About Rear-Admiral Wilkes—And meeting Mr. Anson Burlingame in Honolulu.
MRS. MARY WILKES DEAD.
Florence, Italy, Feb. 19.—Mrs. Mary Wilkes, widow of Rear-Admiral Wilkes, U. S. N., is dead, aged eighty-five.
It is death-noticesⒶapparatus note like this thatⒶapparatus note enable me to realize in some sort how long I have lived. They drive away the haze from my life’sⒶapparatus note road and give me glimpses of the beginning of it—glimpses of things which seem incredibly remote.
When I was a boy of ten, in that village on the MississippiⒶapparatus note River which at that time was so incalculably far from any place and is now so near to all places, the name of Wilkes, the explorer, was in everybody’s mouthⒺexplanatory note, just as Roosevelt’s is to-day. What a noise it made; and how wonderful the glory!Ⓐapparatus note How far away and how silent it is now. And the glory has faded to tradition. Wilkes had discovered a new world, and was another Columbus. That world afterward turned mainly to ice and snow. But it was not all ice andⒶapparatus note snow—and in our late day we are rediscovering it, and the world’s interest in it has revivedⒺexplanatory note. Wilkes was a marvel in another way, for he had gone wandering about the globe in his ships and had looked with his own eyes upon its furthest corners, its dreamlands—names and places which existed rather as shadows and rumors than as realities. But everybody visits those places now, in outings and summer excursions, and no fame is to be gotten out of it.
One of the lastⒶapparatus note visits I made in Florence—this was two years ago—was to Mrs. WilkesⒺexplanatory note. She had sent and asked me to come, and it seemed a chapter out of the romantic and the impossible that I should be looking upon the gentle face of the sharer in that long-forgotten glory. We talked of the common things of the day, but my mind was not present. It was wandering among the snow-stormsⒶapparatus note and the ice floes and the fogs and mysteries of the AntarcticⒶapparatus note with this patriarchalⒶapparatus note lady’s young husband. Nothing remarkable was said; nothing remarkable happened. Yet a visit has seldom impressed me so much as didⒶapparatus note this one.
Here is a pleasant and welcome letter, which plunges me back into the antiquities again.
KnollwoodⒶapparatus note
Westfield, New Jersey.
February 17, 1906.
My dear Mr. Clemens:—
I should like to tell you how much I thank you for an article which you wrote onceⒺexplanatory note, long ago, (1870 or ’71) about my grandfather, Anson Burlingame.
In looking over the interesting family papers and letters, which have come into my possession this winter, nothing has impressed me more deeply than your tribute. I have read it again and again. I found it pasted into a scrap-book and apparently it was cut from a newspaper. It is signed with your name.
[begin page 368]It seems to bring before one more clearly, than anything I have been told or read, my grandfather’s personality and achievements. . . . .
Family traditions grow less and less in the telling. Young children are so impatient of anecdotes,Ⓐapparatus note and when they grow old enough to understand their value, frequent repetitions, as well as newer interests and associations seem to have dulled, not the memory, but the spontaneity and joy of telling about the old days—so unless there is something written and preserved, how much is lost to children of the good deeds of their fathers.
Perhaps it will give you a little pleasure to know that after all these years, the words you wrote about “a good man, and a very, very great man” have fallen into the heart of one to whom his fame is very near and precious.
You say “Mr. Burlingame’s short history—for he was only forty-seven—reads like a fairy-tale. Its successes, its surprises, its happy situations occur all along, and each new episode is always an improvement upon the one which went before it.” That seems to have been very true and it is interesting to hear, although it has the sad ring of Destiny. But how shall I ever thank you for words like theseⒶapparatus note? “He was a true man, a just man, a generous man, in all his ways and by all his instincts a noble man—a man of great brain, a broad, and deep and mighty thinker. He was a great man, a very, very great man. He was imperially endowed by nature, he was faithfully befriended by circumstances, and he wrought gallantly always in whatever station he found himself.” How indeed shall I thank you for these words or tell you how deeply they have touched me, and how truly I shall endeavor to teach them to my children.
That your fame may be as sacred as this, is my earnest, grateful wish, not wholly the inevitable, imperishable fame that is laid down for you, but the sweet and precious fame, to your family and friends forever, of the fair attributes you ascribe to my grandfather, which could never have been discerned by one who was not like him in spirit.
