The Barnes incident again—Barnes appointed to postmastershipⒶtextual note of Washington—Mr. Clemens prepares speech on King Leopold of Belgium, but suppresses it after learning that our Government will do nothing in the matter—Intends to speak at Majestic Theatre on “The American Gentleman” but is defeated by length of first part of programⒶtextual note—Theodore Roosevelt the American gentleman—Mark Twain letter sells for forty-three dollarsⒶtextual note at Nast sale—Report cabled that Mr. Clemens was dying, in London—Reporters interview him for American papers.
BARNES’SⒶtextual note APPOINTMENT ANGERS WASHINGTON
“WhiteⒶtextual note House Strong-Arm Methods,” Says a Local Newspaper.
SENATE MAY HOLD IT UP
NewⒶtextual note Postmaster Characterized as a
Carpetbagger—Citizens Say Selection Is an InsultⒺexplanatory note.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, April 2.—The President’s selection of Benjamin F. Barnes, his assistant secretary, to be Postmaster of Washington has raised a storm. It is being criticised as a “carpetbag” appointment, Barnes being a New Jersey man. Members of the House and Senate criticise it, and it is reported that an effort will be made to defeat the confirmationⒺexplanatory note.
The feeling on the subject is shown to-night in the appearance of The Evening Star, the Administration’s strongest supporter in the city press. The Barnes matter breaks out all over the paper. First, there is a cartoon representing the President [begin page 7] handing the District of Columbia an April fool cigar, which explodes, the face of Barnes appearing in the smoke, while the President shouts “April Fool!” Next there are three columns of interviews with prominent citizens of the District and members of Congress, all condemning the appointment.
The leading editorial article is devoted to the subject, and says that the President has rewarded “his tactless and too strenuous bouncer” by giving him the Washington Post Office at double his present salary. The Star says:
“There remain, logically, to be rewarded at the expense of the District, the policemenⒶtextual note who shared with Mr. Barnes the honors in the Morris drag-out. What shall their harvest be—a local Judgeship, Commissionership, or Superintendency of Police?”
The Star prints a string of clippings from other papers ridiculing the appointment. Then, all over the editorial page are scattered detached paragraphs like these:
TheⒶtextual note application of White House strong-arm methods to the local Postal Service may relieve the patrons of the office of the necessity of licking their own stamps.
Much as Oyster Bay approves of the President it would rise in indignation if he used his influence to supplant its local men in local offices.
The April Fool wag becomes less violent as the years go by. His style of humor is but seldom exploited to any shocking extent. The recent appointment of a Postmaster for Washington offers a contrary argument, but it is only one of those exceptions which prove the rule.
When in future your letters seem to have been hit by a cyclone, passed through a train wreck, and run through a sausage machine you will know that they have come out of the Washington Post Office. But don’t go to the Post Office to complain unless in need of exercise. Ladies should observe extreme caution in this matter.
Some of the President’s local proteges are as enthusiastic for Mr. Barnes as they were for the whipping post not long ago.
There is a strong feeling that in the matter of appointments Niagara Falls has very much the better of the transaction.
The last reference is to the transfer of Postmaster Merritt to Niagara Falls to make room for Mr. Barnes. Finally The Star prints letters from citizens to the editor protesting against the appointment.
Among the interviews with prominent citizens is one with R. Ross Perry, a leading lawyer, who says: “Apparently the President thinks this district should be governed as the Romans governed a conquered province.” D. William Oyster calls it “an insult to our community.” Mason W. Richardson says: “We seem to have no rights that are worthy of respect.” John Ridout says, “in view of the temperament of Mr. Barnes, as disclosed in the Morris incident, the prospect for satisfactory interviews between him and citizens acting in the exercise of their right to criticise the administration of his office is not encouraging.”
SoⒶtextual note far as I can remember, I have kept track of the Barnes incident by occasionally inserting an informing clipping from the newspapers. If anything is lacking from this procession of signal-posts it is the President’s letter of some weeks ago. Maybe I inserted itⒺexplanatory note. Possibly I didn’t. But it is no matter. Either way will do. It was splendidly brutal, [begin page 8] frankly heartless. It contained not a word of pity for the abused lady; and an equally striking feature of it was that it contained not a word of pity for the President himself. Surely everybody else pitied him, and was ashamed of him. It contained not a word of rebuke, nor even of criticism of Barnes’s conduct, and its approval of it was so pronounced that the spirit of it amounted to praise.
