Subject of JanuaryⒶapparatus note 24th continued—Mr. Twichell’sⒶapparatus note unpopular vote.
Joe was not quite present. It was not etiquette for him to be within hearing of the business-talksⒶapparatus note concerning the church’s affairs. He remained in the seclusion of the church parlor, ready to be consulted if that should be necessary. The congregation was present in full force; every seat was occupied. The moment the house was called to order, a member sprang to his feet and moved that the connection between TwichellⒶapparatus note and the church be dissolved. The motion was promptly seconded. Here,Ⓐapparatus note and there, and yonder, all over the house, there were calls of “Question! Question!” But Mr. Hubbard, a middle-agedⒶapparatus note man, a wise and calm and collected man, business manager and part owner of the Courant Ⓔexplanatory note, rose in his place and proposed to discuss the motion before rushing it to a vote. The substance of his remarks was this,—(which I must put in my own language, of course, as I was not there).
“Mr. TwichellⒶapparatus note was the first pastor you have ever had. You have never wanted another until two months ago. You have had no fault to find with his ministrations as your pastor, but he has suddenly become unfit to continue them because he is unorthodox in his politics, according to your views. Very well, he wasⒶapparatus note fit; he has become unfit. He wasⒶapparatus note valuable; his value has passed away, apparently—but only apparently. His highest value remains—if I know this congregation. When he assumed this pastorate this region was an outlying district, thinly inhabited, its real estate worth next to nothing. Mr. Twichell’sⒶapparatus note personality was a magnet which immediately began to draw population in this direction. It has continued to draw it from that day to this. As a result, your real estate, almost valueless in the beginning, ranges now at very high prices. Reflect, before you vote upon this resolution. The church in West Hartford is waiting upon this vote with deep solicitude. That congregation’s real estate stands at a low figure. What they are anxious to have now above everything else, under God,Ⓐapparatus note is a price-raiserⒶapparatus note. Dismiss Mr. [begin page 320] TwichellⒶapparatus note to-night, and they will hire him to-morrow. Prices there will go up; prices here will go down. That is all. I move the vote.”
TwichellⒶapparatus note was not dismissed. That was twenty-two years ago. It was Twichell’sⒶapparatus note first pulpit after his consecration to his vocation. He occupies it yet, and has never had another. The fortieth anniversaryⒺexplanatory note of his accession to it was celebrated by that congregation and its descendants a couple of weeks ago, and there was great enthusiasm. TwichellⒶapparatus note has never made any political mistakes since. His persistency in voting right has been an exasperation to me these many years, and has been the cause and inspiration of more than one vicious letter from me to him. But the viciousness was all a pretense. I have never found any real fault with him for voting his infernal Republican ticket, for the reason that situated as he was, with a large family to support, his first duty was not to his political conscience but to his family conscience. A sacrifice had to be made; a duty had to be performed. His very first duty was to his family, not to his political conscience. He sacrificed his political independence,Ⓐapparatus note and saved his family by it. In the circumstances, this was the highest loyalty, and the best. If he had been a Henry Ward Beecher it would not have been his privilege to sacrifice his political conscience, because in case of dismissal a thousand pulpits would have been open to him, and his family’s bread secure. In Twichell’sⒶapparatus note case, there would have been some risk—in fact, a good deal of risk. That he, or any other expert, could have raised the prices of real estate in West Hartford is, to my mind, exceedingly doubtful. I think Mr. Hubbard worked his imagination to the straining point when he got up that scare that night. I believe it was safest for TwichellⒶapparatus note to remain where he was if he could. He saved his family, and that was his first duty, in my opinion.
In this country there are perhaps eighty thousand preachers. Not more than twenty of them are politically independent—the rest cannot be politically independent. They must vote the ticket of their congregations. They do it, and are justified. They themselves are mainly the reason why they have no political independence, for they do not preach political independence from their pulpits. They have their large share in the fact that the people of this nation have no political independence.