With the hope some time of knowing you,
Yours sincerely,
Jean Burlingame Beatty.
(Mrs. Robert Chetwood Beatty.)
ThisⒶapparatus note carries me back forty years, to my first meeting with that wise and just and humane and charming man and great citizen and diplomat, Anson Burlingame. It was in Honolulu. He had arrived in his ship, on his way out on his great mission to China, and I had the honor and profit of his society daily and constantly during many days. He was a handsome and stately and courtly and graceful creature, in the prime of his perfect manhood, and it was a contentingⒶapparatus note pleasure to look at him.Ⓐapparatus note His outlook upon the world and its affairs was as wide as the horizon, and his speech was of a dignity and eloquence proper to it. It dealt in no commonplaces, for he had no commonplace thoughts. He was a kindly man, and most lovable. He was not a petty politician, but a great and magnanimous statesman. He did not serve his country alone, but China as well. He held the balances even. He wrought for justice and humanity. All his ways were clean; all his motives were high and fine.
HeⒶapparatus note had beautiful eyes; deep eyes; speaking eyes; eyes that were dreamy,Ⓐapparatus note in repose; eyes that could beam and persuade like a lover’s; eyes that could blast when his temper was up, I judge. Potter,Ⓐapparatus note (that is the name, I think,) the CongressionalⒶapparatus note bully, found this out in his day, no doubt. Potter had bullied everybody, insulted everybody, challenged everybody, cowed everybody, and was cock of the walk in Washington. But when he challenged the new young CongressmanⒶapparatus note [begin page 369] from the West he found a prompt and ardent man at last. Burlingame chose bowie-knives at short range, and Potter apologized and retired from his bullyship with the laughter of the nation ringing in his earsⒺexplanatory note.
When Mr. Burlingame arrived at Honolulu I had been confined to my room a couple of weeks—by night to my bed, by day to a deep-sunk splint-bottom chair like a basket. There was another chair but I preferred this one, because my malady was saddle-boilsⒶapparatus note.
When the boat-load of skeletons arrived after forty-three days in an open boat on ten days’Ⓐapparatus note provisions—survivors of the clipper HornetⒶapparatus note which had perished by fire several thousand miles away—it was necessary for me to interview them for the Sacramento Union, a journal which I had been commissioned to represent in the Sandwich Islands for a matter of five or six months. Mr. Burlingame put me on a cot and had me carried to the hospital, and during several hours he questioned the skeletons and I set down the answers in my note-bookⒶapparatus note. It took me all night to write out my narrative of the HornetⒶapparatus note disaster, and——but I will go no further with the subject now. I have already told the rest in some book of mineⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐapparatus note
Mr. Burlingame gave me some advice, one day, which I have never forgotten, and which I have lived by for forty years. He said, in substance:
“Avoid inferiors. Seek your comradeships among your superiors in intellect and character; always climb.”
Mr. Burlingame’s son—now editor of Scribner’s Monthly Ⓔexplanatory note this many years, and soon to reach the foothillsⒶapparatus note that lie near the frontiers of age—was with him there in Honolulu; a handsome boy of nineteen, and overflowing with animation, activity, energy, and the pure joy of being alive. He attended balls and fandangos and hula hulas every night—anybody’s, brown, half white, white—and he could dance all night and be as fresh as ever the next afternoon. One day he delighted me with a joke which I afterwards used in a lecture in San Francisco, and from there it traveled all around in the newspapers. He said “If a man compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him Twain.”Ⓔexplanatory note
When it was new, it seemed exceedingly happy and bright, but it has been emptied upon me upwards of several million times since—never by a witty and engaging lad like Burlingame, but always by chuckle-heads of base degree, who did it with offensive eagerness and with the conviction that they were the first in the field. And so it has finally lost its sparkle and bravery, and is become to me a seedy and repulsive tramp whose proper place is in the hospital for the decayed, the friendless and the forlorn.
name of Wilkes, the explorer, was in everybody’s mouth] Charles Wilkes (1798–1877) was captain of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42, the first international maritime expedition that the country had sponsored. Its mission was to explore the Pacific Ocean, the Antarctic regions, and the West Coast of North America. Wilkes commanded a squadron of six vessels, two of which, early in 1840, surveyed a long stretch of Antarctic coastline. The existence of a land mass within the Antarctic circle had been suspected for centuries. British and French explorers had sighted land in the area before the U.S. expedition, but nationalist sentiment made Wilkes, for Clemens as for many other Americans, the “discoverer” of Antarctica. Wilkes retired from the navy with the rank of rear admiral (“Antarctic Discoveries” 1840, 210, 214–19).
