The “strong language” episode in the bath-room—Susy’sⒶapparatus note reference to “The Prince and the Pauper”—The mother and the children help edit the books—Reference to ancestors.
Susy’sⒶapparatus note remark about my strong language troubles me, and I must go back to it. All through the first ten years of my married life I kept a constant and discreet watch upon my tongue while in the house, and went outside and to a distance when circumstances were too much for me and I was obliged to seek relief. I prized my wife’s respect and approval above all the rest of the human race’s respect and approval. I dreaded the day when she should discover that I was but a whited sepulcher partly freighted with suppressed language. I was so careful, during ten years, that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful. Therefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had been innocent.
ButⒶapparatus note at last an accident exposed me. I went into the bath-room oneⒶapparatus note morning to make my toilet, and carelessly left the door two or three inches ajar. It was the first timeⒶapparatus note that I had everⒶapparatus note failed to take the precaution of closing it tightly. I knew the necessity of being particular about this, because shaving was always a trying ordeal for me, and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal helps. Now this time I was unprotected, butⒶapparatus note did not suspect it. I had no extraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to worry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort, but with nothing noisy or emphatic about them—no snapping and barking. Then I put on a shirt. My shirts are an invention of my own. [begin page 347] They open in the back, and are buttoned there—when there are buttons. This time the button was missing. My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment, and my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of expression. But I was not troubled, for the bath-room door was a solid one and I supposed it was firmly closed. I flung up the window and threw the shirt out. It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way to church could admire it if they wanted to; thereⒶapparatus note was merely fifty feet of grass between the shirt and the passer-by. Still rumbling and thundering distantly, I put on another shirt. Again the button was absent. I augmented my language to meet the emergency, and threw that shirt out of the window. I was too angry—too insane—to examine the third shirt, but put it furiously on. Again the button was absent, and that shirt followed its comrades out of the window. Then I straightened up, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge. In the midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and I was paralysedⒶapparatus note.
It took me a good while to finish my toilet. I extended the time unnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in the circumstances. I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I knew better. I could not escape by the window. It was narrow, and suited only to shirts. At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the bedroomⒶapparatus note with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made half the journey successfully. I did not turn my eyes in her direction, because that would not be safe. It is very difficult to look as if you have not been doing anything when the facts are the other way, and my confidence in my performance oozed steadily out of me as I went along. I was aiming for the left-hand door because it was furthest from my wife. It had never been opened from the day that the house was built, but it seemed a blessed refuge for me now. The bed was this one, wherein I am lying now, and dictating these histories morning after morning with so much serenity. It was this same old elaborately carved black Venetian bedstead—the most comfortable bedstead that ever was, with space enough in it for a family, and carved angels enough surmounting its twisted columns and its headboard and footboard to bring peace to the sleepers, and pleasant dreams. I had to stop in the middle of the room. I hadn’t the strength to go on. I believed that I was under accusing eyes—that even the carved angels were inspecting me with an unfriendly gaze. You know how it is when you are convinced that somebody behind you is looking steadily at you. You have to turn your face—you can’t help it. I turned mine. The bed was placed as it is now, with the foot where the head ought to be. If it had been placed as it should have been, the high headboard would have sheltered me. But the footboard was no sufficient protection, forⒶapparatus note I could be seen over it. I was exposed. I was wholly without protection. I turned, because I couldn’tⒶapparatus note help it—and my memory of what I saw is still vivid, after all these years.
Against the white pillows I saw the black head—I saw that young and beautiful face; and I saw the gracious eyes with a something in them which I had never seen there before. They were snapping and flashing with indignation. I felt myself crumbling; I felt myself shrinking away to nothing under that accusing gaze. I stood silent under that desolating fire for as much as a minute, I should say—it seemed a very, very long time. Then my wife’s lips parted, and from them issued— my latest bath-room remarkⒶapparatus note. The language perfect, but the expression velvety,Ⓐapparatus note unpractical, apprentice-likeⒶapparatus note, ignorant, inexperienced, comically inadequate, absurdly weak and unsuited to the great language. In my lifetime I had never heard anything so out of [begin page 348] tune, so inharmonious, so incongruous, so ill-suited to each other as were those mighty words set to that feeble music. I tried to keep from laughing, for I was a guilty person in deep need of charity and mercy. I tried to keep from bursting, and I succeeded—until she gravely saidⒶapparatus note “There, now you know how it sounds.”
ThenⒶapparatus note I exploded; the air was filled with my fragments, and you could hear them whiz.Ⓐapparatus note I saidⒶapparatus note “Oh Livy, if it sounds like thatⒶapparatus note God forgive me,Ⓐapparatus note I will never do it again!Ⓐapparatus note”
Then she had to laugh herself. Both of us broke into convulsions, and went on laughing until we were physically exhausted and spiritually reconciled.Ⓐapparatus note
TheⒶapparatus note children were present at breakfast—Clara aged six and SusyⒶapparatus note eight—and the mother made a guarded remark about strong language; guarded because she did not wish the children to suspect anything—a guarded remark which censured strong language. Both children broke out in one voice with this comment,Ⓐapparatus note “WhyⒶapparatus note mamma, papa uses it.Ⓐapparatus note”
IⒶapparatus note was astonished. I had supposed that thatⒶapparatus note secret was safe in my own breast, and that its presence had never been suspected. I asked,Ⓐapparatus note
“HowⒶapparatus note did you know, you little rascals?”