FebruaryⒶapparatus note 1, 1906.
To-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary of our marriage. My wife passed from this life one year and eight months ago, in Florence, Italy, after an unbroken illness of twenty-two months’ duration.
I saw her first in the form of an ivory miniature in her brother Charley’sⒶapparatus note stateroom in the steamer Quaker CityⒶapparatus note in the Bay of Smyrna, in the summer of 1867, when she was in her twenty-second year. I saw her in the flesh for the first time in New York in the following DecemberⒺexplanatory note. She was slender and beautiful and girlish—and she was both girl and woman. She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life. Under a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishableⒶapparatus note fires of sympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless affection. She was always frail in body, and she lived upon her spirit, whose hopefulness and courage were indestructible.Ⓐapparatus note Perfect truth, perfect honesty, perfect candor, were qualities of her character which were born with her. Her judgments of people and things were sure and accurate. Her intuitions almost never deceived her. In her judgments of the characters and acts of both friends and strangers, there was always room for charity, and this charity never failed. I have [begin page 321] compared and contrasted her with hundreds of persons, and my conviction remains that hers was the most perfect character I have ever met. And I may add that she was the most winningly dignified person I have ever known. Her character and disposition were of the sort that not only inviteⒶapparatus note worshipⒶapparatus note but commandⒶapparatus note it. No servant ever left her service who deserved to remain in it. AndⒶapparatus note as she could choose with a glance of her eye, the servants she selected did in almost all cases deserve to remain, and they did remain. She was always cheerful; and she was always able to communicate her cheerfulness to others. During the nine years that we spent in poverty and debtⒺexplanatory note, she was always able to reason me out of my despairsⒶapparatus note and find a bright side to the cloudsⒶapparatus note and make me see it. In all that timeⒶapparatus note I never knew her to utter a word of regret concerning our altered circumstances, nor did I ever know her children to do the like. For she had taught them, and they drew their fortitude from her. The love which she bestowed upon those whom she loved took the form of worship, and in that form it was returned—returned by relatives, friends,Ⓐapparatus note and the servants of her household. It was a strange combination which wrought into one individual, so to speak, by marriage—her disposition and character and mine. She poured out her prodigal affectionⒶapparatus note in kisses and caresses,Ⓐapparatus note and in a vocabulary of endearments whose profusion wasⒶapparatus note always an astonishment to me. I was born reserved as to endearments of speech,Ⓐapparatus note and caresses, and hers broke upon me as the summer waves break upon GibraltarⒶapparatus note. I was reared in that atmosphere of reserve. As I have already said in an earlier chapterⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐapparatus note I never knew a member of my father’s family to kiss another member of it except once, and that at a death-bed. And our village was not a kissing community. The kissing and caressing ended with courtship—along with the deadly piano-playingⒶapparatus note of that day.
She had the heart-free laugh of a girl. It came seldom, but when it broke upon the ear it was as inspiring as music. I heard it for the last time when she had been occupying her sick-bedⒶapparatus note for more than a year, and I made a writtenⒶapparatus note note of it at the time—a note not to be repeated.
