Miss Mary Lawton the rising sun, Ellen Terry the setting sun—Ellen Terry’s farewell banquet, on fiftiethⒶtextual note anniversary—Mr. Clemens’s cablegram—Mr. Clemens has fine new idea for a play; Mr. Hammond Trumbull squelches it—Orion Clemens is defeated as Secretary of State—At Mr. Camp’s suggestion Mr. Clemens speculates unfortunately—Mr. Camp offers to buy Tennessee LandⒶtextual note for two hundred thousand dollarsⒶtextual note. Orion refuses—Mr. Clemens just discovers that he still owns a thousandⒶtextual note acres of the Tennessee LandⒶtextual note—Orion comes East, gets position on Hartford Evening Post Ⓐtextual note—After various business ventures he returns to Keokuk and tries raising chickens.
Am I standing upon the world’s back and looking east toward the rising sun and west toward the setting sun? That is a handsome figure!Ⓐtextual note I wonder if it has been used before. It probably has. Most things that are said have been said before. In fact all things that are said have been said before. Moreover they have been said many millions of times. This is a sad thing for the human race that sits up nine nights in the week to admire its own originality. The race has always been able to think well of itself, and it doesn’t like people who throw bricks at its naïveⒶtextual note self-appreciation. It is sensitive upon this point. The other day I furnished a sentiment in response to a man’s request—to wit:
“The noblest work of God?” Man.
“Who found it out?” Man.
I thought it was very good, and smart, but the other person didn’t.
But I must get back to the back of the world and look east and west again at those suns. One of them is Miss Mary Lawton,Ⓐtextual note an American youngⒶtextual note lady who has been training herself for the stage; and at last we hope and believe we see an opening for her. We strongly believeⒶtextual note that hers will be a great name some dayⒺexplanatory note. Fay Davis, a famous and popular actress who is playing the chief rôle in a serious and impressive drama called—never mind [begin page 19] the name, I have forgotten it—wishes to retire from the piece as soon as a competent successor can be found; and at Daniel Frohman’s suggestion I cabled London two or three days ago and asked Charles Frohman if he would let Miss Lawton try that partⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note That is the sun which is apparently about to rise; the sun which is about to set isⒶtextual note Ellen Terry, who has been a queen of the English stage for fifty years, and will retire from it on the 28th of this month, which will be the fiftieth anniversary. She will retire in due form at a great banquet in LondonⒺexplanatory note, and cablegrams meet for the occasion will flow in upon the banqueteers from old friends of hers in America and other formerly distant regions of the earth—there are no distant regions now. The American cablegrams are being collected by a committeeⒶtextual note in New York, and by request I have furnished mine. To do these things by cable, at twenty-five cents a word, is the modern way and the only way. They could go by post at no expense, but it wouldn’t be good form. [Privately I will remark that they do go by mail—dated to suit the requirements.]Ⓐtextual note
Age has not withered, nor custom staledⒺexplanatory note, the admiration and affection I have felt for you so many many years. I lay them at your honored feet with the strength and freshness of their youth upon them undiminished.Ⓐtextual note
She is a lovely character, as was also Sir Henry Irving, who lately departed this life. I first knew them thirty-four years ago in LondonⒺexplanatory note, and thenceforth held them in high esteem and affection.Ⓐtextual note
When I ushered in that large figure, a while ago, about the world’s back and the rising and sinking suns, and exposed a timid doubt as to the freshness of that great figure, that timidity was the result of an experience of mine a quarter of a century ago. One day a splendid inspiration burst in my head and scattered my brains all over the farm—we were spending the summer at Quarry Farm that summer. That explosion fertilized the farm so that it yielded double crops for seven years. That wonderful inspiration of mine was what seemed to me to be the most novel and striking basic idea for a play that had ever been imagined. I was going to write that play at once, and astonish the world with it;Ⓐtextual note and I did, indeed, begin upon the work immediately. Then it occurred to me that as I was not well acquainted with the history of the drama it might be well for me to make sure that this idea of mine was really new before I went further. So I wrote Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford, and asked him if the idea had ever been used on the stage. Hammond Trumbull was the learned man of America at that timeⒺexplanatory note, and had been so regarded by both hemispheres for a good many years. I knew that he would know all about it. I waited a week and then his answer came. It covered several great pages of foolscap written in Trumbull’s small and beautiful hand, and the pages consisted merely of a list of titles of plays in which that new idea of mine had been used, in about sixty-seven countries. I do not remember how many thousand plays were mentioned in the list. I only remember that he hadn’t written down all the titles, but had only furnished enough for a sample. And I also remember that the earliest play in the invoiceⒶtextual note was a Chinese oneⒺexplanatory note and was upwards of twenty-five hundred years old.
