About the meeting at Carnegie Hall, in interest of Booker Washington’s Tuskegee Institute—Leads up to unpleasant political incident which happened to Mr. TwichellⒶapparatus note.
There was a great mass meeting at Carnegie Hall last night, in the interest of Booker Washington’s Tuskegee Educational InstituteⒺexplanatory note in the South, and the interest which New York people feel in that Institute was quite manifest, in the fact that although it was not pleasant weather [begin page 303] there were three thousand people inside the hallⒶapparatus note and two thousand outside, who were trying to get in when the performances were ready to begin at eight o’clock. Mr. Choate presided, and was received with a grand welcome when he marched in upon the stage. He is fresh from his long stay in England, as our Ambassador, where he won the English people by the gifts of his heart, and won the royalties and the Government by his able diplomatic service, and captured the whole nation with his fine and finished oratory. For thirty-five years Choate has been the handsomest man in America. Last night he seemed to me to be just as handsome as he was thirty-five years ago, when I first knew him. And when I used to see him in England, five or six years ago, I thought him the handsomest man in that country.
It was at a Fourth of July reception in Mr. Choate’s house in LondonⒺexplanatory note that I first met Booker Washington. I have met him a number of times since, and he always impresses me pleasantly. Last night he was a mulatto. I didn’t notice it until he turned, while he was speaking, and said something to me. It was a great surprise to me to see that he was a mulatto, and had blue eyes. How unobservant a dull person can be.Ⓐapparatus note Always, before, he was black, to me, and I had never noticed whether he had eyes at all, or not. He has accomplished a wonderful work in this quarter of a century. When he finished his education at the Hampton Colored School twenty-five years ago, he was unknown, and hadn’t a penny, nor a friend outside his immediate acquaintanceship. But by the persuasions of his carriage and address and the sincerity and honesty that look out of his eyes, he has been enabled to gather money by the hatful here in the North, and with it he has built up and firmly established his great school for the colored people of the two sexes in the South. In that school the students are not merely furnished a book education, but are taught thirty-seven useful trades. Booker Washington has scraped together many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in the twenty-five years, and with this money he has taught and sent forth into Southern fields among the colored people, six thousand trained colored men and women; and his student roll now numbers fifteen hundred names. The Institute’s property is worth a million and a half, and the establishment is in a flourishing condition. A most remarkable man is Booker Washington. And he is a fervent and effective speaker, on the platform.Ⓐapparatus note
CHOATE AND TWAIN PLEAD FOR TUSKEGEE Ⓔexplanatory note
Brilliant Audience Cheers Them and Booker Washington.
HUMORIST RAPS TAX DODGERS
Says Everybody Swears, Especially Off—
Friends of Negro
Institution Trying to Raise $1,800,000
To give Booker T. Washington a good start toward collecting the $1,800,000 which he wants to carry back from the North to Tuskegee Institute, Mark Twain, Joseph H. Choate, Robert C. OgdenⒺexplanatory note, and Dr. Washington himself spoke in Carnegie Hall last night. Incidentally, it was a “silver jubilee” celebration, since Tuskegee Institute was foundedⒶapparatus note in 1881.
[begin page 304]The big house was crowded to its utmost capacity, and there were as many more outside who would have gone in had there been room. The spectacle reminded one of the campaign days last November, when District Attorney Jerome and his attendant spellbinders were packing Carnegie HallⒺexplanatory note.
But last night it was by no means a gathering of the “populace” alone. Women in brilliant gowns, resplendent with jewels, and men in evening dress filled the boxes. Despite the avowed object of the meeting—to get money from the audience and others—there was an atmosphere of good humor and light-heartednessⒶapparatus note. Mark Twain’s “teachings” were met with such volleys of laughter that the man who never grows old could hardly find intervals in which to deliver his precepts. That part of Mr. Clemens’s address which referred to wealthy men who swear off tax assessmentsⒺexplanatory note was applauded with especial fervor.
The occupants of the boxes included Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Mrs. Henry H. Rogers, Mrs. Clarence H. Mackay, Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, J. G. Phelps Stokes, Isaac N. Seligman, George Foster Peabody, John Crosby Brown, Carl Schurz, Mrs. W. H. Schieffelin, Mrs. William Jay SchieffelinⒺexplanatory note, Mrs. Joseph H. Choate, Mrs. Henry Villard, Nicholas Murray Butler, Mrs. Robert C. Ogden, Mrs. Cleveland H. Dodge, Mrs. Alfred Shaw, Mrs. Felix M. Warburg, Mrs. R. Fulton Cutting, Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, Mrs. Robert B. Minturn, Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff, Mrs. Paul M. Warburg, and Mrs. Arthur Curtis James.
A negro octet sang between the speeches. Their songs were old-fashioned melodies and revival songs, and their deep, full voices filled the whole house.
William Jay Schieffelin opened the meeting by telling its object and urging that all the help possible be given to Dr. Washington. He announced that in April a special train would leave New York for Tuskegee and that the round-trip ticket would cost $50, covering all expenses. On this occasion the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Tuskegee will be celebrated at the school itself by speeches by Secretary of War Taft, President Eliot of Harvard, Bishop Galloway, and Andrew CarnegieⒺexplanatory note.
Choate Praises Washington.
“We assemble to-night,” said Mr. Choate, when Mr. Schieffelin presented him, “to celebrate the ‘silver jubilee’ of Tuskegee Institute, twenty-five years old to-day, the success of which as a nucleus and centre of negro education in the South is the triumph and glory of Dr. Booker T. Washington. I believe he does not claim to be the originator of it. It began in 1881 in a shanty and withⒶapparatus note thirty pupils. Now what do we behold? A great educational establishment with 2,300 acres and more than eight buildings, peculiarly fitted for the tasks they are supposed to assist.
“It has sent forth more than 6,000 pupils as examples to and teachers of the negro race. It has now an enrollment of 1,500 pupils and an endowment fund of more than $1,000,000. Like all the other great educational institutions of to-day, the more it has and the more it wants the more it gets and the more it can use.
“I read that in a recent speech Dr. Washington declared that he was proud of his race. I am sure his race is proud of him. And I know I can say that the great mass of the American people, both North and South, are also proud of him. And there are few Americans on whom European nations look with such peculiar interest and sympathy as Dr. Washington. It was my pleasure to see him in my own hired house [laughter] in London, surrounded by English men and English women, who were delighted to make his acquaintance and listen to his words.
[begin page 305]Negro Problem a Wide One.
