,”Ⓐapparatus note I saidⒶapparatus note “I don’t know. I don’t think any of it is embroidery. I think it is all just as I have stated it, detail by detail.”
“Very well,” he said, “then it is all right, but I wouldn’t tell it any more;Ⓐapparatus note because if you keep on,Ⓐapparatus note it will begin to collect embroidery sure. The safest thing is to stop now.”
That was a great many years ago. And to-day is the first time that I have told that dream since Dr. Burton scared me into fatal doubts about it. No, I don’t believe I can say that. I don’t believe that I ever reallyⒶapparatus note had any doubts whatever concerning the salient points of the dream, for those points are of such a nature that they are pictures, and pictures can be remembered, when they areⒶapparatus note vivid, much better than one can remember remarks and unconcreted facts. Although it has been so many years since I have told that dream, I can see those pictures now just as clearly defined as if they were before me in this room. I have not told the entire dream. There was a good deal more of it. I mean I have not told all that happened in the dream’s fulfillmentⒶapparatus note. After the incident in the death roomⒶapparatus note I may mention one detail, and that is this. When I arrived in St. Louis with the casket it was about eight o’clock in the morning, and I ran to my brother-in-law’s place of business, hoping to find him there, but I missed him, for while I was on the way to his office he was on his way from the house to the boat. When I got back to the boat the casket was gone. He had conveyed it out to his house. I hastened thither, and when I arrived the men were just removing the casket from the vehicle to carry it up stairsⒶapparatus note. I stopped that procedure, for I did not want my mother to see the dead face, because one side of it was drawn and distorted by the effects of the opium. When I went up stairs,Ⓐapparatus note there stood the two chairs—placed to receive the coffin—Ⓐapparatus note just asⒶapparatus note I had seen themⒶapparatus note in my dream;Ⓐapparatus note and if I had arrivedⒶapparatus note two or three minutes later, the casket would have been resting upon them,Ⓐapparatus note preciselyⒶapparatus note as in my dream of several weeks before.
Now then, TwichellⒶapparatus note—but never mind about TwichellⒶapparatus note. There is a telephone message from his daughter, Mrs. WoodⒺexplanatory note, to say he is in town and will come here to dinner and stay all night.Ⓐapparatus note
I think it was at that same dream meeting that a very curious thing happened. It didn’t happen then—it happened in the night, afterward. No, it didn’t happen there at all. It happened at the house of James Goodwin, father of ReverendⒶapparatus note Francis Goodwin, and also father [begin page 278] of the great Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company. Mr. James Goodwin was an old man at the time that I speak of, but in his young days, when he used to drive stage between Hartford and Springfield, he conceived the idea of starting a Mutual Insurance Company, and he collected a little capital in the way of subscriptions—enough to start the business in a modest way—and he gave away the rest of the stock where he could find people willing to accept it—(though they were rather scarce) and now he had lived to see that stock worth two hundred and fifty and nobody willing to sell at that price, or any other. He had long ago forgotten how to drive stage—but it was no matter. He was worth seven millions, and didn’t need to work for a living any longer. ReverendⒶapparatus note Frank Goodwin, his son, an Episcopal clergyman, was a man of many accomplishments; and among others, he was an architect. He planned and built a huge granite mansion for his fatherⒺexplanatory note, and I think it was in that mansion that that curious thing happened that night. However I don’t know about that. No, it didn’t happen there. It happened in Francis Goodwin’s own house in the neighborhood. I don’t mind excursioning around in an autobiography—there is plenty of room. I don’t mind it so long as I get the things right at last,Ⓐapparatus note when they are important. It happened in this way. FrankⒶapparatus note Goodwin had a burglar alarm in his house. The annunciator was right at his ear, on the port side of his bed. He would put the whole house on the alarm—every window and every door—at bedtime, then, at five o’clock in the morning the cook would descend from her bedroomⒶapparatus note and open the kitchen door and that would set the alarm to buzzing in Goodwin’s ear. Now as that happened every morning straight along, week in and week out, Goodwin soon became so habituated to it that it didn’t disturb him. It aroused him, partly, from his sleep sometimesⒶapparatus note—sometimes it probably did not affect his sleep at all, but from old habit he would automatically put out his left hand and shut off that alarm. By that act he shut off the alarm from the entire house, leaving not a window or a door on itⒶapparatus note from five o’clock in the morning thenceforth until he should set the alarm the next night at bedtimeⒶapparatus note.