[begin page 20]That figure of mine—standing on the back of the world and watching the rising and the declining sunsⒶtextual note—is really stately, is really fine, but I am losing confidence in it. Hammond Trumbull is dead. But if he were with us now he could probably furnish me with a few reams of samples.Ⓐtextual note
Orion Clemens—Resumed. Ⓐtextual note
There were several candidates for all the offices in the gift of the new State of Nevada save two—United States Senator,Ⓐtextual note and Secretary of State.Ⓐtextual note Nye was certain to get a SenatorshipⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐtextual note and Orion was so sure to get the Secretaryship that no one but him was named for that office. But he was hit with one of his spasms of virtue on the very day that the Republican party was to make its nominations in the Convention, andⒶtextual note refused to go near the Convention. He was urged, but all persuasions failed. He said his presence there would be an unfair and improper influence,Ⓐtextual note and that if he was to be nominated the compliment must come to him as a free and unspotted gift. This attitude would have settled his case for him without further effort, but he had another attackⒶtextual note of virtue on the same day, thatⒶtextual note made it absolutely sure. It had been his habit for a great many years to change his religion with his shirt, and his ideas about temperance at the same time. He would be a teetotaler for a while and the champion of the cause; then he would change to the other side for a time. On nomination day he suddenly changed from a friendly attitude toward whiskyⒶtextual note—which was the popular attitude—to uncompromising teetotalism, and went absolutely dry. His friends besought and implored, but all in vain. He could not be persuaded to cross the threshold of a saloon. The paper next morning contained the list of chosen nominees. His name was not in it. He had not received a voteⒺexplanatory note.
His rich income ceased when the State government came into power.Ⓐtextual note He was without an occupation. Something had to be done. He put up his sign as attorney at lawⒺexplanatory note, but he got no clients. It was strange. It was difficult to account for. I cannot account for it—but if I were going to guess at a solution I should guess that by the make of him he would examine both sides of a case so diligently and so conscientiously that when he got through with his argumentⒶtextual note neither he nor a jury would know which side he was on. I think that his client would find out his make in laying his case before him,Ⓐtextual note and would take warning and withdraw it in time to save himself from probable disaster.
I had taken up my residence in San FranciscoⒺexplanatory note about a year before the time I have just been speaking of. One day I got a tip from Mr. Camp, a bold man who was always making big fortunes in ingenious speculations and losing them again in the course of six months by other speculative ingenuities. Camp told me to buy some shares in the “Hale and Norcross.”Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note I bought fifty shares at three hundred dollars a share. I bought on a margin, and put up 20Ⓐtextual note per cent. It exhausted my funds. I wrote Orion and offered him half, and asked him to send his share of the money. I waited and waited. He wrote and said he was going to attend to it. The stock went along up pretty briskly. It went higher and higher. It reached a thousand dollars a share. It climbed to two thousand, then to three thousand; then to twice that figure.Ⓐtextual note The money did not come, but I was [begin page 21] not disturbed. By and by that stock took a turn and began to gallop down. Then I wrote urgently. Orion answered that he had sent the money long ago—said he had sent it to the Occidental Hotel. I inquired for it. They said it was not there. To cut a long story short, that stock went on down until it fell below the price I had paid for it. Then it began toⒶtextual note eat up the margin, and when at last I got out I was very badly crippledⒺexplanatory note.
When it was too late, I found out what had become of Orion’s money. Any other human being would have sent a check, but he sent gold. The hotel clerk put it in the safe and went on vacation,Ⓐtextual note and there it hadⒶtextual note reposed all this time enjoying its fatal work, no doubt. Another man might have thought to tell me that the money was not in a letter, but was in an express package, but it never occurred to Orion to do that.
