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Autobiographical Dictation, 31 July 1906 ❉ Textual Commentary

Source documents.

Orr to SLC      Typed letter, Charles Orr to SLC, 28 June 1906: ‘Cleveland . . . Chas. Orr’ (153.34–42), revised.
TS Orr      Excerpt from a typescript of an article by Charles Orr, containing transcriptions of three letters from John Hay to Alexander Gunn: ‘June 21 . . . John Hay’ (154.2–33), revised.
TS1 ribbon      Typescript, leaves numbered 984–1000, made from Hobby’s notes, Orr to SLC, and TS Orr and revised.
TS1 carbon      Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 984–1000, revised.

Clemens revised both TS1 ribbon and TS1 carbon, separately and somewhat differently. A subsequent effort (not entirely successful) to bring the two copies into conformity with each other is evident. Clemens did some of this work himself, transferring his own handwritten revisions from one copy to the other (probably in most cases from the ribbon copy to the carbon), but some of the transferring was entrusted to Lyon. The revisions listed below as “TS1 ribbon-Lyon” or “TS1 carbon-Lyon”—her hand appears in both TS1 ribbon and TS1 carbon—are to be understood as Lyon’s copying of Clemens’s revisions from the other copy. In several places, Clemens and Lyon failed to copy revisions from one document to the other. These no doubt are inadvertencies; our assumption is that there was an authorial effort to transfer all revisions to both copies. Consequently, in our text we adopt all revised readings.

There are three places where Clemens himself made differing revisions to the reading of TS1 ribbon and TS1 carbon (see the entries for 152.2, 153.16, and 153.18). In these cases it is not entirely clear which of the two documents represents Clemens’s latest or preferred text. On balance, however, it seems likely that it was TS1 carbon, and we follow it on that assumption.

This dictation is rich in inserted correspondence. The original manuscript of Clara Clemens’s letter to Clemens is not extant and our text necessarily follows the TS1 representation of it. The letter from Charles Orr to Clemens (Orr to SLC) is extant and we follow its text, as revised by Clemens. Variants to the text of the letter that were introduced by Hobby in typing TS1 are not reported. At the head of this letter Paine wrote, guessing at the date of Clemens’s sketch Date 1601: ‘must have been written in 78–76–77–’. Clemens deleted this conjecture and wrote: ‘78 ◇◇◇◇ 5.’—before deleting this too.

For the three letters from John Hay to Alexander Gunn, we follow the typescript enclosed by Orr in his letter to Clemens. Orr had composed a short article—subsequently published in Putnam’s Monthly (Orr 1906)—making use of these Hay letters and interspersing them with his own comments. Orr sent Clemens a partial typescript carbon copy of his article (TS Orr) which includes the texts of the Hay letters and also some connective prose written by Orr himself, intended (and subsequently published) as part of his Putnam’s article. Clemens revised TS Orr, but he did nothing to cancel the two passages of Orr’s connective prose. In consequence, these passages were effectively appropriated by Clemens, and they are styled here as his own text—as they were also by Hobby in TS1 ribbon/carbon.

Hay’s original letters to Gunn are at Princeton University (NjP-SC), but, in accordance with our policy, we follow the copy that was provided to Hobby (TS Orr).

The letter from Clemens to Orr was dictated by him to Isabel Lyon. Notes by her (NN-BGC, TS in CU-MARK) recall him lying in bed, “roaring, and chuckling, and smoking and rejoicing” as he dictated this letter. The copy of the letter that Lyon wrote and mailed to Orr reposes today at Princeton. The copy followed by Hobby in typing this dictation cannot be certainly identified, and we follow her typed text as revised by Clemens.

TS2 is missing, as in the previous dictation.

Tuesday, July 31, 1906

Coloneltextual note Harvey arrives to-night—Letter from Clara Clemens—Mr. Clemens receives copy of Mr. Duneka’s “Library of Humor”—Seventy-eight other humorists contained therein—Letter from Mr. Orr referring to “1601”—Threetextual note letters from John Hay referring to same—Mr. Clemens’s reply—Mr. Clemens tells why he wrote “1601” and what it is, and of the private printing of several copies.