The night that I speak of was one of those dismal New England November nights, close upon the end of the month, when the pestiferous New England climate furnishes those regions a shake-down just in the wayⒶapparatus note of experiment and to get its hand in for business when the proper time comes, which is December. Well, the wind howled, and the snow blew along in clouds when we left that house about midnight. It was a wild night. It was like a storm at sea, for boom and crash and roar and furious snow-drive. It was no kind of a night for burglars to be out in, and yet they were out. Goodwin was in bed,Ⓐapparatus note with his house on the alarm by half pastⒶapparatus note twelve. Not very long afterward the burglars arrived. Evidently they knew all about the burglar alarmⒶapparatus note, because instead of breaking into the kitchen they sawed their way in—that is to say, they sawed a great panel out of the kitchen door and stepped in without alarming the alarm. They went all over the house at their leisure; they collected all sorts of trinkets and trumpery; andⒶapparatus note all of the silverware. They carried these things to the kitchen, put them in bags, and then they gathered together a sumptuous supper, with champagne and Burgundy, and so on, and ate that supper at their leisure. Then when they were ready to leave—say at three o’clock in the morning—the champagne and the Burgundy had had an influence, and they became careless for a moment, but one moment was enough. In that careless moment a burglar unlocked andⒶapparatus note opened the kitchen door, and of course the alarm went off. Rev. Mr. Goodwin put out his left hand and [begin page 279] shut it offⒶapparatus note and went on sleeping peacefully, but the burglars bounded out of the place and left all their swag behind them. A burglar alarmⒶapparatus note is a valuable thing if you know how to utilize it.
When Rev. Mr. GoodwinⒶapparatus note was finishing his father’s mansion,Ⓐapparatus note I was passing by one day. I thought I would go in and see how the house was coming along, and in the first room I entered I found Mr. Goodwin and a paperhangerⒶapparatus note. Then Mr. Goodwin told me this curious story. He said,Ⓐapparatus note
“ThisⒶapparatus note room has been waiting a good while. This is Morris paperⒺexplanatory note, and it didn’t hold out. You will see there is one space there, from the ceiling half wayⒶapparatus note to the floor, which is blank. I sent to New York and ordered some more of the paper—it couldn’t be furnished. I applied in Philadelphia and in Boston, with the same result. There was not a bolt of that paper left in America, so far as any of these people knew. I wrote to London. The answer came back in those same monotonous terms—that paper was out of print—not a yard of it to be found. Then I told the paperhanger to strip the paper off and we would replace it with some other pattern,Ⓐapparatus note and I was very sorry, because I preferred that pattern to any other. Just then a farmer-looking man halted in front of the house, started to walk that single-plank approach,Ⓐapparatus note that you haveⒶapparatus note just walked, and come in; butⒶapparatus note he saw that sign up there—‘No admittance’—a sign which did not obstruct your excursion into this place—but it halted himⒶapparatus note. I said ‘Come in, come in.’ He came in, and this being the first room on the route, he naturally glanced in. He saw the paper on the wall and remarked casually ‘I am acquainted with that pattern. I’ve got a bolt of it at home down on my farm in Glastonbury.’ It didn’t take long to strike up a trade with him for that bolt, which had been lying in his farm-houseⒶapparatus note for he didn’t know how long, and he hadn’t any use for it—and now we are finishing up that lacking patch there.”
It was only a coincidence, but I think it was a very curious and interesting one.Ⓐapparatus note
MRS.Ⓐapparatus note MORRIS’S ILLNESS TAKES A SERIOUS TURN Ⓔexplanatory note
Cabinet Officers Urge President
to Disavow
Violence to Her.
A DISCUSSION IN THE HOUSE
Mr.
Sheppard Criticises the President and
Republican Leaders Try to Stop Him.
Special to The New York Times.
washington, Jan. 10.—Mrs. Minor Morris, who on Thursday was dragged from the White House, is to-night in a critical condition.
She seemed to be on the road to recovery on Saturday, and her physicians held out hopes that she would be able to be out by Monday. At the beginning of this week her condition took an unfavorable turn, and she has been growing steadily worse. She had a congestive chill to-day and has continued to grow worse. It is evident to-night that her nervous system has suffered something approaching a collapse.
The bruises inflicted upon her by the policemen have not disappeared, a striking evidence of their severity. Her arms, shoulders, and neck still bear testimony to the nature of her treatment. Mentally and physically she is suffering severely.