Later, Mr. Camp gave me another chance. He agreed to buy our Tennessee land for two hundred thousand dollars, pay a part of the amount in cash and give long notes for the rest. His scheme was to import foreigners from grape-growing and wine-making districts in Europe, settle them on the land, and turn it into a wine-growing country. He knew what Mr. Longworth thought of those Tennessee grapesⒺexplanatory note, and was satisfied. I sent the contracts and things to Orion for his signature, he being one of the three heirs. But they arrived at a bad time—in a doubly bad time, in fact. The temperance virtue was temporarily upon him in strong force, and he wrote and said that he would not be a party to debauching the country with wine. Also he said how could he know whether Mr. Camp was going to deal fairly and honestly with those poor people from Europe or not?Ⓐtextual note—and so,Ⓐtextual note without waiting to find out, he quashed the whole trade, and there it fell, never to be brought to life again. The land,Ⓐtextual note from being suddenly worth two hundred thousand dollars,Ⓐtextual note became as suddenly worth what it was before—nothing, and taxes to pay. I had paid the taxes and the other expenses for some years, but I dropped the Tennessee LandⒶtextual note there,Ⓐtextual note and have never taken any interest in it since, pecuniarily or otherwise, until yesterday.
I had supposed, until yesterday, that Orion had frittered away the last acre, and indeed that was his ownⒶtextual note impression. But a gentleman arrived yesterday from Tennessee and broughtⒶtextual note a map showing that by a correction of the ancient surveys we still own a thousand acres, in a coal district, out of the hundred thousand acres which my father left us when he died in 1847. The gentleman brought a proposition; also he brought a reputable and well-to-do citizen of New York. The proposition was that the Tennesseean gentleman should sell that land; that the New York gentleman should pay all the expenses and fight all the lawsuits, in case any should turn up, and that of such profit as might eventuate the Tennesseean gentleman should take a third, the New YorkerⒶtextual note a third, and Sam Moffett and his sister (Mrs. Charles L. Webster),Ⓐtextual note and I—who are the survivingⒶtextual note heirs—the remaining thirdⒺexplanatory note.
This time I hope we shall get rid of the Tennessee LandⒶtextual note for good and all and never hear of it again.Ⓐtextual note
I came East in January 1867. Orion remainedⒶtextual note in Carson City perhaps a year longer. Then he sold his twelve-thousand-dollarⒶtextual note house and its furniture for thirty-five hundred in greenbacks at about 60Ⓐtextual note per centⒶtextual note discount. He and his wife took first-class passage in the steamer for New YorkⒺexplanatory note. In New York they stopped at an expensive hotel; explored the [begin page 22] city in an expensive way; then fled to Keokuk, and arrived there about as nearly penniless as they were when they had migrated thence in July ’61.Ⓐtextual note
About 1871 or ’72 they came to New York. They were obliged to go somewhere.Ⓐtextual note Orion had been trying to make a living in the law ever since he had arrived from the Pacific coastⒶtextual note, but he had secured only two cases. Those he was to try free of charge—but the possible result will never be known, because the parties settled the casesⒶtextual note out of court without his help.
I had bought my mother a house in Keokuk. I was giving her a stated sum monthly, and Orion another stated sum. They all lived together in the houseⒺexplanatory note. Orion could have had all the work he wanted, at good wages, in the composing-room of the Gate City, Ⓔexplanatory note (a daily paper) but his wife had been a Governor’s wifeⒺexplanatory note and she was not able to permit that degradation. It was better, in her eyes, that they live upon charity.Ⓐtextual note
But, as I say, they came East andⒶtextual note Orion got a job as proof-reader on the New York Evening Post Ⓐtextual note at ten dollars a week. They took a single small room, and in it they cooked, and lived on that money.Ⓐtextual note By and by OrionⒶtextual note came to Hartford and wanted me to get him a place as reporter on a Hartford paper. Here was a chance to try my scheme again, and I did it. I made him go to the Hartford Evening Post, Ⓐtextual note without any letter of introduction,Ⓐtextual note and propose to scrub and sweep and do all sorts of things for nothing, on the plea that he didn’t need money but only needed work, and that thatⒶtextual note was what he was pining for. Within six weeks he was on the editorial staff of that paper at twenty dollars a week, and he was worth the money. He was presently called for by some other paper at better wages, but I made him go to the Post Ⓐtextual note people and tell them about it. They stood the raise and kept him. It was the pleasantest berth he had ever had in his life. It was an easy berth. He was in every way comfortable. But ill luckⒶtextual note came. It was bound to come.