Coloneltextual note Harvey will arrive here to-night, to remain a day or two, and we shall have no trouble in straightening out the tangle which has been made in our affairs.textual note

Since I got back here I have received a letter from my daughter Clara, who is spending her summer at Norfolk, Connecticut, and I shall at once dispatch a copy of it to Howells, [begin page 152] for it contains a miracle which he and I were talking privately about last year—a compliment from child to father. We were remarking upon the fact that illustrious authorstextual note can by theirtextual note talents compel compliments from everybody but theirtextual note own children. We are so close to them that our magnitudetextual note does not impress them. It is a commonplace to them, and does not thrill, does not stun, does not overawe.textual note Naturally, we particularly want the compliments which we can’t get. When at last it comes spontaneously from the child—a thing which almost never happens—we are not merely gratified beyond all reason, but are struck dumb with pleasant astonishment. I shall insert Clara’s compliment here, where it can’t get lostexplanatory note.

Uncletextual note Joe*textual note came to see me to-day and I really can’t imagine what prompted him to do such a generous thing, but I appreciated it though I found no way to prove or even express it.

He reminded me more than ever of you in his vivid, dramatic, moving, masterly way of painting an impressionist picture whenever he spoke—you two are alike also in tones of voice and anticipatory gesture. I had a rich enjoyment in his visit and felt very much like the kings that command private amusements that they share with no one.

Uncle Joe sent you his love and spoke warmly of your Howells article which I have just this minute read with utmost delight. It has led me to read “Venetian Days”—or rather to the intention of reading it—textual noteas soon as I can procure it, and has given me many minutes of laughter over the delicious criticism of stage-directions. Of course your thoughts are funny in themselves,textual note but not commandingly funny till you have dressed them up in that never-failing style of yours. The extract from “Venetian Days”explanatory note is so beautiful that when one has finished it one seems to have been lying on a floating support of snowflakes, and one dreads to leave it,textual note in the same way that one hates to be pulled from a moment of reverie at sea,textual note when,textual note half hypnotized,textual note one’s vague thoughts seem to move deliciously with the waves.textual note

The westerntextual note pirate of whom Duneka had heard rumortextual note has really published his bookexplanatory note, and my copyright lawyerexplanatory note has sent me a copy of it—a great fat, coarse, offensive volume, not with my name on it as perpetrator, but with its back inflamed with a big picture of me in lurid colors;textual note placed there, of course, to indicate that I am the author of the crime. This book is a very interesting curiosity, in one way. It reveals the surprising fact that within the compass of these forty years wherein I have been playing professional humorist before the public, I have had for company seventy-eight other American humorists. Each and every one of the seventy-eight rose in my time, became conspicuous and popular, and, by and by, vanished. A number of these names were as familiar in their day as are the names of George Ade and Dooleyexplanatory note to-day—yet they have all so completely passed from sight now that there is probably not a youth of fifteen years of age in the country whose eye would light with recognition at the mention of any one of the seventy-eight names.

This book is a cemetery; and as I glance through it I am reminded of my visit to the cemetery in Hannibal, Missouri, four years agoexplanatory note, where almost every tombstone recorded


*Reverend Joseph H. Twichell—“uncle” by courtesy.textual note [begin page 153] a forgotten name that had been familiar and pleasant to my ear when I was a boy there fifty years before.

Intextual note this mortuary volume I find Nasby, Artemus Ward, Yawcob Strauss, Derby, Burdette, Eli Perkins, the “Danbury News Man,”textual note Orpheus C. Kerr, Smith O’Brien, Josh Billings, and a score of others, maybe twoscoretextual note, whose writings and sayings were once in everybody’s mouth but are now heard of no more, and are no longer mentioned. Seventy-eight seems an incredible crop of well-known humorists for one forty-year period to have produced, and yet this book has not harvested the entire crop—far from it. It has no mention of Ike Partington, once so welcome and so well knowntextual note; it has no mention of Doesticks, nor of the Pfaff crowd—nor of Artemus Ward’s numerous and perishable imitators; nor of three very popular Southern humorists whose names I am not able to recall; nor of a dozen other sparkling transients whose light shone for a time but has now, years ago, gone out.