[begin page 280]It was learned to-day that two Cabinet officers, one of whom is Secretary Taft, have been laboring with the President for two days to get him to issue a statement disavowing the action of Assistant Secretary Barnes, who ordered Mrs. Morris expelled, and expressing his regret for the way she was treated. They have also urged him to promise to take action which will make impossible the repetition of such an occurrence.
The President has held out stoutly against the advice of these two Cabinet officers. He authorized Mr. Barnes to make the statement that he gave out, in which the treatment of Mrs. Morris was justified, and it is not easy to take the other tack now. On high authority, however, it is learned that the two Cabinet officers have not ceased their labors. They both look on the matter not as “a mere incident,” but as a serious affair.
The Morris incident> was brought up in the House to-day just before adjournment by Mr. Sheppard of Texas. He was recognized for fifteen minutes, in the ordinary course of the debate on the Philippine Tariff billⒺexplanatory note, and began at once to discuss the resolution he introduced Monday calling for an investigation of the expulsion. He excused himself for speaking on the resolution at this time, saying that as it was not privileged he could not obtain its consideration without the consent of the Committee on Rules.
He went on to describe the incident at the White House. He had proceeded only a minute or two when he was interrupted by Gen. Grosvenor, who rose to the point of order that the remarks were not germane to the Philippine Tariff bill.
“I will show the gentleman that it is germane,” cried Mr. Sheppard. “It is just as proper for this country to have a Chinese wall around the White House as it is to have such a wall around the United States.”
“Well, if he thinks it is proper to thus arraign the President and his household,” said Mr. Grosvenor, “let him go on.”
“If the President had heard the howl of a wolf or the growl of a bear from the adjacent offices,” retorted Mr. Sheppard, “the response would have been immediate, but the wail of an American woman fell upon unresponsive ears.”
There had been several cries of protest when Gen. Grosvenor interrupted Mr. Sheppard, many of whose Democratic friends gathered about him and urged him to proceed. They applauded his reply to Mr. Grosvenor, and the Ohioan did not press his point.
“These unwarrantable and unnecessary brutalities,” continued Mr. Sheppard, “demand an investigation. Unless Congress takes some action we shall soon witness in a free republic a condition where citizens cannot approach the President they have created without fear of bodily harm from arbitrary subordinates.”
Mr. Sheppard had nearly reached the close of his remarks when Mr. Payne, the titular floor leader of the Republicans, renewed the Grosvenor point of order. Mr. Olmstead of Pennsylvania, in the chair, however, ruled that with the House sitting in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, remarks need not be germane.
Mr. Payne interrupted again, to ask a question.
“If a gentleman has the facts upon which to found his attack,” he said, “does he not think the police court is the better place to air them?”
“The suggestion is a reflection upon the gentleman himself, although he is a friend of mine,” replied Sheppard.
When the speech was finished Grosvenor got the floor and said he had been aware of the rules when he did not press his point.
“But I made the point,” he continued, “merely to call the attention of the young gentleman from Texas in a mild and fatherly manner, to my protest against his remarks. I hoped he would refrain from further denunciation of the President. He has introduced a resolution which is now pending before the proper committee. That resolution asks for facts [begin page 281] and I supposed that the gentleman would wait for the facts until that resolution is brought into the House.
“I know no difference in proper conduct between the President’s office and household and the humblest home in this Nation, but I don’t believe a condition has arisen such that the husband of this woman cannot take care of the situation.”
A high Government official to-night added to the accounts of the expulsion an incident, which he said was related to him by an eyewitness. While the policemen and their negro assistant were dragging Mrs. Morris through the grounds the scene was witnessed by the women servants, some of whom called out, “Shame!” One of the policemen pressed his hand down on Mrs. Morris’s mouth to stifle her cries for help, and at that sight a man servant, a negro, rushed forward and shouted:
“Take your hand off that white woman’s face! Don’t treat a white woman that way!”
The policeman paid no attention to the man, and continued his efforts to stifle Mrs. Morris’s cries.