A new Republican daily was to be started in Rutland, VermontⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐtextual note by a stock company of well-to-doⒶtextual note politicians, and they offered himⒶtextual note the chief editorship at three thousand a year. He was eager to accept. His wife was equally eager—no, twice as eager, three times as eager.Ⓐtextual note My beseechings and reasonings went for nothing. I said,
“YouⒶtextual note are as weak as water. Those people will find it out right away. They will easily see that you have no back-boneⒶtextual note; that they can deal with you as they would deal with a slave. You may last six months, but not longer. Then they will not dismiss you as they would dismiss a gentleman: theyⒶtextual note will fling you out as they would fling out an intruding tramp.”
It happened just so. Then heⒶtextual note and his wife migrated to that persecuted and unoffendingⒶtextual note Keokuk once more. Orion wrote from there that he was not resuming the law; that heⒶtextual note thought that what his health needed was the open air, in some sort of outdoorⒶtextual note occupation;Ⓐtextual note that his oldⒶtextual note father-in-law had a strip of ground on the river border a mile above Keokuk with some sort of a house on it, and his idea was to buy that place and start a chicken farm and provide Keokuk with chickens and eggs, and perhaps butter—but I don’t know whether you can raise butter on a chicken farm or not. He said the place could be had for three thousand dollars cash,Ⓐtextual note and I sent the moneyⒺexplanatory note. HeⒶtextual note began to raise chickens, and he made a detailed monthly report to me,Ⓐtextual note whereby it appeared that he was able to work off his chickens on the Keokuk people at a dollar and a quarter a pair. But it also appeared that it cost a dollar and sixty cents to raise the pair. This did not seem to [begin page 23] discourage Orion, and so I let it go. Meantime he was borrowing aⒶtextual note hundred dollars per month of me regularly, month by month. Now to show Orion’s stern and rigidⒶtextual note business ways—and he really prided himself on his large business capacities—the moment he received the advance of aⒶtextual note hundred dollars at the beginning of each month, he alwaysⒶtextual note sent me his note for the amount, and with it he sent, out of that money, three months’ interest Ⓐtextual note on the hundred dollars at 6Ⓐtextual note per centⒶtextual note per annum, these notes being always for three months. I did not keep them of course. They were of no value to anybody.Ⓐtextual note
As I say, he always sent a detailed statement of the month’s profit and loss on the chickens—at least the month’s loss on the chickens—and this detailed statement included the various items of expense—corn for the chickens, a bonnet for the wife,Ⓐtextual note boots for himself, and so on; even carfaresⒶtextual note, and the weekly contribution of ten cents to help out the missionaries who were trying to damn the Chinese after a plan not satisfactory to those people. But at last when among those details I found twenty-five dollars for pew-rent I struck. I told him to change his religion and sell the pewⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note
Miss Mary Lawton . . . will be a great name some day] It is not known when Clemens met actress Mary Lawton (1870?–1945), but by late 1905 he had begun to take an interest in her career: on 16 November he wrote to Charles Frohman, “Thank you very much for the appointment—I shall instruct Miss Lawton to arrive there on time” (Lyon draft in CU-MARK; see the note at 18.36–19.3). Within a few months Lawton was a regular guest at the Clemens home, and she became a special friend of Clara Clemens’s. She began to appear regularly on the stage in 1906, and remained a success at least through the early 1920s, enacting both leading and supporting roles. She subsequently achieved equal, if not greater, notice as the author of a series of “as told to” memoirs, including A Lifetime with Mark Twain: The Memories of Katy Leary, for Thirty Years His Faithful and Devoted Servant (Lawton 1925, xii–xiii; Lyon 1906, entries for 3, 11, and 24 Mar).