in our late day we are rediscovering it, and the world’s interest in it has revived] After a lull of many decades, the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration began in 1897 with the new goal of reaching the South Pole. The 1901–4 expedition under the Englishman Robert F. Scott penetrated farther south than any previous explorer; during the same years Antarctic expeditions were mounted by Germany, Sweden, Scotland, and France. The pole would be reached by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen in 1911.
One of the last visits I made in Florence . . . was to Mrs. Wilkes] Born Mary H. Lynch, Mrs. Wilkes was first married to William Compton Bolton, who at the time of his death in 1849 was a commodore in the U.S. Navy. In 1854 she married Wilkes—whose first wife had died in 1848—and they had one child. According to his notebook, Clemens met with Mrs. Wilkes on 4 April 1904 (Notebook 47, TS p. 8, CU-MARK).
article which you wrote once . . . about my grandfather, Anson Burlingame] Clemens eulogized Burlingame in February 1870 in a Buffalo Express article (SLC 1870a; see “My Debut as a Literary Person,” note at 128.30–32).
Potter, (that is the name, I think,) the Congressional bully . . . laughter of the nation ringing in his ears] Clemens misremembered the name of Preston S. Brooks (1819–57), known in the North as “Bully” Brooks. A representative from South Carolina, in 1856 he brutally beat Senator Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber in retaliation for perceived insults to his state and kin. Anson Burlingame, then a representative from Massachusetts, denounced Brooks’s assault in a House speech. Brooks promptly challenged him to duel; Burlingame accepted, naming the Canadian side of Niagara Falls as the place and rifles as the weapon. Brooks, who could not with safety travel across the Northern states, declined to pursue the matter (Nicolay and Hay 1890, 2:47–55; “The Brooks Affair; Examination of the Controversy between Mr. Brooks and Mr. Burlingame,” New York Times, 25 July 1856, 2).
I have already told the rest in some book of mine] Clemens alludes to “My Debut as a Literary Person,” written in 1898, and included in the Preliminary Manuscripts and Dictations section of this volume.
Mr. Burlingame’s son—now editor of Scribner’s Monthly] Edward L. Burlingame (1848–1922) left his studies at Harvard University to travel to China as his father’s secretary. He later earned a Ph.D. at Heidelberg. He took a position at the New York Tribune in 1871, forming a lifelong friendship with John Hay. In 1872–79 he was one of the editors of the American Encyclopedia, and in 1879 began to work for Charles Scribner’s Sons, becoming the editor of Scribner’s Monthly from its first number in 1887. After his resignation in 1914, he became a general editorial adviser for the publisher (“Edward Burlingame, Editor, Dead at 74,” New York Times, 17 Nov 1922, 16).
“If a man compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him Twain.”] Matthew 5:41, “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 341–48, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.Clipping Clipping from an unidentified newspaper, attached to TS1: ‘MRS. MARY . . . eighty-five.’ (367.3–6).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 482–89, made from the revised TS1 and further revised.
On TS1, after the reference to the sinking of the clipper ship Hornet, Clemens added the instruction ‘Insert, here my account of the “Hornet” disaster, published in the “Century” about 1898 as being a chapter from my Autobiography’; Hobby typed the instruction into TS2, where Clemens deleted it. The reference is to the article “My Debut as a Literary Person,” included in “Preliminary Manuscripts and Dictations.” That instruction, however, is of questionable practicality. Clemens never adjusted the text of the dictation to fit the proposed insertion of the article; and for such a long digression to follow Clemens’s words ‘I will go no further with the subject now’ (369.13–14) would be excessively awkward. Likewise, his claim that he has ‘already told the rest in some book of mine’ obviously assumes the omission of the article. Hobby transcribed the unidentified newspaper clipping into TS2; the readings of the clipping are adopted, and the accidental variants she introduced in TS2 are not reported. She incorporated the revisions that Clemens made on TS1 into TS2, which he further revised for possible publication in the NAR, but it never appeared there.
Marginal Notes on TS2 Concerning Publication in the NAR