I read in a book, which I hope everybody has read, by Mr. Murphy, Secretary of the Southern Education Board, that the illiteracy of the negroes in the South has been wiped away more than one halfⒺexplanatory note since the war. How has it been accomplished? Out of the means of the Southern States. They have done nobly. By taxation $109,000,000 was raised between 1870 and 1900 for the education of negroes. How many people in the South—like some people we have had here in New York—stood between the appropriations and the recipients, I do not know, but it was a great achievement.
“None of the Tuskegee graduates is in an asylum. It is not the educated negroes who make themselves enemies to the South; it is uneducated negroes. The desire for these Tuskegee graduates is greater than Tuskegee can satisfy.
Integrity of the Races.
“The maintenance of the integrity of the races, which, with the approval of both races, has formed the basis of Southern civilization, has given opportunity to negro lawyers, negro doctors, and ministers in every profession and industry, and the negroes are making the most of it.” Then Mr. Choate turned toward Mark Twain:
“If I were to present the next speaker as Samuel L. Clemens,” he said, “some would ask, ‘Who is he?’ but when I present him as Mark Twain—”
He could get no further. The applause which broke out lasted a full three minutes.
“I heard him speak at the dinner on his seventieth birthday,” continued Mr. Choate, “and the gist of his speech was that he had never done any work in his life. He said he had never worked at anything he didn’t like, and so it wasn’t work at all. He said that when he had an interesting job before him he lay in bed all day. And to-day, I understand, he has been in bed all day.”
When Mark Twain could be heard he said:
MARK TWAIN’S ADDRESS.
“These habits, of which Mr. Choate has told you, are the very habits which have kept me young until I am 70 years old. I have lain in bed all day to-day, expect to lie in bed all day to-morrow, and will continue to lie in bed all day throughout the year. There is nothing so refreshing, nothing is so comfortable, and nothing fits one so well for the kind of work which he calls pleasure. Mr. Choate has been careful not to pay me any compliments. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to—he just couldn’t think of any.
“I came here in the responsible capacity of policeman—to watch Mr. Choate. This is an occasion of grave and serious importance, and it seemed necessary for me to be present so that if he tried to work off any statements that required correction, reduction, refutation or exposure there would be a tried friend of the public here to protect the house. But I can say in all frankness and gratitude that nothing of the kind has happened. He has not made one statement whose veracity fails to tally exactly with my own standard. I have never seen a person improve so.
[begin page 306]“This does not make me jealous. It only makes me thankful. Thankful and proud; proud of a country that can produce such men—two such men. And all in the same century. We can’t be with you always; we are passing away—passing away; soon we shall be gone, and then—well, everything will have to stop, I reckon. It is a sad thought. But in spirit I shall still be with you. Choate, too—if he can.
Nothing to Refute.
“There being nothing to explain, nothing to refute, nothing to excuse, there is nothing left for me to do now but resume my natural trade—which is teaching. At Tuskegee they thoroughly ground the student in the Christian code of morals; they instill into him the indisputable truth that this is the highest and best of all systems of morals; thatⒶapparatus note the Nation’s greatness, its strength, and its repute among the other nations is the product of that system; that it is the foundation upon which rests the American character; that whatever is commendable, whatever is valuable in the individual American’s character is the flower and fruit of that seed.
“They teach him that this is true in every case, whether the man be a professing Christian or an unbeliever; for we have none but the Christian code of morals, and every individual is under its character-building powerful influence and dominion from the cradle to the grave; he breathes it in with his breath, it is in his blood and bone, it is the web and woof and fibre of his mental and spiritual heredities and ineradicable. And so every born American among the eighty millions, let his creed or destitution of creed be what it may, is indisputably a Christian to this degree—that his moral constitution is Christian.
Two Codes of Morals.
“All this is true, and no student will leave Tuskegee ignorant of it. Then what will he lack under this head? What is there for me to teach him under this head that he may possibly not acquire there, or may acquire in a not sufficiently emphasized form? Why this large fact, this important fact—that there are two separate and distinct kinds of Christian morals, so separate, so distinct, so unrelated that they are no more kin to each other than are archangels and politicians. The one kind is Christian private morals, the other is Christian public morals.
“The loyal observance of Christian private morals has made this Nation what it is—a clean and upright people in its private domestic life, an honest and honorable people in its private commercial life; no alien nation can claim superiority over it in these regards, no critic, foreign or domestic, can challenge the validity of this truth. During 363 days in the year the American citizen is true to his Christian private morals, and keeps undefiled the Nation’s character at its best and highest; then in the other two days of the year he leaves his Christian private morals at home, and carries his Christian public morals to the tax office and the polls and does the best he can to damage and undo his whole year’s faithful and righteous worth.
Political Morality.
“Without a blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party’s Moses, without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he is on the other ticket. Every year, in a number of cities and States, he helps to put corrupt men in [begin page 307] office, every year he helps to extend the corruption wider and wider; year after year he goes on gradually rotting the country’s political life, whereas if he would but throw away his Christian public morals and carry his Christian private morals to the polls he could promptly purify the public service and make the possession of office a high and honorable distinction and one to be coveted by the very best men the country could furnish. But now—well, now he contemplates his unpatriotic work and sighs and grieves and blames every man but the right one—which is himself.
As to Tax Dodgers.
“Once a year he lays aside his Christian private morals and hires a ferryboat and piles up his bonds in a warehouse in New Jersey for three days, and gets out his Christian public morals and goes to the Tax Office and holds up his hand and swears he wishes he may never—never if he’s got a cent in the world, so help him! The next day the list appears in the papers—a column and a quarter of names in fine print, and every man in the list a billionaire and a member of a couple of churches.
“I know all those people. I have friendly, social, and criminal intercourse with the whole of them. They never miss a sermon when they are so as to be around, and they never miss swearing-off day, whether they are so as to be around or not. The innocent cannot remain innocent in the disintegrating atmosphere of this thing. I used to be an honest man. I am crumbling. No—I have crumbled. When they assessed me at $75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and tried to borrow the money, and couldn’t; then when I found they were letting a whole crop of millionaires live in New York at a third of the price they were charging me I was hurt. I was indignant, and said: ‘This is the last feather! I am not going to run this town all by myself.’ In that moment—in that memorable moment—I began to crumble.
Mark Twain Disintegrates.
“In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sandpile, and I lifted up my hand along with those seasoned and experienced deacons and swore off every rag of personal property I’ve got in the world, clear down to cork leg, glass eye, and what is left of my wig.
“Those tax officers were moved, they were profoundly moved; they had long been accustomed to seeing hardened old grafters act like that, and they could endure the spectacle; but they were expecting better things of me, a chartered professional moralist, and they were saddened. I fell visibly in their respect and esteem, and I should have fallen in my own, except that I had already struck bottom and there wasn’t any place to fall to.