“Oh,” they said, “we often listen over the ballustersⒶapparatus note when you are in the hall explaining things to George.”
From Susy’s Biography.Ⓐapparatus note
OneⒶapparatus note of papa’s latest books is “TheⒶapparatus note Prince and the Pauper”Ⓐapparatus note and it is unquestionably the best book he has ever written, some people want him to keep to his old style, some gentleman wrote him, “IⒶapparatus note enjoyed Huckleberry Finn immensely and am glad to see that you have returned to your old style.”Ⓐapparatus note That enoyed me that enoyed me greatly, because it trobles meⒶapparatus note (SusyⒶapparatus note was troubled by that word, and uncertain; she wrote a uⒶapparatus note above it in the proper place, but reconsidered the matter and struck it out)Ⓐapparatus note toⒶapparatus note have so few people know papa, I mean realy know him, they think of Mark Twain as a humorist joking at everything; “AndⒶapparatus note with a mop of reddish brown hair which sorely needs the barbars brush a roman nose, short stubby mustache, a sad care-worn face, with maney crow’s feet”Ⓐapparatus note etc. That is the way people picture papa, I have wanted papa to write a book that would reveal something of his kind sympathetic nature, and “TheⒶapparatus note Prince and the Pauper”Ⓐapparatus note partly does it. The book is full of lovely charming ideas, and oh the language! It is perfect. I think that one of the most touching scenes in it, is where the pauper is riding on horseback with his nobles in the “recognition procession”Ⓐapparatus note and he sees his mother oh and then what followed! How she runs to his side, when she sees him throw up his hand palm outward, and is rudely pushed off by one of the King’s officers, and then how the little pauper’s consceinceⒶapparatus note troubles him when he remembers the shameful words that were falling from his lips, when she wasⒶapparatus note turned from his side “IⒶapparatus note know you not woman”Ⓐapparatus note and how his grandeurs were stricken valueless, and his pride consumed to ashes. It is a wonderfully beautiful and touching little scene, and papa has described it so wonderfully. I never saw a man with so much variety of feeling as papa has; now the “PrinceⒶapparatus note and the Pauper”Ⓐapparatus note is full of touching places,Ⓐapparatus note but there is most always a streak of humor in them somewhere. Now in the coronation—in the stirring coronation, just after the little king has got his crown back again papa brings that in about the Seal, where the pauper says he used the Seal “toⒶapparatus note crack nuts with.”Ⓐapparatus note Oh it is so funny and nice! Papa very seldom writes a passage without some humor in it somewhere, and I don’t think he ever will.Ⓐapparatus note
The children always helped their mother to edit my books in manuscript. She would sit on the porch at the farm and read aloud, with her pencil in her hand, and the children would keep an alert and suspicious eye upon her right along, for the belief was well grounded in them that whenever she came across a particularly satisfactory passage she would strike it out. Their suspicions were well founded. The passages which were so satisfactory to them always had an element of strength in them which sorely needed modification or expurgation,Ⓐapparatus note and wasⒶapparatus note always sure to get it at their mother’s hand. For my own entertainment, and to enjoy the protests of the children, I often abused my editor’s innocent confidence. I often interlarded remarks of a studied and felicitously atrocious character purposely to achieve the children’s brief delight,Ⓐapparatus note and thenⒶapparatus note see the remorselessⒶapparatus note pencil do its fatal work. I often joined my supplications to the children’s,Ⓐapparatus note for mercy, and strung the argument out and pretended to be in earnest. They were deceived, and so was their mother. It was three against one, and most unfair. But it was very delightful, and I could not resist the temptation. Now and then we gained the victory and there was much rejoicing. Then I privately struck the passage out myself. It had served its purpose. It had furnished three of us with good entertainment, and in being removed from the book by me it was only suffering the fate originally intended for it.
From Susy’s Biography.Ⓐapparatus note
PapaⒶapparatus note was born in Missouri. His mother is Grandma Clemens (Jane Lampton Clemens) of Kentucky. Grandpa Clemens was of the F.F. V’s of Virginia.Ⓐapparatus note
Without doubt it was I that gave SusyⒶapparatus note that impression. I cannot imagine why, because I was never in my life much impressed by grandeurs which proceed from the accident of birth. I did not get this indifference from my mother. She was always strongly interested in the ancestry of the houseⒺexplanatory note. She traced her own line back to the Lambtons of Durham, England—a family which had been occupying broad lands there since Saxon times. I am not sure, but I think that those Lambtons got along without titles of nobility for eight or nine hundred years, then produced a great man, three-quarters of a century ago, and broke into the peerageⒺexplanatory note. My mother knew all about the Clemenses of Virginia, and loved to aggrandize them to me, but she has long been dead. There has been no one to keep those details fresh in my memory, and they have grown dim.