And now the President has appointed this obscene slave to the postmastershipⒶtextual note of Washington. The daring of it—the stupid blindness of it—is amazing. It would be unbelievable if it emanated from any human being in the United States except our incredible President.
When Choate and I agreed to speak at Carnegie Hall on the 22dⒶtextual note of January, along with Booker Washington, in the interest of his Tuskegee InstituteⒺexplanatory note, I at first took that thief and assassin, Leopold IIⒶtextual note King of the Belgians, as my text, and carefully prepared a speech—wrote it out in full, in fact, several weeks beforehand. But when the appointed date was drawing near I began to grow suspicious of our Government’s attitude toward Leopold and his fiendishnessesⒺexplanatory note. Twice I went to Washington and conferred with the State Department. Then I began to suspect that the Congo Reform Association’s conviction that our Government’s pledged honor was at stake in the Congo matter was an exaggeration; that the Association was attaching meanings to certain public documents connected with the Congo which the strict sense of the documents did not confirm. A final visit to the State Department settled the matterⒺexplanatory note. The Department had kept its promise,Ⓐtextual note previously made to the President and to me, that it would examine into the matter exhaustively and see how our Government stood. It was found that of the fourteen Christian Governments pledged to watch over Leopold and keep him within treaty limits, our Government was not oneⒺexplanatory note. Our Government was only sentimentally concerned, not officially, not practically, not by any form of pledge or promise. Our Government could interfere in the form of prayer or protest, but so could a Sunday-school. I knew that the Administration was going to be properly and diplomatically polite, and keep out of the muddle; therefore I privately withdrew from the business of agitating the Congo matter in the United States, and wrote the Boston branch that I thought it would be a pity to wring the hearts of this nation further with the atrocities Leopold was committing upon those helpless black natives of the Congo, since this would be to harrow up the feelings of the nation to no purpose—since the nation itself could do nothing save through its Government, and the Government would of course do nothingⒺexplanatory note.
So I suppressed that speech and delivered one in its stead on another subjectⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note But before selecting that subject I examined another one and prepared a speech upon it. If that speech had had a title I suppose it would have been “What is an American Gentleman?” Or maybe it would have been “America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave and of the Ill-mannered”—or possibly it might have been “The Unpolite Nation.” I did not throw the speech away, but saved itⒺexplanatory note, hoping for the right occasion.
The right occasion arrived, a few weeks ago, when I was to speak in the Majestic TheatreⒶtextual note on Sunday afternoon to a couple of thousand male YoungⒶtextual note Christians who might take an interest in hearing the views of an expert upon the qualities required to constitute [begin page 9] an American gentleman. But I was defeated again. The programⒶtextual note was of the customary sort, where many persons are giving their time and labor to a great cause without salary and each must be allowed to step out and dangle himself before the audience by way of remuneration. A man who couldn’t speak,Ⓐtextual note spoke. And a woman who couldn’t sing,Ⓐtextual note sang. Another man who couldn’t speak,Ⓐtextual note spoke. A mixed string-and-piano-band made some noises, and when the house rejoiced that the affliction was over, the band took it for an encore and did the noises over again. Then a man who couldn’t read,Ⓐtextual note read a chapter from the Bible—and so this chaos went on and on. And every now and then God in HisⒶtextual note inscrutable wisdom would turn that singer loose again. I thought my turn would never come. At last when it did arrive I saw that I must cut myself down by half; that instead of allowing myself an hour, I must put up with 50Ⓐtextual note per centⒶtextual note of that. The result was that I talked upon a text—a good text, too—dropped by one of those speakers who couldn’t speak, and who didn’t know he had dropped it, and never missed it. And so once more my exposition of what the American gentleman should be got suppressedⒺexplanatory note.
Now then all this has been fortunate. Still, allⒶtextual note good things come to him who waits.Ⓐtextual note I have waited, because I couldn’t help it, but my reward has come just the same. I don’t have to say, now, what the American gentleman should be—the whole ground can be covered with half a sentence, and an hour’s laborious talk saved by just stating what the American gentleman is. He is Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States.