Why have they perished? Because they were merelytextual note humorists. Humorists of the “mere” sorttextual note cannot survive. Humor is onlytextual note a fragrance, a decoration. Often it is merely an oddtextual note trick of speech and spelling,textual note as in the case of Ward and Billings and Nasby and the “Disbanded Volunteer,”textual note explanatory note and presently the fashion passes, and the fame along with it. There are those who say a novel should be a work of art solely, and you must not preach in it,textual note you must not teach in it. That may be true as regards novels, but it is not true as regards humor. Humor must not professedly textual note teach, ittextual note must not professedly preach; buttextual note it must do both if it would live forever. By forever, I mean thirty years. With all its preaching it is not likely to outlivetextual note so long a term as that. The very things it preaches about, and which are novelties when it preaches about them, can cease to be novelties and become commonplaces in thirty years. Then that sermon can thenceforthtextual note interest no one.

I have always preached. That is the reason that I have lasted thirty years. If the humor came of its own accord and uninvited, I have allowed it a place in my sermon, but I was not writing the sermon for the sake of the humor. I should have written the sermon just the same, whether any humor applied for admissiontextual note or not. I am saying these vain things in this frank way because I am a dead person speaking from the grave. Even I would be too modest to say them in life. I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honesttextual note selves until we are dead—and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and then they would be honest so much earlier.

Among the letters awaiting me when I got back from New York was this one:

Cleveland  June 28 1906textual note

My dear Sir

Having seen some letters of the late John Hay, copies of which I enclose, I am somewhat anxious to know the title of the piece mentioned, or whether it is printed in your published writings.

Did you know Alexander Gunn,textual note to whom Hay’s letters were addressed?

An answer at your convenience will greatly oblige.

Very truly yours

Chas. Orrexplanatory note

[begin page 154]

The letters referred to by Mr. Orr are the following:

June 21 1880

Dear Gunn

Are you in Cleveland for all this week? If you will say yestextual note by return mail I have a masterpiece to submit to your consideration which is only in my hands for a few days.

Yours, very much worritted by the depravity of Christendom,

Hay

Letter No. 2textual note discloses Hay’s own high opinion of the effort and his deep concern for its safety.

June 24 1880

My dear Gunn

Here it is. It was written by Mark Twain in a serious effort to bring back our literature and philosophy to the sober and chaste Elizabethan standard. But the taste oftextual note the present day is too corrupt for anythingtextual note so classic. He has not yet been able even to find a publisher. The Globe has not yet recovered from Downey’s inroadexplanatory note, and they won’t touch it.

I send it to you as one of the few lingering relics of that race of appreciative criticstextual note who know a good thing when they see it.

Read it with reverence and gratitude and send it back to me; for Mark is impatient to see once more his wandering offspring.

Yours

HAY

No. 3textual note makes it quite clear that Gunn had confirmed the judgment of Hay.

Washington DC July 7 1880

My dear Gunn

I have your letter, and the proposition which you make to pull a few proofs of the masterpiece is highly attractive, and of course highly immoral. I cannot properly consent to it, and I am afraid the great man would think I was taking an unfair advantage of his confidence. Please send back the document as soon as you can, and if, in spite of my prohibition, you take these proofs, save me one.

Very truly yours

John Hay

I replied to Mr. Orr as followsexplanatory note:

Dublin, New Hampshire.
July 30, 1906.

Dear Mr. Orr:

I cannot thank you enough for sending me copies of John Hay’s notestextual note to Mr. Gunn. In the matter of humor, what an unsurpassable touch John Hay had! I may have known Alexander Gunn in those ancient days, but the name does not sound familiar to me.