Does a Gentleman Swear Off?
“At Tuskegee they will jump to misleading conclusions from insufficient evidence, along with Dr. ParkhurstⒺexplanatory note, and they will deceive the student with the superstition that no gentleman ever swears. Look at those good millionaires; aren’t they gentlemen? Well, they swear. Only once a year, maybe, but there’s enough bulk to it to make up for the lost time. And do they lose anything by it? No, they don’t; they save enough in three minutes to support the family seven years. When they swear do we shudder? No—unless they say damn. Then we do. It shrivels us all up.
[begin page 308]“Yet we ought not to feel so about it, because we all swear—everybody. Including the ladies. Including Dr. Parkhurst, that strong and brave and excellent citizen, but superficially educated. For it is not the word that is the sin, it is the spirit back of the word. When an irritated lady says ‘Oh!’ the spirit back of it is ‘damn,’ and that is the way it is going to be recorded against her. It always makes me so sorry when I hear a lady swear like that. But if she says ‘damn,’ and says it in an amiable, nice way, it isn’t going to be recorded at all.
“The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong; he can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way. The historian John Fiske, whom I knew well and lovedⒺexplanatory note, was a spotless and most noble and upright Christian gentleman, and yet he swore once. Not exactly that, maybe; still he—but I will tell you about it.
“One day when he was deeply immersed in his work his wife came in much moved and profoundly distressed, and said, ‘I am sorry to disturb you, John, but I must, for this is a serious matter, and needs to be attended to at once.’ Then, lamenting, she brought a grave accusation against their little sonⒺexplanatory note. She said: ‘He has been saying his Aunt Mary is a fool and his Aunt Martha is a damned fool.’ Mr. Fiske reflected upon the matter a minute, then said: ‘Oh, well, it’s about the distinction I should make between them myself.’
“Mr. Washington, I beg you to convey these teachings to your great and prosperous and most beneficent educational institution, and add them to the prodigal mental and moral riches wherewith you equip your fortunate protégés for the struggle of life.”
Robert C. Ogden, after his introduction by Mr. Choate, said that before he began his formal address, which was “Financial Rousement” of the occasion,Ⓐapparatus note he wanted to answer Mark Twain’s remarks on profanity.
“I want to say,” said Mr. Ogden, “that my friend’s allusions to the ethics of profanity are not at all original. I knew all about them years ago, and he would not have known as much as he does had he never lived in Hartford. I remember hearing a distinguished Puritan say once there, banging his fist on the desk in front of him during a debate, that he’d be damned if he would allow such a proposition to go through. In answer to this Henry Clay TrumbullⒺexplanatory note said that it was fine to see a man who could say damn with such profound reverence.”
Mr. Ogden then went on to tell the needs of Tuskegee. He said that the best intelligence of the country, North and South, admitted the peculiar educational duty that was owing to the negroes that had become a part of the population of the Nation.
Applause for Washington.
Mr. Ogden said that there were three distinct appeals. An added income of $90,000 a year was needed, an added endowment of $1,800,000 was essential, and a heating plant, to cost $34,000, was necessary.
Just before Booker T. Washington entered the hall a messenger boy handed him a note from Thomas Dixon, Jr.Ⓔexplanatory note, in which the writer said he would contribute $10,000 to Tuskegee if Mr. Washington would state at the meeting that he did not desire social equality for the negro, and that Tuskegee was opposed to the amalgamation of the races. When asked what he had to say on the subject Mr. Washington said:
“I will make no answer whatever. I have nothing to say.”
Mr. Washington got a fine reception when he came forward to speak, and there was great applause when he said in the course of his address:
“One point we might consider as settled. We are through experimenting and speculating [begin page 309] as to where the ten millions of black people are to live. We have reached the unalterable determination that we are going to remain here in America, and the greater part of us are going to remain for all time in the Southern States. In this connection I do not hesitate to say that from my point of view the great body of our people find a more encouraging opportunity in the South than elsewhere.
“Since we are to forever constitute a part of the citizenship of this country, there is but one question to be answered: Shall we be among the best citizens or among the worst?
“Every race of people should be judged by its best type, not by its lowest,” said Mr. Washington. “One has no right to pass judgment upon a people until he has taken the pains to see something of their progress, after they have had a reasonable chance.
“Wherever we have been able to reach the people through education they have improved morally at a rapid pace, and crime has decreased. After making diligent inquiry we cannot find a single man or woman who holds a diploma from the Hampton Institute in Virginia or the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in the walls of a penitentiary.
“No two groups of people can live side by side where one is in ignorance and poverty without its condition affecting the other. The black man must be lifted or the white man will be injured in his moral and spiritual life. The degradation of the one will mean the degradation of the other.
“I do not overlook the seriousness of the problem that is before us, nor do I set any limits upon the growth of my race. In my opinion, it is the most important and far-reaching problem that the Nation has had before it; but you cannot make equally good citizens where in one part of the country a child has $1.50 expended for his education and in another part of the country another child has $20 spent for his enlightenment.
“The negro in many ways has proved his worth and loyalty to this country. What he now asks is that through such institutions as Hampton, Fisk, and Tuskegee he shall be given the chance to render high and intelligent service to our country in the future. I have faith that such an opportunity will be given him.”
When the affair was over, and the people began to climb up on the stage and pass along and shake hands, the usual thing happened. It always happens. I shake hands with people who used to know my mother intimately in Arkansas, in New Jersey, in California, in JerichoⒶapparatus note—and I have to seem so glad and so happy to meet these persons who knew in this intimate way one who was so near and dear to me. And this is the kind of thing that gradually turns a person into a polite liar and deceiver, for my mother was never in any of those places.
One pretty creature was glad to see me again, and remembered being at my house in Hartford—I don’t know when, a great many years ago, it was. Now she was mistaking me for somebody else. It couldn’tⒶapparatus note have happened to her. But I was very cordial, because she was very pretty. And I said “I have been longing to meet you these many, many years, for you have been celebrated throughout all the ages. You are the ‘unborn child.’Ⓐapparatus note From the beginning of time, you have been used as a symbol. When people want to be emphatic—when they want to reach the utmost limit of lack of knowledge—they say ‘He is as innocent as the unborn child; he is as ignorant as the unborn child.’ You were not there, at the time you think of, except in spirit. You hadn’t arrived in the flesh.” She was very nice. We might have had a good long chat except for the others that I had to talk with and work up reminiscences that belonged in somebody else’s experiences, not my own.