The reason I want to insertⒶapparatus note that account of the Morris case, which is making such a lively stir all over the United States, and possibly the entire world, in these days, is this. Some day, no doubt these autobiographical notes will be published. It will be after my death. It may be five years from now, it may be ten, it may be fifty—Ⓐapparatus notebut whenever the time shall come, even if it should be a century hence—I claim that the reader of that day will find the same strong interest in that narrative that the world has in it to-day, for the reason that the account speaks of the thing in the language we naturally use when we are talking about something that has just happened. That form of narrative is able to carry along with it for ages and ages the very same interest which we find in it to-day. Whereas if this had happened fifty years ago, or a hundredⒶapparatus note, and the historian had dug it up and was putting it in his language, and furnishing you a long-distance view of it, the reader’s interest in it would be pale. You see,Ⓐapparatus note it would not be newsⒶapparatus note to him, it would be history; merely history; and history can carry on no successful competition with news, in the matter of sharp interest. WhenⒶapparatus note an eye-witness sets down in narrative form some extraordinary occurrence which he has witnessed, that is newsⒶapparatus note —that is the news form, and its interest is absolutely indestructible; time can have no deteriorating effect upon that episode. I am placing that account there largely as an experiment. If any stray copy of this book shall, by anyⒶapparatus note chance, escape the paper-mill for a century or so, and then be discovered and read, I am betting that that remote reader will find that it is still newsⒶapparatus note, and that it is just as interesting as any news he will find in the newspapers of his day and morning—if newspapers shall still be in existence then—though let us hope they won’t.Ⓐapparatus note
These notions were born to me in the fall of 1867, in Washington. That is to say, thirty-nine years ago. I had come back from the Quaker CityⒶapparatus note Excursion. I had gone to Washington to write “The Innocents Abroad,”Ⓔexplanatory note but before beginning that book it was necessary to earn some money to live on meantime, or borrow it—which would be difficult, or take it where it reposed unwatched—which would be unlikely. So I started the first Newspaper Correspondence Syndicate that an unhappy world ever saw. I started it in conjunction with William Swinton, a brother of the Admirable John SwintonⒺexplanatory note. William Swinton was a brilliant creature, highly educated, accomplished. He was such a contrast to me that I did not know which of us most to admire, because both ends of a contrast are equally delightful to me. A thoroughly beautiful [begin page 282] woman and a thoroughly homely woman are creations which I love to gaze upon, and which I cannot tire of gazing upon, for each is perfect in her own line, and it is perfection, I think, in many things, and perhaps most things, which is the quality that fascinates us. A splendid literature charms us; but it doesn’t charm meⒶapparatus note any more thanⒶapparatus note its opposite does—Ⓐapparatus note“hog-wash” literature. At another time I will explain that word, “hog-wash,” and offer an example of it which lies here on the bed—a book which was lately sent to me from England, or Ireland.
Swinton kept a jug. It was sometimes full, but seldom as full as himself—and it was when he was fullest that he was most competent with his pen.Ⓐapparatus note We wrote a letter apiece once a week and copied themⒶapparatus note and sent them to twelve newspapers, charging each of the newspapers a dollar apiece. And although we didn’t get rich, it kept the jug going and partly fed the two of us. We earned the rest of our living with magazine articles. My trade in that line was better than his, because I had written six letters for the New York Tribune while I was out on the Quaker CityⒶapparatus note Excursion, and one pretty breezy one for the New York Herald after I got backⒺexplanatory note, and so I had a good deal of a reputation to trade on. Every now and then I was able to get twenty-five dollars for a magazine articleⒺexplanatory note. Riley and I were supporting the cheap boarding-houses at that time. It took two of us to do it, and even then the boarding-houses perished. I have always believed, since, that cheap boarding-houses that do business on credit make a mistake—but let RileyⒶapparatus note go for the present. I will speak of him another timeⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐapparatus note
I had a chance to write a magazine article about an ancient and moss-grown claim which was disturbing Congress that session, a claim which had been disturbing Congress ever since the WarⒶapparatus note of 1812, and was always getting paid, but never satisfied. The claim was for Indian cornⒶapparatus note and for provender consumed by the American troops in Maryland or somewhere around there, in the WarⒶapparatus note of 1812. I wrote the article, and it is in one of my books, and is there called “Concerning the Great Beef Contract.”Ⓔexplanatory note It was necessary to find out the price of Indian corn in 1812, and I found that detail a little difficult. Finally I went to A. R. Spofford, who was the LibrarianⒶapparatus note of Congress thenⒺexplanatory note—Spofford the man with the prodigious memory,—Ⓐapparatus noteand I put my case before him. He knew every volume in the Library and what it contained, and where it was located. He said promptly, “I know of only two sources which promise to afford this information:Ⓐapparatus note ‘Tooke on PricesⒺexplanatory note’Ⓐapparatus note ” (he brought me the book) “andⒶapparatus note the New York Evening Post.Ⓐapparatus note In those days newspapers did not publish market reports, but about 1809 the New York Evening Post began to print market reportsⒶapparatus note on sheets of paper about note-paper size, and foldⒶapparatus note these in the journal.”Ⓐapparatus note He brought me a file of the Evening Post for 1812. I examined “Tooke” and then began to examine the Post—and I was in a great hurry. I had less than an hour at my disposal. But in the Post I found a personal narrative which chained my attention at once. It was a letter from a gentleman who had witnessed the arrival of the British and the burning of the Capitol. The matter was bristling with interest for him and he delivered his words hot from the bat. That letter mustⒶapparatus note have been read with fiery and absorbing interest three days later in New York, but not with any more absorbing interest than the interest which was making my blood leap fifty-nine years later. When I finished that account I found I had used up all the time that was at my disposal, and more.