To-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary. We were married in her father’s house in Elmira, New York, and went next day, by special train, to Buffalo, along with the whole Langdon familyⒺexplanatory note, and with the Beechers and the TwichellsⒶapparatus note, who had solemnized the marriage. We were to live in Buffalo, where I was to be one of the editors of the Buffalo Express,Ⓐapparatus note and a part owner of the paperⒺexplanatory note. I knew nothing about Buffalo, but I had made my household arrangements there through a friendⒺexplanatory note, by letter. I had instructed him to find a boarding-house of as respectable a character as my light salary as editor would command. We were received at about nine o’clock at the station in BuffaloⒶapparatus note and were put into several sleighs and driven all over America, as it seemed to me—for apparentlyⒶapparatus note we turned all the corners in the town and followed all the streets there were—I scolding freelyⒶapparatus note and characterizing that friend of mine in very uncomplimentary wordsⒶapparatus note for securing a boarding-house that apparently had no definite locality. But there was a conspiracy—and my bride knew of it, but I was in ignorance. Her father, JervisⒶapparatus note Langdon, had bought and furnished a new house for us in the fashionable street, Delaware Avenue, and had laid in a cookⒺexplanatory note and housemaids,Ⓐapparatus note and a brisk and electric young coachman, an Irishman, Patrick McAleer—and we were being driven all over that city in order that one sleighful of thoseⒶapparatus note people could have time to go to the house and see that the gas was lighted all over it, and a hot supper prepared for the crowd. We arrived at last, and when I entered that fairy place my indignation reached high-water mark, and without any reserve I delivered my opinion to that friend of mine [begin page 322] for being so stupid as to put us into a boarding-house whose terms would be far out of my reach. Then Mr. Langdon brought forward a very pretty box and opened itⒶapparatus note and took from it a deed of the house. So the comedy ended very pleasantlyⒺexplanatory note, and we sat down to supper.
The company departed about midnight, and left us alone in our new quarters. Then Ellen, the cook, came in to get orders for the morning’s marketing—and neither of us knew whether beefsteak was sold by the barrel or by the yard. We exposed our ignoranceⒶapparatus note, and Ellen was full of Irish delight over it. Patrick McAleer, that brisk young Irishman,Ⓐapparatus note came in to get his orders for next day—and that was our first glimpse of him.Ⓐapparatus note
Thirty-six years have gone by. And this letter from TwichellⒶapparatus note comes this morning, from Hartford.
HartfordⒶapparatus note.
JanⒶapparatus note 31.
Dear Mark:
I am sorry to say that the news about Patrick is very bad. I saw him Monday. He looked pretty well and was in cheerful spirits. He told me that he was fast recovering from an operation performed on him last week Wednesday, and would soon be out again. But a nurse who followed me from the room when I left told me that the poor fellow was deceived. The operation had simply disclosed the fact that nothing could be done for him.
Yesterday I asked the Surgeon (Johnson, living opposite us) if that were so.Ⓐapparatus note He said ‘Yes’;Ⓐapparatus note that the trouble was cancer of the liver and that there was no help for it in surgery; the case was quite hopeless; the end was not many weeks off. A pitiful case, indeed! PoorⒶapparatus note Patrick! His face brightened when he saw me. He told me, the first thing, that he had just heard from Jean. His wife and son were with him. Whether they suspect the truth I don’t know. I doubt if the wife does: but the son looked very sober. May beⒶapparatus note he only has been told.
YrsⒶapparatus note aff.
JeanⒶapparatus note had kept watch of Patrick’s case by correspondence with Patrick’s daughter NancyⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐapparatus note and so we already knew that it was hopeless. In fact, the end seems to be nearer than TwichellⒶapparatus note suspects. Last night I sent TwichellⒶapparatus note word that I knew Patrick had only a day or two to live, and he must not forget to provide a memorial wreath and pin a card to it with my name and Clara’s and Jean’s, signed to it, worded “In loving remembrance of Patrick McAleer, faithful and valued friend of our family for thirty-six years.”
IⒶapparatus note wanted to say that he had servedⒶapparatus note us thirty-six years, but some people would not have understood that. He served us constantly for twenty-six years. Then came that break when we spent nine or ten years in Europe. But if Patrick himself could see his funeral wreath—then I should certainly say,Ⓐapparatus note in so many words,Ⓐapparatus note that he served us thirty-six years. For last summer, when we were located in the New Hampshire hills, at Dublin, we had Patrick with us. Jean had gone to Hartford the 1st of May and secured his services for the summer. Necessarily, a part of our household was KatyⒶapparatus note Leary, who has been on our rosterⒶapparatus note for twenty-six years; andⒶapparatus note one day Jean overheard KatyⒶapparatus note and Patrick disputing about this length of service. KatyⒶapparatus note said she had served the family longer than Patrick had. PatrickⒶapparatus note said it was nothing of the kind;Ⓐapparatus note that he had already served the family ten years when KatyⒶapparatus note came, and that he had now served itⒶapparatus note thirty-six yearsⒺexplanatory note.