[begin page 310]There was one young fellow, brisk, but not bright, overpoweringly pleasant and cordial, in his way. He said his mother used to teach school in Elmira, New YorkⒶapparatus note, where he was born and bred and where the family continued to reside, and that she would be very glad to know that he had met me, and shaken hands, for he said “She is always talking about you. She holds you in high esteem, although, as she says, she has to confess that of all the boys that ever she had in her school, you were the most troublesome.”
“Well,” I said, “those were my last school days, and through long practice in being troublesome, I had reached the summit by that time, because I was more than thirty-three years old.”
It didn’t affect him in the least. I don’t think he even heard what I said heⒶapparatus note was so eager to tell me all about it, and I said to him once more, so as to spare him, and me, that I was never in a schoolhouseⒶapparatus note in Elmira, New YorkⒶapparatus note, even on a visit, and that his mother must be mistaking me for some of the Langdons, the family into which I marriedⒺexplanatory note. No matter, he didn’t hear it—kept on his talk with animation and delight, and has gone to tell his mother, I don’t know what. He didn’t get anything out of me to tell her, for he never heard anything I said.
These episodes used to vex me, years and years ago. But they don’t vex me now. I am older. If a person thinks that he has known me at some time or other, all I require of him is that he shall consider it a distinction to have known me;Ⓐapparatus note and then, as a rule, I am perfectly willing to remember all about it and add some things that he has forgotten.
TwichellⒶapparatus note came down from Hartford to be present at that meeting, and we chatted and smoked after we got back home. And reference was made again to that disastrous Boston speech which I made at Whittier’s seventieth birthday dinner; and Joe asked me if I was still minded to submit that speech to that Club in Washington, day after to-morrowⒺexplanatory note, where ColonelⒶapparatus note Harvey and I are to be a couple of the fourⒶapparatus note guests. And I said “No,” I had given that up—which was true. Because I have examined that speech a couple of times since, and haveⒶapparatus note changed my notion about it—changed it entirely. I find it gross, coarseⒶapparatus note,—well, I needn’t go on with particulars. I didn’t like any part of it, from the beginning to the end. I found it always offensive and detestable. How do I account for this change of view? I don’t know. I can’t account for it. I am the person concerned. If I could put myself outside of myself and examine it from the point of view of a person not personally concerned in it, then no doubt I could analyze it and explain to my satisfaction the change which has taken place. As it is, I am merely moved by instinct. My instinct said, formerly, that it was an innocent speech, and funny. The same instinct, sitting cold and judicial, as a court of last resort, has reversed that verdict. I expect this latest verdict to remain.* I don’t remove the speech from the autobiography, because I think that this change of mind about it is interesting, whether the speech is or not, and therefore let itⒶapparatus note stay.Ⓐapparatus note
TwichellⒶapparatus note had a letter with him which interested me, and, by request, he left it with me, to
be returned to him after I shall have used
it. This letter is from the
ReverendⒶapparatus note Charles Stowe, a son of Harriet Beecher StoweⒺexplanatory note. The letter is now about two
months old—but in that time Joe
*May 25. It did remain—until day before yesterday; then I gave it a final and vigorous reading—aloud—and dropped straight back to my former admiration of it. M. T.Ⓔexplanatory note Ⓐapparatus note [begin page 311] has pretty nearly worn it out, reading it to people. That is, reading a certain passage in it to people. He read that passage to me, to wit:
I wasⒶapparatus note reading in the volume of Rev. Dr. Burton’s “Remains,”Ⓐapparatus note as the old folks used to say, your remarks at his funeralⒺexplanatory note. I think for beauty of diction, richness of thought and delicacy and strength of psychological analysis, it is up to any of the masters of our tongue. The passage I admire most of all is the one beginning “Men marked the sunshine in him,”Ⓐapparatus note etc. I think the whole thing a gem, but this passage is a masterpiece of beautiful and dignified English. It is a shame that men like Dr. Parker and Dr. Burton are in the battle of life, in a way—no, that men like you and Dr. Burton are in a wayⒶapparatus note like the 130-gun ships of the Spanish fleet at Trafalgar,Ⓐapparatus note outclassed by pigmies.Ⓐapparatus note
And Joe said “Mark, what do you think of that?”
I said “Well, Joe, I don’t want to commit myself. Send me the passage, and then I will furnish my opinion.”
Joe said “You know the charm of this whole thing lies in the fact that it wasn’t I that did that wonderful gem—it was Parker.”
But Twichell is getting a lot of satisfaction out of it. Some time ago, his daughters gathered together a large company of their young friends of the two sexes, and while they were in the midst of their banquet Joe came in and greeted them, and was welcomed. But, necessarily, with his gray head, he was in a considerable degree an embarrassment, and the hilarity without perhaps entirely breaking off, was diminished to the proper degree of reverence for Joe’s cloth and age. That being just the right atmosphere—just the right conditions, for an impressive reading of that passage in this letter, Joe read it with apparent pride, and almost juvenile vanity—while those young people dropped their eyes in pity for an old man who could display his vanities in such a way and take such a childish delight in them. Joe’s daughters turned crimson; glanced at each other, and were ready to cry over this humiliating exhibition. Then of course Twichell finished his performance by informing them that these praises were all deserved, but not by him—for Mr. Stowe had made a mistake. If he had gone and taken another look at that passage which he so highly praised, he would have noticed that it was the work of Rev. Dr. Parker, and not of himself.
At one of the Monday morning meetings of the clergy Twichell did the same thing. And with such excellent effect that in the midst of his reading Parker himself spoke out and said “Now Joe, this is too much. We know you can do fine things; we know you can do wonderful things; but you never did anything as wonderful as this that CharleyⒶapparatus note Stowe is talking about. He is no competent critic, that is quite manifest. There isn’t anything in English LiteratureⒶapparatus note worthy of such an intemperate encomiumⒶapparatus note as this that CharleyⒶapparatus note Stowe is passing on your Burton speech.”
Then Joe explained that Parker was only damaging himself, because it was Parker’s speech he was reading about.
Parker is still in the harness. He has been shepherd of the same congregation—its children, and its grandchildren, and its great-grandchildren—for forty-six years. Joe says he is just as marvelous an artist in English phrasing, and just as fine and deep in thought as ever he was. To my knowledge, this is saying a great deal. For Parker was one of our remarkable men when [begin page 312] I knew him in the old Hartford days, and we had eight or ten men in that town who were ’wayⒶapparatus note above the average.
Twichell’sⒶapparatus note congregation—the only congregation he has ever had since he entered the ministry—celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his accession to that pulpit, a couple of weeks ago. Joe entered the army as chaplain in the very beginning of the Civil WarⒶapparatus note. He was a young chap, and had just been graduated from Yale, and the Yale Theological Seminary. He made all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac. When he was mustered out, that congregation I am speaking of called him, and he has served them ever since, and always to their satisfaction—except once.