[begin page 155]

The title of the piece is “1601.” The piece is a supposititious conversation which takes place in Queen Elizabeth’s closet in that year, between the Queen and Shakspearetextual note, Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, Beaumont, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Duchess of Bilgewater, and one or two others; and is not—as John Hay mistakenly supposes—“a serious effort to bring back our literature and philosophy to the sober and chaste Elizabethan standard;” no, the object was only a serious attempt to reveal to Rev. Joe Twichell the picturesqueness of parlor conversation in Elizabeth’s time; therefore if there is a decent or delicatetextual note word findable in it, it is because I overlooked it. I hasten to assure you that it is not printed in my published writings.

“1601” was so be-praised by the archeological scholars of a quarter of a century ago, that I was rather inordinately vain of it. At that time it had been privately printed in several countries, among them Japan. A sumptuous edition on large paper, rough-edged, was made by Lieut. C. E. S. Wood at West Point—an edition of 50 copiesexplanatory note—and distributed among popes and kings and such people. In England copies of that issue were worth 20 guineas when I was there six years ago, and none to be had. I thank you again, and am,

Yours very truly,

S. L. Clemens.textual note

Dear me, but John Hay’s letters do carry me back over a long stretch of time! Joe Twichell’s head was black then; mine was brown. To-day both are as white and sparklytextual note as a London footman’s.

“1601” was a letter which I wrote to Twichell, about 1876, from my study at Quarry Farm one summer day when I ought to have been better employed. I remember the incident very well. I had been diligently reading up for a story which I was minded to write—“The Prince and the Pauper.” I was reading ancient English books with the purpose of saturating myself with archaictextual note English to a degree which would enable me to do plausible imitations of it in a fairly easy and unlabored way. In one of these old books I came across a brief conversation which powerfully impressed me, as I had never been impressed before, with the frank indelicacies of speech permissible among ladies and gentlemen in that ancient time. I was thus powerfully impressed because this conversation seemed real textual note , whereas that kind of talk had not seemed real to me before. It had merely seemed Rabelaisian—exaggerated, artificial, made up by the author for his passing needs. It had not seemed to me that the blushful passages in Shakspeare were of a sort which Shakspeare had actually heard people use, but were inventions of his own—textual noteliberties which he had taken with the facts, under the protection of a poet’s license.

But here at last was one of those dreadful conversations which commended itself to me as being absolutely real, and as being the kind of talk which ladies and gentlemen did actually indulge in in those pleasant and lamented ancient days now gone from us forever. I was immediately full of a desire to practisetextual note my archaics, and contrive one of those stirring conversations out of my own head. I thought I would practisetextual note on Twichell. I have always practisedtextual note doubtful things on Twichell from the beginning, thirty-nine years ago.

[begin page 156]

Sotextual note I contrived that meeting of the illustrious personages in Queen Elizabeth’s private parlor, and started a most picturesque and lurid and scandalous conversation between them. The Queen’s cup-bearer, a dried-up old nobleman, was present to take down the talk—not that he wanted to do it, but because it was the Queen’s desire and he had to. He loathed all those people because they were of offensively low birth, and because they hadn’t a thing to recommend them except their incomparable brains. He dutifully set down everything they said, and commented upon their words and their manners with bitter scorn and indignation. I put into the Queen’s mouth, and into the mouths of those other people, grossnesses not to be found outside of Rabelais, perhaps. I made their stateliest remarks reek with them, and all this was charming to me—delightful, delicious—but their charm was as nothing to that which was afforded me by that outraged old cup-bearer’s comments upon them.