Fay Davis . . . asked Charles Frohman if he would let Miss Lawton try that part] Davis (1872–1945), a comic and dramatic actress successful both in the United States and in London, began appearing on 12 February 1906 in The Duel, a play by Henri Lavedan, at the Hudson Theatre, one of the New York theaters managed by brother producers Daniel (1851–1940) and Charles (1860–1915) Frohman. Clemens’s effort on behalf of Mary Lawton was partly successful (no text of his cablegram to Charles has been found). The Duel closed in New York on 14 April, but late that month or early the next, in the road company, Mary Lawton was given the part formerly played by Fay Davis. Despite excellent reviews she was quickly fired on the orders of Otis Skinner, the lead actor and head of the company. Clemens protested the firing in a vitriolic letter of 7 May to Skinner (possibly not sent), addressing him as “Dear little Otis” and calling him a “homunculus,” not a man. He suggested that Skinner was jealous of the “outbursts of applause” Lawton had received, and condemned him for the contract imposed on her:
Miss Lawton was to play a week for you on trial, & provide stage-clothes at her own expense. She saved you fifty dollars a day; her work was entirely satisfactory to your audiences; it won the praises of your troupe; it won the praises of your manager; it won your own praises, freely & frankly expressed. The trial-week completed, you hadn’t the courage to dismiss her yourself, but put that humiliating office upon your manager. . . . You did not even offer to pay for the stage-clothes you had obliged her to buy. You knew, from the beginning—confess it!—that you intended to use her to save expenses, & then dismiss her. In other words, that you meant to rob her. Would you mind telling me what it feels like to be an Otis Skinner? (Photocopy in CU-MARK)
No answer from Skinner has been found (New York Times: “Amusements,” 4 Feb 1906, X5, and 14 Apr 1906, 18; “Fay Davis Is Dead; Noted Actress, 72,” 27 Feb 1945, 19; Hayman to SLC, 23 Apr 1906, CU-MARK).
Ellen Terry . . . will retire in due form at a great banquet in London] Terry (1847–1928), who made her debut on 28 April 1856, achieved international renown for her acting in Shakespeare’s plays as well as in works by the leading playwrights of her day. On 11 April 1906 the New York Times reported that “a movement was started recently in London for the celebration of Miss Ellen Terry’s fiftieth anniversary on the stage, when the aim is to give a jubilee banquet in her honor on April 28, and also to raise a fund that will enable her to spend the remainder of her days in comfort.” Mark Twain, the paper noted, was among those who “have declared themselves in full sympathy with the cause” (“Ellen Terry’s Jubilee,” 11). Her jubilee celebrations began at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on the evening of 27 April 1906, following her performance in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and continued on her actual anniversary the next day (New York Times: “Ellen Terry’s Jubilee,” 28 Apr 1906, 7; “Ellen Terry’s Anniversary,” 29 Apr 1906, X8; “Ellen Terry Dies in Her 81st Year; Puts Ban on Grief,” 22 July 1928, 1).
Age has not withered, nor custom staled] Compare Antony and Cleopatra, 2.2.
Sir Henry Irving . . . thirty-four years ago in London] Irving (1838–1905), the internationally famous Shakespearean actor, was Ellen Terry’s stage partner from 1878 to 1902. Clemens met Irving, and evidently Terry, in London in the fall of 1872, after seeing Irving perform at the Lyceum Theatre (6 July 1873 to Fairbanks, L5, 405 n. 6).