I have found among my old manuscriptsⒶapparatus note one which I perceive to be about twenty-two years old. It has a heading, and looks as if I had meant it to serve as a magazine article.Ⓐapparatus note I can clearly see, now, why I didn’t print it. It is full of indications that its inspiration was what happened to TwichellⒶapparatus note about that time, and which produced a situation for him which he will not forget until he is dead, if he even forgets it then.Ⓐapparatus note I think I can see,Ⓐapparatus note all through this artful article,Ⓐapparatus note that I was trying to hint at TwichellⒶapparatus note, and the episode of that preacher whom I met on the street, and hint at various things that were exasperating me. And now that I read that old article, I perceive that I probably saw that my art was not ingenious enough—that I hadn’t covered TwichellⒶapparatus note up, and hadn’t covered up the episode that I was hinting at—that anybody in Hartford could read everything between the lines that I was trying to conceal.
I will insert this venerable article in this place, and then take up that episode in Joe’s history and tell about it.Ⓐapparatus note
The Character of ManⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note
Concerning Man—heⒶapparatus note is too large a subject to be treated as a whole; so I will merelyⒶapparatus note discuss a detail or two of him at this time.Ⓐapparatus note I desire to contemplate himⒶapparatus note from this point of view—this premiss:Ⓐapparatus note that he was not madeⒶapparatus note for any useful purpose, for the reason that he hasn’t servedⒶapparatus note any; that he was most likely not even made intentionallyⒶapparatus note; and that his working himself up out of the oyster bed to his present position was probably matter of surprise and regretⒶapparatus note to the Creator.Ⓔexplanatory note * * * *Ⓐapparatus note For his history, in all climes, all ages and all circumstances, furnishes oceans and continents of proof that of all the creatures that were made he is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one—the solitary one—that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices—the most hateful.Ⓐapparatus note That one thing puts him below the rats, the grubs, the trichinæⒶapparatus note. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport,Ⓐapparatus note knowing it to be pain. But if the cat knows she is inflicting pain when she plays with the frightened mouse, then we must make an exception here; we must grant that in one detail man is the moral peer of the cat. All creatures kill—there seems to be no exception; but of the whole list, man is the only one that kills for fun; he is the only one that kills in malice, the only one that kills for revenge. Also—in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.Ⓐapparatus note
Shall he be extolledⒶapparatus note for his noble qualities, for his gentleness, his sweetness, his amiability, his lovingnessⒶapparatus note, his courage, his devotion, his patience, his fortitude, his prudence, the various charms and graces of his spirit? The other animals share all these with him, yet are free from the blacknesses and rottennesses of his character.Ⓐapparatus note
[begin page 313]* * * * ThereⒶapparatus note are certain sweet-smelling sugar-coatedⒶapparatus note lies current in the world which all politic men have apparently tacitly conspired together to support and perpetuate. One of these is, that there is such a thing in the worldⒶapparatus note as independence: independence of thought, independence of opinionⒶapparatus note, independence of action. Another is, that the world loves to seeⒶapparatus note independence—admires it, applauds it. Another is, that there is such a thing in the worldⒶapparatus note as toleration—in religion, in politics, and such matters; and with it trains that already mentioned auxiliary lie that toleration is admired, and applauded. Out of these trunk-lies spring many branch ones: to wit, the lieⒶapparatus note that not all men are slaves; the lieⒶapparatus note that men are glad when other men succeed; glad when they prosper;Ⓐapparatus note glad to see them reach lofty heights; sorry to see them fall again. And yet other branch-liesⒶapparatus note: to witⒶapparatus note, that there is heroism in man; that he is not mainly made up of malice and treachery; that he is sometimes not a coward; that there is something about him that ought to be perpetuated—in heaven, or hell, or somewhereⒶapparatus note. And these other branch-lies, to witⒶapparatus note: that conscience, man’s moral medicine chest,Ⓐapparatus note is not only created by the Creator, but is put into man ready-charged with the right andⒶapparatus note only true and authentic correctives of conduct—and the duplicateⒶapparatus note chest, with the self-same correctives, unchanged, unmodified, distributed to all nations and all epochsⒶapparatus note. And yet one other branch-lie, to witⒶapparatus note, that I am I, and you are you; that we are units, individuals, and have natures of our ownⒶapparatus note, instead of being the tail-end of a tape-worm eternityⒶapparatus note of ancestors extending in linked procession back—and back—and back—Ⓐapparatus noteto our source in the monkeys, with this so-called individuality of ours a decayed and rancid mush of inherited instincts and teachings derived, atom by atom, stench by stench, from the entire line of that sorry column, and not so much new and original matter in it as you could balance on a needle point and examine under a microscope. This makes well nigh fantastic the suggestionⒶapparatus note that there can be such a thing as a personal, original and responsible nature in a man, separable from that in him which is not original, and findable in such quantity as to enable the observer to say, ThisⒶapparatus note is a man, not a procession.
* * * * ConsiderⒶapparatus note that first mentioned lie: that there is such a thing in the world as independence; that it exists in individuals, that it exists in bodies of men. Surely if anything is proven, by whole oceans and continents of evidence, it is that the quality of independence was almost wholly left out of the human race. The scatteringⒶapparatus note exceptions to the ruleⒶapparatus note only emphasize it, light it up, make it glare. The whole population of New England meekly took their turns, for years, in standing up in the railway trains, without so much as a complaint above their breath, till at last these uncounted millions were able to produce exactly one single independent man, who stood to his rights and made the railroad give him a seat. StatisticsⒶapparatus note and the law of probabilities warrantⒶapparatus note the assumption that it will take New England forty years to breed his fellowⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐapparatus note There is a law, with a penalty attached, forbidding trains to occupy the Asylum street crossingⒺexplanatory note more than five minutes at a time. For years people and carriagesⒶapparatus note usedⒶapparatus note to wait there nightlyⒶapparatus note as much as twenty minutes on a stretch while NewⒶapparatus note England trains monopolized that crossing. IⒶapparatus note used to hear men use vigorous language about that insolent wrong—but they waited, just the same.