his daughter, Mrs. Wood] Julia Curtis Twichell (b. 1869) had been married to New York lawyer Howard Ogden Wood (1866–1940) since 1892 (“Twichell,” in “Hartford Residents” 1974; New York Times: “Wood–Twichell,” 27 Apr 1892, 5; “Howard Ogden Wood, a Philanthropist, 74,” 17 June 1940, 15).
house of James Goodwin . . . granite mansion for his father] James Goodwin (1803–78) had owned a mail stage line and afterward was a director of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad and an incorporator and president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest of Hartford’s insurance firms and one of the largest in the United States, with assets of over $40 million by 1875. The house his son designed and built for him on Woodland Street in Hartford was “one of the most extensive private houses in the city, and one of marked architectural importance” (see 3 July 1874 to OLC, L6, 176–77 n. 4).
Morris paper] Wallpaper designed by English author and artist William Morris (1834–96) and produced by his firm.
MRS. MORRIS’S ILLNESS TAKES A SERIOUS TURN] Clemens’s allusion to William Morris, in the previous paragraph, evidently triggered his recall of the completely unrelated Mrs. Minor Morris, and prompted him to have this article from the 11 January 1906 New York Times pasted into the typescript of this dictation. He had discussed Mrs. Morris’s experience in the White House of President Theodore Roosevelt at length in his dictation of 10 January. The article mentions William Howard Taft (1857–1930), at this time secretary of war; John Morris Sheppard (1875–1941), Democratic congressman from Texas; Charles Henry Grosvenor (1833–1917), Union veteran and Republican congressman from Ohio; Sereno Elisha Payne (1843–1914), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful Republican congressmen; and Marlin Edgar Olmsted (1847–1913), Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, an authority on parliamentary procedure.
Philippine Tariff bill] The bill, sponsored by Congressman Sereno E. Payne, proposed to permit Philippine sugar to enter the United States for three years at one-fourth of current duties, and subsequently to establish free trade between the islands and the United States. Vigorously opposed by the domestic sugar industry, the bill nevertheless passed by a wide margin in the House of Representatives on 16 January 1906, only to be buried in committee in the Senate on 2 March. Attempts to revive it later in 1906 and in 1907 failed (New York Times: numerous articles, 3 Jan 1906–27 Dec 1907).
Quaker City Excursion . . . “The Innocents Abroad,”] See “The Chicago G. A. R. Festival,” note at 67.6–13.
So I started . . . John Swinton] William Swinton (1833–92), brother of journalist and social reformer John Swinton (1829–1901), was a controversial Civil War correspondent for the New York Times. He later was a professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley (1869–74), and the author of military histories as well as textbooks on geography, grammar, and literature. Clemens roomed for a time with Swinton in Washington in the winter of 1867–68, while he worked for Senator William Stewart of Nevada and contributed letters to the New York Tribune and Herald, the San Francisco Alta California, the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and the Chicago Republican. Although it is possible that they collaborated on a “Newspaper Correspondence Syndicate,” no firm evidence of it has been found (4 Dec 1867 to Young, L2, 125–26 n. 1).
six letters for the New York Tribune . . . got back] Clemens’s six Quaker City letters to the Tribune were: “The Mediterranean Excursion,” published on 30 July 1867; “The Mediterranean Excursion,” published on 6 September; “Americans on a Visit to the Emperor of Russia,” published on 19 September; “A Yankee in the Orient,” published on 25 October; “The American Colony in Palestine,” published on 2 November; and “The Holy Land. First Day in Palestine,” published on 9 November. The “pretty breezy one for the New York Herald” was “The Cruise of the Quaker City,” which poked bitter fun at the “pilgrims” and their activities and was published on the morning of 20 November 1867, the day after the excursion ended and just hours after Clemens wrote it (SLC 1867l, 1867m, 1867n, 1867o, 1867p, 1867r, 1867s; L2: 20 Nov 1867 to JLC and family [1st], 104; enclosure with 20 Nov 1867 to JLC and family, 399–406).