It is years since I have seen a copy of “1601.” I wonder if it would be as funny to me nowtextual note as it was in those comparatively youthful days when I wrote it. It made a fat letter. I bundled it up and mailed it to Twichell in Hartford. And in the fall, when we returned to our home in Hartford and Twichell and I resumed the Saturday ten-mile walk to Talcott Tower and backexplanatory note, every Saturday, as had been our custom for years, we used to carry that letter along. There was a grove of hickory trees by the roadside, six miles out, and close by it was the only place in that whole region where the fringed gentian grew. On our return from the Tower we used to gather the gentians, then lie down on the grass upon the golden carpet of fallen hickory leaves and get out that letter and read it by the help of these poetical surroundings. We used to laugh ourselves lame and sore over the cup-bearer’stextual note troubles. I wonder if we could laugh over themtextual note now?textual note We were so young then!textual note—and maybetextual note there was not so much to laugh at in the letter as we thought there was.

However, in the winter Dean Sage came to Twichell’s on a visit,textual note and Twichell, who was never able to keep a secret when he knew it ought to be revealed, showed him the letter. Sage carried it off. He was greatly tickled with it himself, and he wanted to know how it might affect other people. He was under the seal of confidence, and could not show the letter to any one—still he wanted to try it on a dog, as the stage phrase is, and he dropped it in the aisle of the smoking-car accidentally, and sat down near-by to wait for results. The letter traveledtextual note from group to group around the car,textual note and when he finally went and claimed it, he was convinced that it possessed literary merit. So he got a dozen copies privately printed in Brooklynexplanatory note. He sent one to David Gray, in Buffalo; one to a friend in Japanexplanatory note; one to Lord Houghtonexplanatory note, in England; and one to a Jewish rabbitextual note in Albany, a very learned man and an able critic and lover of old-time literatures.

“1601” was privately printed in Japan and in England, and by and by we began to hear from it. The learned rabbitextual note said it was a masterpiece in its verities and in its imitation of the obsolete English of Elizabeth’s day. And the praises delivered to me by the poet, David Gray, were very precious. He said “Put your name to it. Don’t be ashamed of it. It is a great and fine piece of literature and deserves to live, and will live. Your ‘Innocents [begin page 157] Abroad’ will presently be forgotten, but this will survive. Don’t be ashamed; don’t be afraid. Leave the command in your will that your heirs shall put on your tombstone these words, and these alone: ‘He wrote the immortal “1601”.’explanatory note textual note

When we sailed for Europe in 1891textual note I left those sumptuous West Point copies hidden away in a drawer of my study, where I thought they would be safe. We were gone nearly ten years, and whenever anybody wanted a copy I promised it—the promise to be made good when we should return to America. In Berlin I promised one to Rudolph Lindau, of the Foreign Officeexplanatory note. He still lives, but I have not been able to make that promise good. I promised one to Mommsenexplanatory note, and one to William Walter Phelps, who was our Minister at the Berlin courtexplanatory note. These are dead, but maybetextual note they don’t miss “1601” where they are. When Itextual note went lecturing around the globe I promised “1601” pretty liberally—these promises all to be made good when Itextual note should return home.

In 1890 I had published in Harper’s Monthly a sketch called “Luck,” the particulars of which had been furnished to Twichell by a visiting English army chaplain. The next year, in Rome, an English gentleman introduced himself to me on the street and said “Do you know who the chief figure in that ‘Luck’textual note sketch is?” “No,” I said, “I don’t.” “Well,” he said, “it is Lord Wolseleyexplanatory note—and don’t you go to England if you value your scalp.” In Venice another English gentleman said the same to me. These gentlemen said “Of course Wolseley is not to blame for the stupendous luck that has chased him up ever since he came shining out of Sandhurst in that most unexpected and victorious way, but he will recognize himself in that sketch, and so will everybody else, and if you venture into England he will destroy you.”

In 1900, in London, I went to the Fourth of July banquet, arriving after eleven o’clock at night, at a time when the place was emptying itself. Choate was presidingexplanatory note. An English admiral was speaking, and some two or three hundred men were still present. I was to speak, and I moved along down behind the chairs which had been occupied by guests, toward Choate. These chairs were now empty. When I had reached within three chairs of Choate, a handsome man put out his hand and said “Stop. Sit down here. I want to get acquainted with you. I am Lord Wolseley.” I was falling, but he caught me, and I explained that I was often taken that way. We sat and chatted together and had a very good time—and he asked me for a copy of “1601,” and I was very glad to get off so easy. I said he should have it as soon as I reached home.