We are discreetⒶapparatus note sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have
two opinions: one private, which we are afraid
to express; and another one—the one we use—which we force ourselves to wear to please
Mrs. GrundyⒺexplanatory note, until habit makes us comfortable
*Jan. 11, ’06. It is long ago, but it plainly means BlaineⒺexplanatory note. M. T.Ⓐapparatus note
†Jan. 11, ’06. I can’t remember his name. It began with K, I think. He was one of the American revisers of the New Testament, and was nearly as great a scholar as Hammond TrumbullⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐapparatus note [begin page 314] in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at itⒶapparatus note in politics. Look at the candidates whom we loathe, one year, and are afraid to vote against the next; whom we cover with unimaginable filth, one year, and fall down on the public platform and worship, the next—and keep on doing it until theⒶapparatus note habitual shutting of our eyes to last year’sⒶapparatus note evidences brings us presently to a sincere and stupid belief in this year’s.* Look at the tyranny of party—atⒶapparatus note what is called party allegiance, party loyalty—a snareⒶapparatus note invented by designingⒶapparatus note men for selfish purposes—and which turns voters into chattels, slaves, rabbits; and all the while, their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty,Ⓐapparatus note independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when theyⒶapparatus note were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible-texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern master.
If we would learn what the human race really is, at bottom, we need only observe it in election times. A Hartford clergymanⒶapparatus note met me in the street, and spoke of a new nominee—denounced the nomination, in strong, earnestⒶapparatus note words—words that were refreshing for their independence, their manliness.† He said, “I ought to be proud, perhaps, for this nomineeⒶapparatus note is a relative of mineⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note; on the contrary I am humiliated and disgusted; for I know him intimately—familiarly—and I know that he is an unscrupulous scoundrel,Ⓐapparatus note and always has been.” You should have seen this clergymanⒶapparatus note preside at a political meeting fortyⒶapparatus note days later; and urge, and plead, and gushⒶapparatus note—and you should have heard him paint the character of this same nominee. You would have supposed he was describing the Cid, and Great-heart, and Sir Galahad, and Bayard the SpotlessⒺexplanatory note all rolled into one.Ⓐapparatus note Was he sincere? Yes—by that timeⒶapparatus note; and therein lies the pathos of it all, the hopelessnessⒶapparatus note of it all. It shows at what trivial cost of effort a man can teach himself a lie, and learn to believe it, when he perceives, by the general drift, that that is the popular thing to do. Does he believe his lie yet? Oh, probably not; he has no further use for it. It was but a passing incident; he spared to it the moment that was its due, then hastened back to the serious business of his life.Ⓐapparatus note
And whatⒶapparatus note a paltry poor lie is that one which teaches that independence of action and opinion is prized in men, admired, honored, rewarded. When a man leaves a political party, he is treated as if the party owned him—as if he were its bond slave, as most party men plainly are—and had stolen himself, gone off with what was not his own. And heⒶapparatus note is traduced, derided, despised, held up to public obloquy and loathing. His character is remorselessly assassinated; no means, however vile, are spared to injureⒶapparatus note his property and his business.Ⓐapparatus note
The preacher who casts a vote forⒶapparatus note conscience’ sake, runs the risk of starvingⒺexplanatory note. And is rightly served; for he has been teaching a falsityⒶapparatus note—thatⒶapparatus note men respectⒶapparatus note and honor independence of thought and action.Ⓐapparatus note
Mr. BeecherⒶapparatus note may be charged with aⒶapparatus note crime, and his whole followingⒶapparatus note will rise as one man, [begin page 315] and stand by him to the bitter endⒺexplanatory note; but who so poor to be his friend when he is charged with casting a vote for conscience’Ⓐapparatus note sakeⒺexplanatory note? Take the editor so chargedⒺexplanatory note—take—take anybody.
All the talkⒶapparatus note about tolerance, in anything or anywhere, is plainly a gentleⒶapparatus note lie. It does notⒶapparatus note exist.Ⓐapparatus note It is in no man’s heart; but it unconsciously and by moss-grown inherited habit,Ⓐapparatus note drivels and slobbers from all men’sⒶapparatus note lips. Intolerance is everything for one’s self, and nothing for the other person. The main-springⒶapparatus note of man’s nature is just that—selfishness.Ⓐapparatus note
Let us skip the other lies, for brevity’s sake. To consider them would prove nothing, except that man is what he is—loving, toward his own, lovable, to his own,—his family, his friends—and otherwise the buzzing, busy, trivial, enemy of his race—who tarries his little day, does his little dirt, commends himself to God,Ⓐapparatus note and then goes out into the darkness, to return no more, and send no messages backⒶapparatus note—selfish even in death.Ⓐapparatus note
Booker Washington’s Tuskegee Educational Institute] Washington (1856–1915), born into slavery in Virginia, taught himself to read. He attended Hampton Institute and became a teacher there. Chosen to head the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama in 1881, he was a prominent advocate for the education and advancement of African Americans. Espousing a policy of “separate but equal” facilities for the races, he secured white as well as black support for the institute and his larger goals, while clandestinely supporting more militant efforts to achieve full civil rights for African Americans.
Mr. Choate presided . . . Fourth of July reception in Mr. Choate’s house in London] Renowned lawyer, diplomat, and wit Joseph H. Choate (1832–1917) was U.S. ambassador to Britain from 1899 to 1905. Clemens had been acquainted with him since at least 1876, and they had shared the platform on several occasions. Clemens first met Washington at Choate’s reception on Independence Day 1899—where there were over fifteen hundred guests. The day before, Choate had introduced Washington’s lecture on the “condition and prospects of the coloured race in America” at Essex Hall, London (“The Coloured Race in America,” London Times, 4 July 1899, 13; New York Times: “Forefathers’ Day,” 23 Dec 1876, 1; “Independence Day Abroad,” 5 July 1899, 7).
CHOATE AND TWAIN PLEAD FOR TUSKEGEE] Clemens dictated the instruction “Here insert the newspaper account of the meeting at Carnegie (of Jan. 22nd). The future editor of this biography can use what he chooses of it, or leave it out.” Hobby transcribed the entire article, which is also reproduced here. In the Autobiographical Dictation of 3 April 1906 he again wrote “[Insert Carnegie Hall speech here.]” on the typescript.
Robert C. Ogden] Ogden (1836–1913), a businessman and philanthropist, was a trustee of Tuskegee Institute and the Hampton Institute as well.
last November, when District Attorney Jerome . . . packing Carnegie Hall] William Travers Jerome (1859–1934), the district attorney of New York County, opposed the corrupt Tammany Hall “bosses.” He held rallies at Carnegie Hall on 18 October and 1 November 1905; at the latter he was introduced by “attendant spellbinder” Joseph H. Choate (New York Times: “Jerome Forces Expect a Big Crowd To-Night,” 18 Oct 1905, 5; “Whip the Bosses, Choate’s Bugle Call,” 2 Nov 1905, 1).
wealthy men who swear off tax assessments] Under New York City tax laws of the time, “a person assessed for personal property may ‘swear off’ the assessment by making oath that he does not own so much” (Hoxie 1910, 59).