So I wrote Hammond Trumbull . . . the learned man of America at that time] See AutoMT1 , 272, 559–60 n. 272.31–32. Clemens discusses Trumbull further in the Autobiographical Dictation of 30 January 1907.
then his answer came . . . was a Chinese one] The exchange that Clemens recalls occurred in July 1874 while he was writing Colonel Sellers, his popular play based on The Gilded Age. During the first week of that month, while on a business trip to Hartford from his family’s summer residence at Quarry Farm near Elmira, he called on Trumbull to consult about his “splendid inspiration” for a novel ending to Colonel Sellers. He then followed up with a telegram to Trumbull (not known to survive), abandoning the idea. But on 22 July Trumbull wrote, complying with his request. The letter barely filled two pages, but did report four possible precedents for Clemens’s idea, including a Chinese version and one borrowed “from the Sanskrit.” On Trumbull’s envelope, Clemens noted: “J. Hammond Trumbull, the Philologist. About the proposed ‘dream’ feature of my play of ‘Col. Sellers.’ ” Nothing further has been learned about this “ ‘dream’ feature” (CU-MARK; link note following 28 June 1874 to Dickinson, L6, 170–71).
new State of Nevada . . . Nye was certain to get a Senatorship] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 2 April 1906, note at 6.8–9.
Orion was so sure to get the Secretaryship . . . He had not received a vote] Orion was not the only candidate nominated, nor did he avoid attending the Republican convention or fail to receive any votes. He was one of four candidates and came in a distant second in the voting on 11 October 1864. He may, however, have refused to do the saloon campaigning that was commonplace. On 7 November 1865 he was elected to the Nevada State Assembly, but served for only a few months (see Fanning 2003, 98–101, 104, 110–11). For details of Orion’s religious vagaries, including his excommunication from the Presbyterian Church in 1879 and his attempt to publish a refutation of the Bible in 1880, see 9 Feb 1879 to Howells, Letters 1876–1880 ; N&J2, 209 n. 95; and Fanning 2003, 168, 174–78, 196–97.
His rich income ceased . . . He put up his sign as attorney at law] Orion was admitted to the Nevada bar on 14 March 1865 (Fanning 2003, 100; see also AD, 2 Apr 1906, note at 5.23–24).
I had taken up my residence in San Francisco] Clemens had “taken up residence” in San Francisco after leaving Virginia City, Nevada, at the end of May 1864 (link note following 28 May 1864 to Cutler, L1, 302).
Mr. Camp . . . told me to buy some shares in the “Hale and Norcross.”] Herman Camp, whom Clemens had first known in Virginia City and San Francisco in the early 1860s, was one of the first locators on the Comstock Lode and an active speculator in Nevada mining stock. The Hale and Norcross Silver Mining Company operated a claim on the southern portion of the lode (13 Dec 1865 to OC and MEC, L1, 327 n. 1).
I bought fifty shares . . . when at last I got out I was very badly crippled] Clemens did own stock in the Hale and Norcross mine (almost certainly never as much as fifty shares), but his purchase and sales prices have not been documented. Although several of his surviving letters to Orion written in 1864–65 include mentions of the stock, they contain no requests for money. Clemens probably bought his shares when he visited San Francisco in May and June 1863, during which time their value rose precipitously from $915 to over $2,000. Certainly by May 1864, when he moved to San Francisco from Virginia City, he had some holdings. Over the next nine months the share price fluctuated dramatically, ranging from a low of $200 in August up to $1,000 in November and then back to under $300 by February 1865. Clemens evidently sold some of his shares before visiting Jackass Hill in the winter of 1864–65, but still owned two of them in the spring of 1865, when he was listed in an assessment delinquency notice. In 1868 he recalled, “Hale & Norcross, whereof I sold six feet at three hundred dollars a foot, is worth two thousand, now” (SLC 1868a; L1: 26 May 1864 to OC, 299, 300–301 n. 4; 13 and 14 Aug 1864 to OC and MEC, 309 n. 5; 11 Nov 1864 to OC, 319 n. 5; “San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, issues of Jan–Feb 1865).
our Tennessee land . . . what Mr. Longworth thought of those Tennessee grapes] See “The Tennessee Land” and “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It]” ( AutoMT1 , 61–63, 206, 208–9, 469 n. 61.1–3, 470–71 n. 63.14–16, 529 n. 206.19–20, 530 n. 208.37).