There was a Jere. Clemens who was a United States SenatorⒶapparatus note, and in his day enjoyed the usual senatorialⒶapparatus note fame—a fame which perishes whether it spring from four years’Ⓐapparatus note service or forty. After Jere. ClemensⒺexplanatory note’s fame as a SenatorⒶapparatus note passed away, he was still remembered for many years on account of another service which he performed. He shot old John Brown’s Governor Wise in the hind leg in a duel. However, I am not very clear about this. It may be that Governor Wise shot himⒶapparatus note in the hind leg. However,Ⓐapparatus note I don’t think it is important. I think that the only thing that is really important is that one of them got shot in the hind leg. It would have been better and nobler and more historical and satisfactory if both of them had got shot in the hind leg—but it is ofⒶapparatus note no use for me to try to recollect history,Ⓐapparatus note I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever way it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can get up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the firstⒶapparatus note Clemens—the one that stands furthest back toward the really original first Clemens, which was Adam.
His mother is Grandma Clemens . . . F.F. V’s of Virginia . . . always strongly interested in the ancestry of the house] In Clemens’s lifetime the phrase “First Families of Virginia” was used informally to designate those who claimed descent from the earliest settlers of the state. The present-day Order of First Families of Virginia was founded in 1912. Susy apparently read an interview with her grandmother published in the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in March or April 1885 which was widely reprinted. The last paragraph read:
Mrs. Clemens was Miss Jane Lampton before her marriage and was a native of Kentucky. Mr. Clemens was of the F. F. V.’s of Virginia. They did not accumulate property and the father left the family at his death nothing but, in Mark’s own words, “a sumptuous stock of pride and a good old name,” which, it will be allowed, has proved in this case at least a sufficient inheritance. (“Mark Twain’s Boyhood. An Interview with the Mother of the Famous Humorist,” New York World, 12 Apr 1885, 19, reprinting the Chicago Inter-Ocean)
Lambtons of Durham . . . broke into the peerage] The Lambton family’s residence in County Durham, England, can be traced nearly to the time of the Norman Conquest (1066). John George Lambton (1792–1840) was created first earl of Durham in 1833; his grandson, also John George Lambton (1855–1928), became the third earl in 1879. Jane Clemens’s paternal grandfather, William Lampton (1724–90), who evidently belonged to a collateral branch of the family, emigrated to Virginia about 1740 (Burke 1904, 528–29; Debrett 1980, P409; Selby 1973, 112; Keith 1914, 3–4, 7).
Jere. Clemens . . . shot old John Brown’s Governor Wise in the hind leg in a duel] Clemens mistook the identities of both combatants. It was not Jeremiah Clemens but Sherrard Clemens who fought O. Jennings Wise—a son of Henry Alexander Wise, the governor of Virginia from 1856 to 1860, when abolitionist John Brown was active. Sherrard Clemens was severely wounded in the right thigh; Wise was uninjured (see “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It],” note at 205.18; 21 June 1866 to JLC and PAM, L1, 346 n. 6; “The Wise and Clemens Duel,” New York Times, 24 Sept 1858, 2).
Source documents.
TS1 (incomplete) Typescript, leaves numbered 277–87 (most of 287 and all of 288 are missing), made from Hobby’s notes and revised: ‘Friday . . . grown dim.’ (346 title–349.28).TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 422–31, made from the revised TS1.
TS3 Typescript, leaves numbered 24–33, made from the revised TS1 and further revised.
NAR 5pf Galley proofs of NAR 5, typeset from the revised TS3, ViU (the same extent as NAR 5).
NAR 5 North American Review 183 (2 November 1906), 833–38: ‘Susy’s remark . . . was Adam.’ (346.21–349.40).
Clemens considered this dictation for possible publication through Samuel McClure’s newspaper syndicate, writing ‘Mc (use it)’ in blue pencil on the first page of TS1; that notation was later partially erased (see the Introduction, p. 29). The one and one-half pages missing from TS1 were discarded by Paine when he edited the dictation for MTA. Harvey reviewed TS1 in August 1906 for possible publication in the NAR and selected the entire dictation. Hobby incorporated the revisions that Clemens made on TS1 into both TS2 (which he did not further revise) and TS3; they agree in all but one reading, confirming the readings of the missing portion of TS1. Clemens revised TS3 to serve as printer’s copy for NAR 5, where it is followed by the AD of 12 February 1906 (see Contents and Pagination of TS3, Batch 3). One of his revisions, the deletion of ‘God forgive me,’ has not been adopted here, since it is deemed a modification for contemporary publication (see the entry at 348.6). He made no revisions in this excerpt on NAR5pf.
Marginal Notes on TS1 and TS3 Concerning Publication in the NAR