I am not jesting, but am in deep earnest, when I give it as my opinion that our President is the representative American gentleman—of to-day. I think he is as distinctly and definitely the representative American gentleman of to-day as was Washington the representative American gentleman of his day. Roosevelt is the whole argument for and against, in his own person. He represents what the American gentleman ought not to be, and does it as clearly, intelligibly, and exhaustively as he represents what the American gentleman is. We are by long odds the most ill-mannered nation, civilized or savage, that exists on the planet to-day, and our President stands for us like a colossal monument visible from all the ends of the earth. He is fearfully hard and coarse where another gentleman would exhibit kindliness and delicacy. Lately, when that slimy creature of his, that misplaced doctor, that dishonored Governor of Cuba, that sleight of hand Major GeneralⒶtextual note, Leonard Wood, penned up six hundred helpless savages in a hole and butchered every one of them, allowing not even a woman or a child to escape, President Roosevelt—representative American gentleman, First American gentleman—put the heart and soul of our whole nation of gentlemen intoⒶtextual note the scream of delight which he cabled to Wood congratulating him on this “brilliant feat of arms,” and praising him for thus “upholding the honor of the American flag.”Ⓔexplanatory note
Roosevelt is far and away the worst President we have ever had, and also the most admired and the most satisfactory. The nation’s admiration of him and pride in him and worship of him is far wider, far warmer, and far more general than it has ever before lavished upon a PresidentⒶtextual note, even including McKinley, Jackson, and Grant.
Is the Morris-Barnes incident closed? Possibly yes; possibly no. We will keep an eye on it and see. For the moment, there seems to be something like a revolt there in Washington [begin page 10] among half a dozenⒶtextual note decent people and one newspaper, but we must not build too much upon this. It is but a limited revolt, and can be vituperated into silence by that vast patriot band of cordial serfs, the American newspaper editors.
This is from this morning’s paper:
MARKⒶtextual note TWAIN LETTER SOLD.
Written to Thomas Nast, It Proposed a Joint Tour. Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note
AⒶtextual note Mark Twain autograph letter brought $43 yesterday at the auction by the Merwin-Clayton Company of the library and correspondence of the late Thomas Nast, cartoonist. The letter is nine pages note-paper,Ⓐtextual note is dated Hartford, Nov. 12, 1877, and is addressed to Nast. It reads in part as follows:
Hartford, Nov. 12.
MyⒶtextual note Dear Nast: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform again until the time was come for me to say “I die innocent.”Ⓐtextual note But the same old offers keep arriving that have arriven every year, and been every year declined—$500 for Louisville, $500 for St. Louis, $1,000 gold for two nights in Toronto, half gross proceeds for New York, Boston, Brooklyn, &c. I have declined them all just as usual, though sorely tempted as usual.
NowⒶtextual note, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but because (1) travelingⒶtextual note alone is so heart-breakinglyⒶtextual note dreary, and (2) shouldering the whole show is such cheer-killing responsibility.
ThereforeⒶtextual note I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November, 1867—ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.: ThatⒶtextual note you should stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns—don’t want to go to little ones) with you for company.Ⓐtextual note
TheⒶtextual note letter includes a schedule of cities and the number of appearances planned for each.Ⓐtextual note
This is as it should be. This is worthy of all praise. I say it myself lest other competent persons should forget to do it. It appears that four of my ancient letters were sold at auction, three of them at twenty-seven dollars, twenty-eight dollars, and twenty-nine dollars respectivelyⒺexplanatory note, and the one above mentioned at forty-three dollars. There is one very gratifying circumstance about this, to wit: that my literature has more than held its own as regards money value through this stretch of thirty-sixⒶtextual note years. I judge that the forty-three-dollar letter must have gone at about ten cents a word, whereas if I had written it to-day its market rate would be thirty cents—so I have increased in value two or three hundred per cent. I noteⒶtextual note another gratifying circumstance—that a letter of General Grant’s sold at something short of eighteen dollarsⒺexplanatory note. I can’t rise to General Grant’s lofty place in the estimation of this nation, but it is a deep happiness to me to know that when it comes to epistolary literature he can’t sit in the front seat along with me.
This reminds me—nine years ago, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, [begin page 11] a report was cabled to the American journals that I was dying. I was not the one. It was another Clemens, a cousin of mine,—Dr. J. Ross ClemensⒺexplanatory note, now of St. Louis—Ⓐtextual notewho was due to die but presently escaped, by some chicanery or other characteristic of the tribe of ClemensⒶtextual note. The London representatives of the American papers began to flock in, with American cables in their hands, to inquire into my condition. There was nothing the matter with me, and each in his turn was astonished, and disappointed,Ⓐtextual note to find me reading and smoking in my study and worth next to nothing as a text for transatlantic news. One of these men was a gentle and kindly and grave and sympathetic Irishman, who hid his sorrowⒶtextual note the best he could, and tried to look glad,Ⓐtextual note and told me that his paper, the Evening Sun, had cabled him that it was reported in New York that I was dead. What should he cable in reply? I said—
“SayⒶtextual note the report is greatlyⒶtextual note exaggerated.”