He was just as brisk there in the New Hampshire hills as he was thirty-six years ago. He [begin page 323] was sixty-four years old, but was just as slender,Ⓐapparatus note and trim,Ⓐapparatus note and handsome, and just asⒶapparatus note alert and springy on his feet as he was in those long-vanished days of his youth. He was the most perfect man in his office that I have ever known, for this reason:Ⓐapparatus note that he never neglected any detail,Ⓐapparatus note howsoever slight, of his duties, and there was never any occasion to give him an order about anything. He conducted his affairs without anybody’s help. There was always plenty of feed for the horses; the horses were always shod when they needed to be shod; the carriages and sleighsⒶapparatus note were always attended to; heⒶapparatus note kept everything in perfect order. ItⒶapparatus note was a great satisfaction to have such a man around. I was not capable of telling anybody what to do about anything. He was my particular servant, and I didn’t need to tell him anything at all. He was just the same in the New Hampshire hills. I never gave him an order while he was there, the whole five months; and there was never anything lacking that belonged in his jurisdiction.
When we had been married a year or two Patrick took a wife, and they lived in a house which we built and added to the stable. They reared eight children. They lost oneⒺexplanatory note, two or three years ago—a thriving young man, assistant editor of a Hartford daily paper, I think. The children were all educated in the public schools and in the High School. They are all men and women now, of course.
Our first child, Langdon Clemens, was born the 7th of November, 1870, and lived twenty-two months. SusyⒶapparatus note was born the 19th of March, 1872, and passed from life in the Hartford home, the 18th of August,Ⓐapparatus note 1896. With her, when the end came,Ⓐapparatus note were Jean,Ⓐapparatus note and Katy Leary,Ⓐapparatus note and John and Ellen (the gardener and his wife)Ⓐapparatus note. Clara and her mother and I arrived in England from around the world on the 31st of July, and took a house in GuildfordⒶapparatus note. A week later, when SusyⒶapparatus note, KatyⒶapparatus note and JeanⒶapparatus note should have been arriving from America, we got a letter instead.
1872
1896 Ⓐapparatus note
Mr. Hubbard . . . business manager and part owner of the Courant] Stephen A. Hubbard (1827–90) had been part owner and managing editor of the Hartford Courant since 1867 (McNulty 1964, 91; “Obituary,” Hartford Courant, 13 Jan 1890, 1).
fortieth anniversary . . . weeks ago] Twichell’s fortieth year as pastor of Asylum Hill Congregational Church was celebrated on 13 December 1905 (“Rev. Mr. Twichell 40 Years Pastor,” Hartford Courant, 14 Dec 1905, 12).
I saw her first in the form of an ivory miniature . . . the following December] Olivia’s brother, Charles Langdon, was a youth of seventeen when his parents sent him on the Quaker City excursion as a safe alternative to a traditional grand tour. He struck up a friendship with Clemens near the end of the voyage, and showed him the miniature of Olivia on 5 or 6 September 1867, when the ship was in the Bay of Smyrna (link note following 8 June 1867 to McComb, L2, 63–64). Clemens’s Autobiographical Dictations leave some room for doubt about the dates of his first meetings with Olivia. The dictation of 13 February 1906 states that they were introduced on 27 December 1867 and met again five days later; this ignores a known meeting on 31 December, when Clemens went with the Langdons to hear Dickens read at Steinway Hall (see AD, 12 Oct 1907). It is possible that this, and not the twenty-seventh, was the day he met Olivia (L2: 8 Jan 1868 to JLC and PAM, 145–46 n. 3; “Itinerary of the Quaker City Excursion,” 394–95; “Mr. Dickens’ Readings,” New York Times, 31 Dec 1867, 4; for the excursion see “Notes on ‘Innocents Abroad,’ ” note at 227.13–14).
nine years that we spent in poverty and debt] Clemens paid his debts in full in 1898, with the proceeds from his 1895–96 world lecture tour and the book based on it, Following the Equator(see “Something about Doctors,” note at 190.10–12).