We reached home the next year, and not a sign of those precious masterpieces could be found on the premises anywhere. And so all those promises remain unfulfilled to this day. Two or three days ago I found out that they have reappeared, and are safe in our house in New York. But I shall not make any of those promises good until I shall have had an opportunity to examine that masterpiece and see whether it really is a masterpiece or notexplanatory note. I have my doubts—though I had none a quarter of a century ago. In that day I believed “1601” was inspired.

Textual Notes Tuesday, July 31, 1906
  Colonel ●  Col. (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Three ●  3 (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Colonel ●  Col. (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  affairs. ●  affairs. by Mr. Duneka and his pal, Major Leigh, Treasurer of the Harper corporation.  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  illustrious authors ●  we gifted persons  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  we illustrious authors  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  their ●  our their  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  their ●  one’s their  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  magnitude ●  greatness (TS1 ribbon)  greatness magnitude  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  thrill, does not stun, does not overawe. ●  thrill. , does not stun, does not overawe.  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  Uncle ●  “Uncle (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Joe§  ●  Joe *  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  it— ●  it (TS1 ribbon)  it  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  themselves, ●  themselves (TS1 ribbon)  themselves,  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  it, ●  it,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  it (TS1 carbon) 
  sea, ●  sea,  (TS1 ribbon)  sea (TS1 carbon) 
  when, ●  when,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC; TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  hypnotized, ●  hypnotized,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  waves. ●  waves.” (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  western ●  Western (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  rumor ●  rumor and wanted to forestall by a piracy of his own,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  rumor and wanted to forestall, by a piracy of his own,  (TS1 carbon-Lyon + SLC)  Lyon canceled ‘and . . . forestall’; SLC added the comma and canceled ‘by . . . own,’
  colors; ●  colors, (TS1 ribbon)  colors, ; comma mended to a semicolon  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  *Reverend ●  * Rev. (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  [¶] In ●  In (TS1 ribbon)  In (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Man,” ●  Man,” (TS1 ribbon)  Man,” Ike Partington, Q. K. Philander Doesticks,  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  twoscore ●  two-score (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  well known ●  well- | known (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  merely ●  merely  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  of the “mere” sort ●  of the “mere” sort  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  only ●  merely only  (TS1 ribbon-Lyon, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  an odd ●  a an odd  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  and spelling, ●  speech. and of spelling,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  speech. and spelling,  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  “Disbanded Volunteer,” ●  d “Disbanded v Volunteer,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  it, ●  it ,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  professedly  ●  professedly ‘professedly’ underscored  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  teach, it ●  teach, and . I it ‘I’ marked for lowercase with a slash and ‘l.c.’  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  teach, . It it ‘I’ marked for lowercase with a slash and ‘l.c.’, then entire word deleted  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  preach; but ●  preach; . B but period mended to a semicolon; ‘B’ marked for lowercase with a slash and ‘l.c.’  (TS1 ribbon-SLC; TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  outlive ●  out- | live (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  thenceforth ●  thenceforth  (TS1 ribbon-SLC; TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  for admission ●  for admission  (TS1 ribbon-SLC; TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  entire and honest ●  entire and honest  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  entire entire and perfectly honest SLC deleted ‘entire’ and inserted ‘perfectly honest’; then he deleted ‘perfectly’; Lyon inserted ‘entire and’ to match TS1 ribbon  (TS1 carbon-SLC + Lyon) 
  1906 ●  1906 [¶] Samuel L Clemens Esq | New York City  (Orr to SLC-SLC)  1906. (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Gunn, ●  Gunn (Orr to SLC)  Gunn,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  yes ●  yet s  (TS Orr-SLC)  yes (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  No. 2 ●  number two (TS Orr, TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  taste of ●  task te of (TS Orr-SLC)  taste of (TS1 ribbon)  taste of ‘te of’ rewritten over erased carbon imprint  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  anything ●  any thing (TS Orr, TS1 ribbon)  anything ‘any thing’ marked to close up  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  critics ●  critics,  (TS Orr-SLC)  critics (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  No. 3 ●  Number three (TS Orr, TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  notes ●  delicious notes (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Shakspeare ●  Shakespeare (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  or delicate ●  or delicate  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Clemens. ●  Clemens.” (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  sparkly ●  sparkley (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  archaic ●  archeological archaic  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  real  ●  real (TS1 ribbon)  real ‘real’ underscored  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  own— ●  own in the  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  practise ●  practice (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  practise ●  practice (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  practised ●  practiced (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  [¶] So ●  So (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  now ●  now  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  cup-bearer’s ●  cup-bearers (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  over them ●  over them  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  now? ●  now. ? period mended to a question mark  (TS1 ribbon-SLC)  now. (TS1 carbon) 
  then! ●  then!  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  maybe ●  may be (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  visit, ●  visit,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  traveled ●  travelled (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  car, ●  car (TS1 ribbon)  car, (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  rabbi ●  Rabbi (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  rabbi ●  Rabbi (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  ‘He wrote the immortal “1601”.’ ”  ●  ‘He wrote the immortal 1601.’” ‘He wrote the immortal 1601.’ underscored  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  1891 ●  1901 1891 date queried and altered by Hobby; query canceled and correct date inserted by SLC  (TS1 ribbon-Hobby + SLC)  1901 1891  (TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  maybe ●  may be (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  I ●  we I  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  I ●  we I  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-Lyon) 
  ‘Luck’ ●  “Luck” (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
Explanatory Notes Tuesday, July 31, 1906
 