He never smiled, but went solemnly away and sent the cable in those wordsⒶtextual note. The remark hit the world pleasantly, and to this day it keeps turning up, now and then, in the newspapersⒺexplanatory note when people have occasion to discount exaggerations.
The next man was also an Irishman. He had his New York cablegram in his hand—from the New York World—and he was so evidently trying to get around that cable with invented softnesses and palliations that my curiosity was aroused and I wanted to see what itⒶtextual note did really say. So when occasion offered I slipped it out of his hand. It said,
“IfⒶtextual note Mark Twain dying send five hundred words. If dead send aⒶtextual note thousand.”
Now that old letter of mine sold yesterday for forty-three dollars. When I am dead it will be worth eighty-six.
BARNES’S APPOINTMENT . . . Citizens Say Selection Is an Insult] Clemens made three brief notes on the clipping of this article from the New York Times of 3 April, to remind himself of what he wanted to say about it: “The representative American—the President” above the headline; “insolence” above the first subhead; and “Is it Pr. suicide?” above the third subhead.
a “carpetbag” appointment . . . an effort will be made to defeat the confirmation] The Times, while not condoning Barnes’s part in the Morris incident, editorialized:
Mr. Barnes is objected to as a “carpet-bagger,” although he has been a virtual resident of Washington for eighteen years, while retaining a legal residence in New Jersey doubtless, very possibly for the purpose of securing his right to vote. If he does not know the local needs of the capital by this time, his ignorance is incurable. It is inconceivable that he would make a less good Postmaster of Washington for having been all these years a voter in New Jersey. (“The Washington Post Office,” 4 Apr 1906, 4)
Efforts to prevent Barnes’s confirmation were made in both houses of Congress—including a vituperative and partisan discussion of the Morris incident—but on 23 June his nomination was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 35 to 16, with all but two of President Roosevelt’s fellow Republicans in favor and the Democrats unanimously opposed (New York Times: “Penrose Calls Tillman an Ass in the Senate,” 6 May 1906, 3; “Barnes Is Confirmed,” 24 June 1906, 6).
the President’s letter of some weeks ago. Maybe I inserted it] On 16 February 1906 Minor Morris had written to Roosevelt, complaining of the “damnable treatment” his wife had received at the White House. Roosevelt’s reply was conveyed in a letter of 19 February from his secretary, William Loeb, Jr. Roosevelt had concluded that Mrs. Morris’s arrest was “justified,” that the force employed was “no greater than was necessary,” and that “the kindest thing that could be done to Mrs. Morris and her kinsfolk was to refrain from giving any additional publicity to the circumstances surrounding the case” (“President Indorses Ejection of Mrs. Morris,” New York Times, 22 Feb 1906, 5). Clemens did not insert the letter, or comment on it, at the time.
When Choate and I agreed to speak . . . Tuskegee Institute] For lawyer and jurist Joseph H. Choate, Booker T. Washington, and the Tuskegee Institute benefit, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 23 January 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 302–10 and notes on 572–73).
I at first took that thief and assassin, Leopold II . . . our Government’s attitude toward Leopold and his fiendishnesses] Clemens probably agreed to speak at the Tuskegee Institute fundraiser when Washington called at his house on 13 December 1905. Two days earlier he had announced his intention to talk about Leopold II’s atrocities in the Congo Free State at the Church of the Ascension in New York on the evening of 21 December—although he never did so. He and Washington were both vice-presidents of the Congo Reform Association, and for a time Clemens planned to make a similar speech at the 22 January 1906 fundraiser (Lyon 1905a, entry for 13 Dec; letterhead of Barbour to SLC, 23 Nov 1905, CU-MARK; Lyon for SLC to Twe, 11 Dec 1905, MS draft, CU-MARK). But by the time he formally accepted Washington’s invitation in a letter of 8 January, he had decided to withdraw from public involvement in the Congo reform movement (see the note at 8.28–33). He never delivered a speech on the subject, and if he ever wrote out a Congo speech “in full,” no text is known to survive. In his letter to Washington he wrote, “I will choose my subject to suit myself; & shall probably choose it that night, (22d) on the platform” (DLC). He continued to express his outrage over the Congo situation privately, however: four days later, in his Autobiographical Dictation of 12 January, he condemns Leopold II’s “slaughters and robberies,” and he returns to the subject in several later dictations (see AutoMT1 , 268, 557 n. 268.24–25; see also the ADs of 22 June, 25 June, 17 July, and 5 Dec 1906).