As I have already said in an earlier chapter] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 13 January 1906.
her father’s house in Elmira, New York . . . with the whole Langdon family] Jervis Langdon (1809–70), a native of New York State, married Olivia Lewis in 1832, and the pair settled in Elmira in 1845. He became prosperous in the lumber business and then wealthy in the coal trade, which he entered in 1855. His extensive operations included mines in Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia, and a huge rail and shipping network supplying coal to western New York State, Chicago, and the Far West. An ardent abolitionist, Jervis Langdon served as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, and counted Frederick Douglass, whom he had helped to escape from slavery, among his friends. He died in 1870 of stomach cancer, leaving bequests totaling a million dollars. Olivia’s inheritance was to remain central in the life of the Clemens family. Charles Jervis Langdon (1849–1916), Olivia’s brother, succeeded his father in the management of the family’s coal business; he also exercised considerable responsibility for his sister’s inherited investments. In 1880 he served on Governor Alonzo B. Cornell’s staff as commissary general, and was for many years one of Elmira’s police commissioners (24 and 25 Aug 1868 to JLC and family, L2, 244 n. 3; “In Memoriam,” Elmira Saturday Evening Review, 13 Aug 1870, 5; Towner 1892, 615).
I was to be one of the editors of the Buffalo Express, and a part owner of the paper] With the financial assistance of Jervis Langdon, Clemens purchased a one-third interest in the Buffalo Express in August 1869, becoming at the same time “associate editor” ( MTB, 1:385–89; see 14 Aug 1869 to Bliss, L3, 296 n. 2).
a friend] John D. F. Slee, chief officer of Langdon’s coal firm, played a part in the “conspiracy” described by Clemens. In December 1869 Slee wrote to Clemens that “boarding anyhow is miserable business” but that he had arranged rooms in a respectable boardinghouse and would appreciate advance notice of the couple’s arrival, that he might “meet and accompany you to your ‘Quarters’ ” (Slee to SLC, 27 Dec 1869, CU-MARK; 27 Feb 1869 to OLL, 24 and 25 Nov 1869 to OLL, L3, 119 n. 4, 406 n. 1).
Delaware Avenue, and had laid in a cook] The Clemenses’ new house in Buffalo was at 472 Delaware Avenue. The cook and housekeeper, Ellen White, was a former Langdon family servant (6 Feb 1870 to Bowen, L4 , 54–55 n. 5).
So the comedy ended very pleasantly] For other accounts of the Clemenses’ wedding and the surprise in Buffalo, see the link note following 28–31 Jan 1870 to Twichell, L4, 42–49.
Patrick’s daughter Nancy] Anne (Nancy) McAleer, born in 1883, was a near contemporary of Jean’s ( Hartford Census 1900, 8B; Hartford Census 1910, 7B).
Patrick McAleer, faithful and valued friend of our family . . . served it thirty-six years] McAleer (1844?–1906) was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, and emigrated to America at age sixteen. He married Mary Reagan of Elmira, New York; they had nine children, one of whom evidently died in infancy (“Coachman Many Years for Mark Twain,” Hartford Courant, 26 Feb 1906, 6; Hartford Census 1910, 7B). McAleer moved with the Clemenses from Buffalo to Hartford, working for them, almost without interruption, until 1891. He returned briefly to the Clemens household in Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1905; in a letter of 20 May 1905 to his daughter Clara, Clemens described his delight in seeing him again:
And Patrick! He is a vision out of a time when your mother was a girl & I a lad! And what a pleasure he is to my eye, & how the view of him fits in with the rest of the scenery! The same, same Patrick—trim, shapely, alert, competent for all things, taking two steps to any other man’s one, not a gray hair nor any other sign of age about him, & his voice that same old pleasant sound! He served us twenty-two years & is a youth yet. (MoHM)
They lost one . . . assistant editor of a Hartford daily paper] One of McAleer’s sons, Edward McAleer, a plumber, died in January 1905 at age thirty; nothing is known of a son who worked for a newspaper (“Killed by a Fall,” Hartford Courant, 30 Jan 1905, 5).