William Jay Schieffelin] Schieffelin (1866–1955), a prominent businessman and civic reformer, was a trustee of Tuskegee Institute (“W. J. Schieffelin of Drug Firm Dies,” New York Times, 1 May 1955, 88).
Secretary of War Taft, President Eliot of Harvard, Bishop Galloway, and Andrew Carnegie] William Howard Taft, secretary of war since 1904 and later president (1909–13); Charles William Eliot (1834–1926), president of Harvard University (1869–1909), which granted Washington an honorary degree in 1896; Bishop Charles B. Galloway (1849–1909) of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in Mississippi; and Scottish-born industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) (“Bishop Galloway Dead,” New York Times, 13 May 1909, 7).
I read in a book . . . by Mr. Murphy, Secretary of the Southern Education Board . . . wiped away more than one half] Edgar Gardner Murphy (1869–1913), an Episcopal clergyman and amateur astronomer, was the board’s executive secretary from 1903 to 1908. Choate referred to Problems of the Present South, in which Murphy claimed that “the illiteracy of the negro males of voting age has been reduced in the Southern States from 88 per cent in 1870 to 52 per cent in 1900” (Murphy 1904, 165; Bailey 2009).
Dr. Parkhurst] In 1892, New York Presbyterian clergyman Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933) preached a sermon attacking the Tammany government’s complicity in crime and vice. A grand jury decided that his charges were made without sufficient evidence; but Parkhurst rose to the empirical challenge, researching New York’s underworld in person and through detectives, obtaining enough data to instigate the Lexow Investigation and Tammany’s defeat (1894).
historian John Fiske, whom I knew well and loved] The historian John Fiske (1842–1901) published many works on evolutionary theory, and was a popular lyceum circuit lecturer. He lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Clemens knew him through Howells ( MTHL, 1:36–37, 181 n. 5).
his wife . . . little son] Fiske married Abby M. Brooks (1840–1925) in 1864 and they had six children (“Obituary Notes,” New York Times, 13 Jan 1925, 19).
Henry Clay Trumbull] James Hammond Trumbull’s brother was a Hartford Congregational minister and author (1830–1903).
Thomas Dixon, Jr.] Dixon (1864–1946), born in North Carolina but a resident of New York City, was an actor, lawyer, politician, and Baptist minister before becoming an immensely popular and controversial author. At the time of this Tuskegee benefit, his latest novel was The Clansman (1905), in which the Ku Klux Klan free the South from “negro rule”; the book was ultimately the basis of D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Langdons, the family into which I married] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 1 February 1906, note at 321.25–27.
reference was made . . . in Washington, day after to-morrow] Clemens spoke at the meeting of the Gridiron Club on 27 January 1906. Its tradition of inviting the president and other officials for an annual satirical “roast” continues to this day. In 1906 the target of fun was the Panama Canal; President Roosevelt, Secretary of War Taft, and Colonel Harvey were among the invited guests. Evidently Clemens considered reviving his Whittier dinner speech for this occasion; earlier he had spoken of delivering it at Boston’s Twentieth Century Club (“A Night in Panama,” Washington Post, 28 Jan 1906, 1, 6).
Reverend Charles Stowe, a son of Harriet Beecher Stowe] Charles Edward Stowe (1850–1934), a Congregationalist minister, was the youngest of the seven children of fellow Nook Farm residents Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96), the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and other works, and her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe (1802–86), a retired professor of theology (10 and 11 Jan 1872 to OLC, L5, 20 n. 4; “Rites Set for Rev. C. E. Stowe, Son of Author,” Los Angeles Times, 26 July 1934, 6; “Nook Farm Genealogy” 1974, 5, 28–29).
footnote * May 25 . . . I gave it a final and vigorous reading . . . my former admiration of it. M. T.] On his copy of the Whittier dinner seating plan, Clemens later wrote: “Note, 1907. This is Mr. Whittier’s 70th birthday dinner—that disastrous cataclysm! See account of it in my Autobiography. SLC” (CU-MARK). Given his praises of the speech in the present dictation and in the dictation of 11 January 1906, it is likely that “disastrous cataclysm” was ironic hyperbole.
Rev. Dr. Burton’s “Remains,” . . . your remarks at his funeral] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 12 January 1906. By “Burton’s ‘Remains’ ” is meant the posthumous collection of his lectures, which was prefaced with the funeral orations by both Twichell and Parker (Burton 1888, 27).
The Character of Man] Clemens dictated the instruction, “Put old MS. here.” He wrote this essay in 1884 or 1885, and revised the manuscript in January 1906 before Hobby transcribed it. The essay was first published in Paine’s edition of the autobiography ( MTA, 2:7–13; see also WIM, 60–64, 586).
Creator. * * * *] Here, and below at 313.1 and 313.26, Clemens canceled passages in his manuscript and substituted asterisks to indicate the omissions. The canceled passages are transcribed in the Textual Commentary, MTPO.
one single independent man . . . to breed his fellow] In his manuscript Clemens interlined “H. L. Goodwin” in pencil above “fellow” and then canceled the interlineation in ink. Henry Leavitt Goodwin (1821–99) was a longtime resident of East Hartford, a member of the Connecticut general assembly in the early 1870s, and always much involved in public affairs. Over the course of years he “protested irregularities in the Hartford transit system and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company” ( WIM, 537; “Henry L. Goodwin Dead,” Hartford Courant, 17 Mar 1899, 1). It has not been determined when this “one single independent man” took his stand for seating.
Asylum street crossing] In Hartford.
Mrs. Grundy] An imaginary personage, proverbially standing for the threat of society’s disapproval; derived originally from Thomas Morton’s play Speed the Plough (1798).
Hartford clergyman . . . relative of mine] Clemens probably refers to Matthew Brown Riddle (1836–1916), professor at Hartford Theological Seminary from 1871 to 1887. Well known locally as one of the principal American contributors to the Revised Version of the New Testament (1881), he seems also to have been related to James G. Blaine ( WIM, 537; “Dr. M. B. Riddle Dead, Aged 80,” Hartford Courant, 2 Sept 1916, 18).
the Cid, and Great-heart, and Sir Galahad, and Bayard the Spotless] These paragons of virtue are drawn variously from legend, literature, and history. The Cid, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar (ca. 1030–99), is Spain’s great hero of medieval romance; Great-heart is from Part Two of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678); Sir Galahad, in Arthurian legend, is the knight whose purity enables him to attain the Holy Grail; Bayard the Spotless is French knight Pierre du Terrail (1475–1524).