Twice I went to Washington . . . A final visit to the State Department settled the matter] Only one of the three trips to Washington Clemens mentions here has been documented: on 24–27 November 1905 he traveled there on copyright business, and it is likely that he visited the State Department then. He lunched at the White House with Roosevelt on 27 November and had “a private word with him on a public matter” that was on his “citizen-conscience”—almost certainly the United States position on Leopold II and the Congo (28 Nov 1905 to Edith K. Roosevelt, SLC copy in CU-MARK; Lyon 1905a, entries for 24, 27, and 28 Nov; 27 Oct 1905 to Barbour, ViU).
of the fourteen Christian Governments . . . our Government was not one] Clemens alludes to the General Act of Berlin of 26 February 1885, which concluded a conference that met from November 1884 through February 1885 and was attended by representatives of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. The act apportioned spheres of commercial influence in Central Africa, provided for free trade and navigation, established rules for future colonization, and committed the signatories to monitor the welfare of the native tribes and help in suppressing slavery. It also recognized the Congo Basin as the Congo Free State, under the personal control of Leopold II of Belgium, which effectively undermined the commitment to the native tribes. The United States signed the act, but did not ratify it.
I privately withdrew . . . the Government would of course do nothing] On 8 January 1906 Clemens wrote to Thomas S. Barbour, a member of the “Local Committee of Conference” of the Congo Reform Association in Boston, announcing that “I have retired from the Congo.” He pleaded an inability to tie himself “to any movement of any kind, nor be officially connected with a movement of any kind, in a way which would lay duties & obligations upon me. . . . My instincts & interests are merely literary, they rise no higher; & I scatter from one interest to another, lingering nowhere. I am not a bee, I am a lightning-bug” (NN-BGC; letterhead of Barbour to SLC, 10 Jan 1906, CU-MARK). And in another letter to Barbour partially drafted around the same time, but evidently not sent in any form, he further explained:
It has been my belief, ever since my last visit to the State Department, some weeks ago, that the American branch of the Congo Reform Association ought to go out of business, for the reason that the agitation of the butcheries can only wring people’s hearts unavailingly—unavailingly, because the American people unbacked by the American government cannot achieve reform in the Congo. (CU-MARK)
So I suppressed that speech and delivered one . . . on another subject] At the 22 January 1906 Tuskegee Institute fundraiser Clemens spoke on private and public morals (see AutoMT1 , 305–8).
I did not throw the speech away, but saved it] A manuscript of this speech on manners, comprising thirteen leaves, survives in the Mark Twain Papers. Clemens left it untitled, but in 1923, in publishing it in Mark Twain’s Speeches, Albert Bigelow Paine supplied the title “Introducing Doctor Van Dyke” (SLC 1923b, 296–301; also printed in Fatout 1976, 487–91). Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) was a Presbyterian clergyman, author, and professor of English literature at Princeton University.
I talked upon a text . . . my exposition of what the American gentleman should be got suppressed] Clemens spoke at New York’s Majestic Theatre on the afternoon of 4 March 1906 to fifteen hundred members and friends of the West Side Branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. He did not entirely suppress his thoughts on “the American gentleman,” but closed his speech with some remarks on that subject. For a text of the speech, as well as identification of the participants, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 15 March 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 409–12 and notes on 619–20).
Leonard Wood . . . “upholding the honor of the American flag.”] For Clemens’s extended remarks on this episode see the Autobiographical Dictations of 12 March and 14 March 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 403–9 and notes on 614–19).
MARK TWAIN LETTER SOLD. Written to Thomas Nast, It Proposed a Joint Tour] Clemens’s letter, written on 12 November 1877, is quoted only in part in this article from the New York Times (for the original manuscript, see Letters 1876–1880 ). Nast (1840–1902), a well-known illustrator and editorial cartoonist, served on the staff of Harper’s Weekly from 1862 to 1886. His work was highly influential in promoting the political causes he supported, including the Union side during the Civil War, the fight against New York City’s Tweed Ring (see AD, 4 Apr 1906, note at 13.26), and numerous Republican candidates. He also created the enduring image of a plump and bearded Santa Claus, and the elephant and donkey as emblems of the Republican and Democratic parties. His reply to Clemens’s proposal does not survive, and the two men never toured together.