Twichell to SLC MS letter, Joseph H. Twichell to SLC, 31 January 1906, attached to TS1: ‘Hartford . . . Joe’ (322.11–26).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 339–51, made from the revised TS1 and Twichell to SLC.
TS3 ribbon (lost) Typescript, leaves numbered 1–6, made from the revised TS1; now lost.
TS3 carbon Carbon copy of TS3, leaves numbered 1–6, made from the revised TS1 and further revised, WU (the same extent as NAR 3).
NAR 3pf Galley proofs of NAR 3, typeset from the revised TS3 ribbon and further revised, ViU (the same extent as NAR 3).
NAR 3 North American Review 183 (5 October 1906), 577–80: ‘To-morrow will . . . of him.’ (320.29–322.8); ‘Our first . . . letter instead.’ (323.17–22).
Harvey reviewed TS1 in August 1906 for possible publication in the NAR and selected two excerpts. Hobby incorporated the revisions that Clemens made on TS1 into both TS2 (which was not further revised) and TS3. The ribbon copy of TS3 is lost, but the carbon survives (its typed page numbers were altered by hand to 4–9). TS3 carbon comprises a total of twenty-seven pages, a catena of excerpts from the ADs of 1 February, 2 February, and 5 February 1906 (see Contents and Pagination of TS3, Batch 2). Harvey carried away TS3 ribbon, from which NAR 3pf was typeset, while TS3 carbon remained with Clemens, who belatedly revised it. At that time, the three February excerpts were scheduled to lead off the series of autobiography “Chapters” in NAR 1, and in TS3 they were preceded by an introduction taken from the AD of 26 March 1906. Ultimately, however, they were postponed to NAR 3, and the introduction was moved to NAR 1, which comprises the first part of “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It].” Clemens retained TS3 carbon (consisting of the introductory passage from the AD of 26 March and the three February excerpts), which he revised after TS3 ribbon had been prepared and conveyed to the NAR, adding a note to Harvey on the first page:
Dublin, Sunday. Dear Harvey: I have corrected this September instalment. Please transfer the corrections to your duplicate, then send this one to “Miss Clara Clemens, Norfolk, Conn.” I think she will add no corrections, but it is best to send it anyway; for she is naturally violent, & if you ever print one of these without letting her give it the seal of her final supervision & authority, somebody’s scalp will disappear—probably yours. Do this, & oblige
Your uncle
Mark.
Clemens made four revisions (and two corrections) in the 1 February material on TS3 carbon, but it arrived at the NAR too late for them to be incorporated into NAR 3pf. All of them are adopted in the present edition. When Clemens read NAR 3pf, he tried to recreate the changes on TS3 carbon from memory, but managed to recapture only two of his original four revisions, and only one of those exactly; he also made one new revision. He may have made a few revisions on the lost TS3 ribbon as well, but collation reveals no substantive variants between it and NAR 3, and the alterations in punctuation and spelling—as well as two changes from plural to singular verbs (see the entries for ‘invite’, ‘worship’, and ‘command’ at 321.3)—have been rejected as editorial interference.
The installment in NAR 3pf was at first entitled ‘Chapter from My Autobiography.—I.’ and began with the introductory text from AD, 26 March 1906. By the time it was actually published, however, the ‘I’ had been modified to ‘III’ and the introduction had been removed (‘Chapter’ had also been corrected to ‘Chapters’).
Marginal Notes on TS1 and TS2 Concerning Publication in the NAR