a gentleman arrived yesterday from Tennessee . . . the surviving heirs—the remaining third] These visitors have not been identified. About a year later, however, Clemens did join in a lawsuit relayed to him by his attorney, John Larkin, to secure an old claim to the Tennessee land. According to the “Declaration” filed on 15 May 1907, eight defendants had allegedly taken illegal possession of some four thousand acres of land in Tennessee that arguably belonged to the heirs of John M. Clemens. Clemens and his niece and nephew, Annie Moffett Webster and Samuel E. Moffett (the children of Pamela Moffett), joined suit with the Fentress Land Company to recover the land, worth more than $2,000, plus $5,000 in damages. When deposed on 7 and 8 June 1909, Clemens was asked to explain his assertion, published in two North American Review installments (NAR 12, NAR 13), that his family no longer owned any Tennessee land. (These installments were drawn from “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It]” and the present dictation.) When questioned about the “Tennesseean gentleman” and the “well-to-do citizen of New York,” Clemens could not recall their names, and referred all questions to Larkin. The litigation continued for more than three years. Most of the witnesses were questioned about the disputed boundary between Fentress and Overton counties, being asked to recall landmarks such as trees, stumps, streams, and structures. The surveyor who had run the most current county line, in 1896, was also deposed at length. Meanwhile, Moffett and Clemens had both died, leaving Annie Webster as the sole family plaintiff. The case was dismissed in December 1910 because the defendants proved that the land in question was in Overton County, where the court had no jurisdiction, and the plaintiffs were ordered to pay more than $400 in court costs. Clemens had anticipated this result, remarking to Isabel Lyon, his secretary, in September 1906: “Tennessee Lands going to be an expense after all. The almighty has been looking after it for 70 years, & he’ll make it expensive” (Lyon Stenographic Notebook #1, CU-MARK; U.S. National Archives and Records Administration 1907–9, documents in Fentress Land Company et al. v. Bruno Gernt et al., Case 967: “Declaration,” filed 15 May 1907; “Interrogatories for Saml. L. Clemens,” filed 3 Apr 1909; “Deposition S. L. Clemens,” filed 11 June 1909; “Deposition of Chas. R. Schenck,” filed 17 Nov 1909; depositions of various witnesses, filed 28 Nov 1910; “Non-suit,” filed 14 Dec 1910; “Fieri Facias,” filed 8 Jan 1912; copies of these documents provided courtesy of Barbara Schmidt).
I came East in January 1867. Orion remained in Carson City . . . steamer for New York] Orion and Mollie Clemens actually returned East before Clemens. They left Carson City on 13 March 1866, but remained in California until 30 August, when they departed San Francisco for New York. Clemens left San Francisco on 15 December 1866 and arrived in New York on 12 January 1867 (22 May 1866 to MEC, L1, 342 n. 1; link note preceding 15 Jan 1867 to Hingston, L2, 1). The account here is the primary source for information about Orion’s activities between 1866 and 1875. Additional details, drawn from family correspondence during this period, may be found in L1–L6 and in Fanning 2003, 111–26, 131–51, 155–66.
I had bought my mother a house in Keokuk . . . They all lived together in the house] Clemens makes a chronological leap here. It wasn’t until August 1882 that Jane Clemens went to Keokuk to live with Orion and Mollie. They occupied rented houses until January 1889, when Orion bought a house for $3,100, financing it with $1,100 in cash, most of it from a matured insurance policy, and a $2,000 loan. As his contribution to the purchase, Clemens helped pay for extensive repairs and improvements to make the house more comfortable for Jane, including the addition of an indoor “water closet.” During this entire period and beyond, Clemens supported the Keokuk household with a monthly check (supplemented by cash gifts at Christmas and other times): at first he sent $125 ($75 for Orion and Mollie, $50 for Jane), then $150 (the additional $25 for Orion and Mollie), then $155 (the additional $5 to be passed on to a needy cousin, Tabitha Quarles Greening), and finally $200 (the additional $45 for an attendant for Jane, who by the late 1880s was suffering serious senile dementia as well as rheumatism). He continued the monthly $200 even after Jane’s death on 27 October 1890, finally reducing it in 1891 to $110 ($10 of it for Tabitha Greening), and then by 1893 to $50, which he continued to send to Mollie after Orion’s death on 11 December 1897 (OC to SLC, numerous letters in 1882–90, and 11 Dec 1897 to Whitmore, all in CU-MARK).