It appears that four of my ancient letters were sold . . . twenty-nine dollars respectively] Clemens’s source was probably the New York Tribune of 3 April, which published a fuller excerpt of his letter to Nast than did the Times. The Tribune reported:
A friend of the Nast family, whose name was not given, paid $43 for a letter of the humorist to Mr. Nast, proposing a joint lecture tour. . . . Hitherto Mark Twain’s autograph letters have not brought more than $5 or $6. The same man paid $28 and $27 respectively for two other Twain letters. A fourth was sold to another buyer for $29. (“For Twain Letter, $43,” 7)
a letter of General Grant’s sold at something short of eighteen dollars] “The highest price paid for any of several autograph letters of General Grant was $18” (“For Twain Letter, $43,” New York Tribune, 3 Apr 1906, 7).
Dr. J. Ross Clemens] James Ross Clemens (1866–1948), one of Clemens’s second cousins, was a native of St. Louis. He received his medical education at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Beginning in 1902 he practiced in St. Louis and was a professor of children’s diseases at St. Louis University. From 1916 until 1918 he was dean of the Creighton University Medical School in Omaha. He also was a poet and playwright (“Dr. Clemens, Cousin of Mark Twain, Dies,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, 19 July 1948, 3B).
“Say the report is greatly exaggerated.” . . . it keeps turning up, now and then, in the newspapers] In a notebook entry for 2 June 1897 Clemens reported that his reply to the inquiry about his possible death was “in substance this: ‘James Ross Clemens, a cousin, was seriously ill here two or three weeks ago, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration. I have not been ill’ ” (Notebook 41, TS p. 28, CU-MARK). The remark was soon reported in newspapers around the world. Clemens inserted the word “greatly” when he revised the dictation for publication in the North American Review (NAR 2), and this is the best-known version of the quotation.
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 626–36 (altered in pencil to 635–45), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.Times Clippings from the New York Times, 3 April 1906, 5, 2, attached to TS1: ‘BARNES’S APPOINTMENT . . . not encouraging.” ’ (6.22–7.42); ‘MARK TWAIN . . . for each.’ (10.5–28).
TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 781–93, made from the revised TS1 with the attached Times clippings.
TS3 Typescript carbon (the ribbon copy is lost), leaves numbered 24–27 (altered in ink by SLC to 21–24), made from the revised TS1 with the attached Times clippings and further revised (the same extent as NAR 2).
NAR 2pf Galley proofs of NAR 2, typeset from the revised TS3 carbon and further revised (the same extent as NAR 2), ViU.
NAR 2 North American Review 183 (21 September 1906), 459–60: ‘This is . . . worth eighty-six.’ (10.4–11.22).
TS1 incorporates two clippings from the New York Times. Of these, the first has three handwritten notes by Clemens scrawled upon it; they are reported below, but are not judged to have been intended as additions to the text. The second clipping includes an extract from a letter written by Clemens to Thomas Nast. The clipping was transcribed by Hobby in her typescripts; on TS3 Clemens made a single correction to the typed text of the clipping. We follow the original newspaper printing (as revised by Clemens). The original letter to Nast is in NN-BGC; it has not been used in constructing the present text, on the grounds that Clemens’s intention was to insert the New York Times article as corrected by him in 1906. The original letter is published at MTPO (12 November 1877 to Nast).
On TS1 page 629, Clemens added the handwritten instruction “[Insert Carnegie Hall Speech here.]” (see the entry at 8.34); this refers to Clemens’s 22 January 1906 speech, which he had already inserted in the AD of 23 January 1906 (AutoMT1, 303–9). Filed with the typescripts of the present dictation are galley proofs, evidently printed for the North American Review, in which the text of the speech is set as a free-standing article; the speech was not, in the event, published in NAR.
Hobby incorporated the revisions that Clemens made on TS1 into TS2 and TS3. It bears revisions by Clemens and by the North American Review editors, and was used to set up NAR 2pf. NAR 2 comprised excerpts from, in addition to this excerpt, the AD of 21 May 1906, “Scraps from My Autobiography. From Chapter IX” (first part), and “Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Bailey Aldrich.”
Marginal Notes on TS2 and TS3 Concerning Publication in NAR
1877
1906