I shall insert Clara’s compliment here, where it can’t get lost] The balance of Clara’s letter did in fact “get lost”; the extract transcribed here—presumably from the original—is the only portion of it known to survive.

 

your Howells article which I have just this minute read . . . extract from “Venetian Days”] In his appreciation of Howells, published in the July 1906 issue of Harper’s Monthly, Clemens wrote: “For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness, and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without peer in the English-writing world.” Citing Howells’s description of winter in Venice from chapter 3 of his Venetian Life, a travel memoir first published in 1866, Clemens concluded that his “pictures are not mere stiff, hard, accurate photographs; they are photographs with feeling in them, and sentiment, photographs taken in a dream, one might say.” He concluded the article with a humorous description of other authors’ “stale and overworked stage directions,” contrasting them with Howells’s “fresh ones” (SLC 1906g).

 

The western pirate . . . has really published his book] The pirated book was not, as Duneka and Clemens had feared, the Webster and Company Library of Humor (see AD, 17 July 1906, note at 146.37–147.9). It may have been Hot Stuff by Famous Funny Men. This volume, with its illustrated cloth boards depicting Mark Twain lecturing to a theater audience, was a reprint of an anthology originally published in 1883, edited by Eli Perkins (Melville D. Landon). In 1900 this was reissued under the title Library of Wit and Humor by Mark Twain and Others, with Clemens’s portrait on the cover; he sued the book’s distributor for infringement of trademark, and planned to sue the publisher as well as “every large store in New York” (21 Dec 1900 to Gurlitz, photocopy in CU-MARK; Landon n.d.; Landon 1898; “Mark Twain, Plaintiff,” New York Times, 27 Mar 1901, 6; BAL, 5:11220).

 

my copyright lawyer] John Larkin.

 

George Ade and Dooley] George Ade (1866–1944) became famous for his “Fables in Slang,” originally written for the Chicago Record and published, starting in 1899, in a series of books; he went on to write successful works of fiction, plays, and musicals. One of his last works is a memoir of his 1902 meeting with Mark Twain (Gribben 1980, 1:10–11; Ade 1939). For “Dooley” (humorist Finley Peter Dunne) see the Autobiographical Dictation of 22 January 1907 and the note at 377.3. Howells hailed both Ade and Dunne as leading figures in the “Chicago School of Fiction” (Howells 1903, 739–46).