Every now and then I was able to get twenty-five dollars for a magazine article] Only one such article published in the winter of 1868 has been identified: “General Washington’s Negro Body-Servant. A Biographical Sketch,” which appeared in the February 1868 Galaxy magazine (SLC 1868b). How much the Galaxy paid for it is not known.
Riley and I . . . I will speak of him another time] John Henry Riley (1830?–72) was a newspaper reporter in San Francisco in the early 1860s when Clemens met him. In late 1865 he moved to Washington, where he was the regular correspondent for the San Francisco Alta California, also contributed to other papers, and served as clerk to the House Committee on Mines and Mining. In 1870 Clemens concocted a plan for Riley to visit the recently discovered diamond fields of South Africa to gather material for a book that Clemens would write. Subsidized by Clemens, Riley undertook the trip, and submitted travel notes to Clemens, but Clemens postponed work on the book, and then abandoned it entirely when Riley died of cancer in September 1872 (for further details, see L4, especially 2 Dec 1870 to Bliss and 2 Dec 1870 to Riley, 256–66, and L5 ). Clemens depicted Riley in “Riley—Newspaper Correspondent” in the November 1870 Galaxy magazine and modeled the “mendicant Blucher,” in chapter 59 of Roughing It, on him (SLC 1870e; RI 1993, 702). He did not, however, speak of him again in the Autobiographical Dictations.
I had a chance . . . “Concerning the Great Beef Contract.”] The article described here was “The Facts in the Case of George Fisher, Deceased,” published in the January 1871 issue of Galaxy magazine. Clemens confused it with “The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract,” about an unpaid 1861 military supply obligation, published in the May 1870 Galaxy. He included both sketches in his 1875 collection, Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (SLC 1871b, 1870b, 1875c).
A. R. Spofford . . . Librarian of Congress then] Ainsworth Rand Spofford (1825–1908), former associate editor of the Cincinnati Commercial, became chief assistant to the librarian of Congress in 1861 and then became librarian himself in 1864. He remained in the post until 1897, when he became chief assistant once again, for the remainder of his life. Clemens probably first met him in Washington in the winter of 1867–68. He corresponded with Spofford about copyright on more than one occasion (see L4, L5, and L6 ).
Tooke on Prices] Thomas Tooke’s A History of Prices, and of the State of the Circulation, from 1793 to 1837; Preceded by a Brief Sketch of the State of the Corn Trade in the Last Two Centuries(Tooke 1838–57).
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 84–98, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.Times Clipping from the New York Times, 11 January 1906, 1, attached to a leaf of TS1 numbered 92a: ‘MRS. MORRIS’S . . . Mrs. Morris’s cries.’ (279.24–281.14).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 226–42, made from the revised TS1 (with the attached Times clipping) and further revised.
TS3 Typescript, pages 15–27, made from the revised TS2 and further revised: ‘Rev. Dr. . . . interesting one.’ (276.29–279.23); ‘When an . . . and more.’ (281.27–282.40).
NAR 16pf (lost) Galley proofs of NAR 16, typeset from the revised TS3; now lost.
NAR 16 North American Review 184 (19 April 1907), 792–93: ‘Rev. Dr. . . . weeks before.’ (276.29–277.35).
Hobby transcribed the Times clipping into TS2; the readings of the Times are adopted, and the accidental variants she introduced in TS2 are not reported. Paine reviewed TS2 for possible publication in the NAR and selected two excerpts, but he queried several passages in the second one to suggest omission; these were ultimately deleted in pencil. Clemens made a few revisions on TS2, and Hobby retyped it to create TS3, which comprises a catena of excerpts from the ADs of 12 January, 13 January, and 15 January 1906 (see Contents and Pagination of TS3, Batch 4). When Clemens revised TS3 to serve as printer’s copy for NAR 16, he decided to shorten the installment considerably, ending it at ‘weeks before.’ and cutting away the rest of the text for possible use in a later installment. It was not, however, ever published in the NAR. Collation reveals no evidence of authorial revision on the lost NAR 16pf.
Marginal Notes on TS2 and TS3 Concerning Publication in the NAR