Orion could have had all the work he wanted . . . in the composing-room of the Gate City] Orion tried repeatedly to get editorial or compositorial work on the Keokuk Gate City and other newspapers, but was unable to do so on anything but a spot basis, and was usually unpaid for the few editorials he managed to publish.
his wife had been a Governor’s wife] That is, when Orion, as Nevada territorial secretary, was standing in for the absent territorial governor (see AD, 2 Apr 1906, note at 5.25–36).
Orion got a job as proof-reader on the New York Evening Post . . . Rutland, Vermont] Clemens’s chronology is inaccurate. Orion worked for the New York Evening Post in the fall of 1873, while Mollie stayed in Fredonia, New York, with Jane Clemens and Pamela Moffett (6 Nov 1873 to JLC, L5, 471 n. 1). His position on the Hartford Evening Post had lasted from about September 1872 until May 1873. Clemens’s scheme for getting a job by first working without pay is the subject of his Autobiographical Dictation of 27 March 1906 (see AutoMT1 , 446–51). In a letter to Olivia of 3 October 1872 Clemens implied that Orion had gotten the Hartford position by following his advice:
Livy darling, it is indeed pleasant to learn that Orion is happy & progressing. Now if he can only keep the place, & continue to give satisfaction, all the better. It is no trouble for a man to get any situation he wants—by working at first for nothing—but of course to hold it firmly against all comers—after the wages begin—is the trick. ( L5, 188)
By early May 1873 Orion had accepted the editorship of the Rutland Globe, remaining there until sometime in July ( L5: 25 Sept 1872 to OLC, 182 n. 11; 5 May 1873 to OC and MEC, 363 n. 1).
his idea was to buy that place and start a chicken farm . . . and I sent the money] In May 1874 Clemens gave Orion and Mollie $900 to make a first payment on Mollie’s father’s chicken farm near Keokuk. But price negotiations stalled, the purchase was never completed, and Orion and Mollie merely rented the farm until sometime in 1876, when they gave up trying to make it pay and moved to Keokuk proper. There Orion tried, unsuccessfully, to practice law while Clemens supported him ( L6: 23 Apr 1864 to OC, 110–14; 10 May 1874 to JLC, 141–42; 10 June 1874 to OC and MEC, 156 n. 3; 27 March 1875 to OC, 427–28; 25 Apr 1875 to JLC and PAM, 461, 462–63 n. 8; Fanning 2003, 164–67).
I found twenty-five dollars for pew-rent . . . sell the pew] On 26 July 1875 Clemens wrote to Orion:
One item in your account strikes me curiously—“pew rent.” You might as well borrow money to sport diamonds with. I am willing to lend you money to procure the needs of life, but not to procure so useless a luxury as a church pew. It would much better become a man to remain away from church than borrow money to hire a pew with. The principle of this thing is what I am complaining of—not the amount of money. ( L6, 519)
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 649–63 (altered in pencil to 658–72), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 808–22, made from the revised TS1 and further revised.
NAR 12pf Galley proofs of NAR 12, typeset from the revised TS2 and further revised: title and ‘Am I . . . those people.’ (18.22–23.13), ViU.
NAR 12 North American Review 184 (15 February 1907), 337–41: ‘Thursday . . . 1906’ (18 title); ‘Orion Clemens . . . those people.’ (18 title–23.13), after deletions on NAR 12pf.
Hobby incorporated Clemens’s TS1 revisions in typing TS2, which would serve as copy for NAR 12, and bears further revisions by Clemens. In a few places on TS2, Clemens acted on suggestions penciled in by Paine; some of these advised suppressing personal names, while others suggested omitting passages that were especially frank about Orion and Mollie Clemens.
Starting on 4 January 1907, the issue length of NAR was shortened from 128 pages to 112. Autobiography installments which had been prepared earlier, such as NAR 12 (which drew on the present dictation), had to be shortened. In this case, Clemens made two large deletions in NAR 12pf, one of them of material from the present dictation (see the “Marginal Notes” table). The dictation was published together with “John Hay” and an excerpt from AD, 6 April 1906.
Marginal Notes on TS2 Concerning Publication in NAR