The preacher who casts a vote for conscience’ sake, runs the risk of starving] Clemens expands on this comment in the Autobiographical Dictations of 24 January and 1 February 1906.
Mr. Beecher may be charged with a crime . . . stand by him to the bitter end] In 1872 Henry Ward Beecher, the world-famous preacher of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, was accused of committing adultery with Elizabeth Tilton, one of his parishioners. In August 1874 Beecher was officially exonerated by a church council, whose verdict was strongly approved by the parishioners. That same month, Theodore Tilton sued Beecher for alienation of affections; the trial ended in a hung jury in 1875 (29? July 1874 to Twichell, n. 2, L6, 202–3; Applegate 2006, 440–42).
footnote Blaine] James G. Blaine (1830–93), the Republican presidential candidate in 1884, was accused by many, including some in his own party, of graft during his terms as congressman. Clemens joined with the faction of Republicans (the “mugwumps”) who repudiated Blaine and pledged to vote for Grover Cleveland, or another candidate, in protest. Their objections to Blaine are set forth in the public letter “To the Republican Voters of Connecticut,” which was signed by some one hundred Connecticut Republicans, including Clemens and Twichell (“Connecticut Independents,” New York Times, 13 Oct 1884, 1; N&J3, 77–78 n. 39; see AD, 24 Jan 1906).
footnote Hammond Trumbull] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 12 January 1906, note at 272.31–32.
but who so poor to be his friend . . . a vote for conscience’ sake] In 1884 Beecher, formerly a staunch Republican, declared he could not vote for Blaine, and campaigned for Cleveland, despite the revelation that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. Beecher’s support of Cleveland—and the suspicion it engendered that he felt for Cleveland as a fellow adulterer—earned him public mockery and private threats (Chicago Tribune: “Campaign Chronicles,” 30 Sept 1884, 2; “Beecher’s Support of Cleveland,” 20 Oct 1884, 7; Beecher and Scoville 1888, 576–81; Applegate 2006, 462–64).
Take the editor so charged] Clemens apparently alludes to Charles Dudley Warner, who was editor and part owner of the Hartford Courant (see AD, 24 Jan 1906, and note at 317.35–40).
Source documents.
TS1 (incomplete) Typescript, leaves numbered 166–72 and 176–77 (173–75 are missing), made from Hobby’s notes and revised: ‘Tuesday . . . letter is’ (302 title–310.37); ‘grandchildren . . . about it.’ (311.39–312.20).Times Clipping from the New York Times, 23 January 1906, 1, 2, originally attached to page 168 of TS1: ‘CHOATE AND . . . given him.” ’ (303.29–309.27).
MS “The Character of Man,” MS of 25 leaves (numbered 1–7, [1]–4, 7–20), written in 1884 or 1885 and revised in January 1906: ‘The Character . . . in death.’ (312.21–315.11).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 297–326, made from the revised TS1 (with the attached clipping) and the MS.
TS4 Typescript, leaves numbered 563–83, made from the revised TS1 and the MS.
The pages missing from TS1 were discarded by Paine when he edited the dictation for MTA. Hobby incorporated the revisions that Clemens made on TS1 into TS2, and they were incorporated into TS4 as well. TS4 has no authority for the text that survives in TS1. Where TS1 is missing, however, TS4 was collated and its variants reported, because TS2 and TS4 derive independently from TS1 and therefore either may incorporate authorial readings not present in the other. When TS2 and TS4 agree, they confirm the readings of the missing portion of TS1. One of the readings in TS4 has been adopted (see the entry for ‘Trafalgar,’ at 311.10).
Hobby typed into TS1 the instruction ‘(Here insert the newspaper account of the meeting at Carnegie (of Jan. 22nd). The future editor of this biography can use what he chooses of it, or leave it out)’. The clipping is unmarked save for the date ‘Jan 22 1906’ in the top margin (possibly written by Hobby) and the deletion of the text that follows Clemens’s speech. It is frayed at one edge and is missing a few characters, which have been supplied from another copy. 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. (The clipping was not transcribed into TS4, which merely appended the note ‘[See original MS.]’ to the instruction to ‘insert the newspaper account’.) NAR proofs of the speech survive with the typescripts; their purpose has not been discovered.
The missing TS1 pages might have shed some light on a peculiar element of the TS2 and TS4 texts: both typescripts include a 31 January 1906 thank-you letter from Laura K. Hudson without explanation or preamble, following the paragraph that ends at ‘let it stay.’ (310.36). (Hudson thanked Clemens for having sent her the text of his 1877 speech at the Whittier Birthday Dinner; see the Textual Commentary for AD, 11 January 1906.) The original letter has not been found, nor is it transcribed in TS1. Hudson’s letter, presumably received around 1 February, must have been attached to or interleaved with the TS1 pages at the time that TS2 and TS4 were typed, sometime after Clemens revised TS1 on 25 May, the date of his inserted footnote (310 ftnt). It is conceivable that some instruction from Clemens was written on the letter itself or on the now-missing TS1 pages, but it seems more likely that the letter was only accidentally incorporated into the dictation. It has not been included in the present text, although it can be found as a rejected reading in the apparatus (see the entry for ‘stay.’ at 310.35).
The source of Clemens’s essay “The Character of Man” is an MS originally written in 1884 or 1885. Like the text of the Times clipping, the essay is represented in TS1 only by a typed instruction ‘(Put old MS. here).’ The MS was written in ink that had faded to gray on cream-colored laid paper with a “Keystone Linen” watermark, measuring 5½ by 8⅞ inches. It consists of two pieces that Clemens culled and conflated. The first piece is numbered 1–7, the second is numbered [1]–4, 7–20. The first page of the second piece originally contained the title ‘Accepted Lies’; When Clemens revised the essay he evidently discarded pages 5 and 6, adding asterisks at the top of page 7 to signal the omission (see the entries for ‘* * * * There’ at 313.1 and ‘procession. ¶ * * * * Consider’ at 313.26). He made a number of revisions in the original gray ink when he first wrote the manuscript. He made the next round of revisions (undated) in pencil, and the last one (in January 1906, as attested by the two added footnotes) in black ink, as well as in an ink that now closely resembles that of the original inscription. All of the black ink revisions appear to date from 1906, and they clearly followed those in pencil; they are in a hand that is noticeably different from that of 1884 or 1885. It is not possible, however, to assign all the revisions to a particular stage: the first of the two added footnotes, for example, is in black ink, while the second one is in a lighter ink that closely resembles the ink of the original inscription.
Paine reviewed TS2 for possible publication in the NAR and suggested a brief excerpt; Clemens decided that none of it was ‘usable’.
Marginal Notes on TS2 Concerning Publication in the NAR