 

my visit to the cemetery in Hannibal, Missouri, four years ago] Clemens visited Hannibal, and its cemetery, in 1902, when he made his final trip to Missouri: see AutoMT1 , 613 n. 401.30–34.

 

Nasby, Artemus Ward . . . the “Disbanded Volunteer,”] For Artemus Ward and “the Pfaff crowd” see the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 May 1906 and the notes at 46.33–34 and 47.3–5; see AutoMT1, for Petroleum V. Nasby (David Ross Locke, 506 n. 146.1–5), George Derby (476 n. 71.9–18), and Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 508 n. 148.21). “Yawcob Strauss” is a figure in several poems in Pennsylvania Dutch dialect by Charles Follen Adams (1842–1918). The most popular work of Robert J. Burdette (1844–1914) was his lecture “The Rise and Fall of the Moustache,” which he is said to have delivered more than five thousand times. “Eli Perkins” was the pseudonym of humorist Melville D. Landon (1839–1910). The “Danbury News Man,” so called from his column in the Danbury (Conn.) News, was James Montgomery Bailey (1841–94). “Orpheus C. Kerr” (i.e., office-seeker) was journalist Robert Henry Newell (1836–1901). There was no American humorist named “Smith O’Brien”; Clemens may have meant the Irish-born writer Fitz-James O’Brien (1828–62), confusing his name with that of Irish patriot William Smith O’Brien (1803–64). “Ike Partington” is a character in the stories of B. P. Shillaber (1814–90). “Q. K. Philander Doesticks” was the pen name of journalist Mortimer Thomson (1831–75). The “Disbanded Volunteer” was the fictive persona of Joseph Barber (1808?–74) in a series of Civil War letters (“Suburban News,” New York Times, 15 Apr 1874, 8).

 

letters of the late John Hay, copies of which I enclose . . . Chas. Orr] The letters were written to Alexander Gunn (1837–1901), a Cleveland industrialist, by Clemens’s friend John Hay, who had died on 1 July 1905 (see AutoMT1 , 534 n. 222.9). Charles Orr (1858–1927), superintendent of the Cleveland public schools, sent the copies; he was preparing the letters for publication in a short article. Orr had been shown the letters by their owner at that time (1906), lawyer and patron of the arts Frank H. Ginn (1868–1938). The work by Clemens that is discussed in them (and in the dictation that follows) is Date 1601, a ribald pastiche of Elizabethan speech and manners. Clemens initially showed the sketch, composed in 1876, only to trusted male friends. But it attained a wider circulation in 1880 through Hay, who took the manuscript to Cleveland. There it was appreciatively read by his literary circle, the Vampire Club, and privately printed in an anonymous edition of perhaps six copies (Kohn 1957; SLC 1880a, 1996b; Orr 1906; BAL, 2:3388; Barnes 2009; 19 July 1880 to Twichell, transcript in CU-MARK; Hay to SLC, 15 Aug 1880, CU-MARK; Rhodes 1922, 120–21).

 

The Globe has not yet recovered from Downey’s inroad] Hay refers to a recent occurrence in Washington, D.C. On 12 April 1880 Stephen W. Downey, a congressional delegate from Wyoming Territory, introduced a bill that began with a recital of the Apostles’ Creed and went on to propose that $500,000 be appropriated to decorate the Capitol walls with scenes from “the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” Downey also obtained permission to have additional “argument” in support of his bill published in the Congressional Record (which Hay casually calls by the name of its predecessor, the Congressional Globe). When the Record appeared on 22 April, readers were surprised to find that Downey’s “argument” was a religious-mythological poem over twenty-five hundred lines in length. The affair occasioned much mockery of Downey and debate about the abuse of the Congressional Record (Washington Post, 23 Apr 1880: “Downey’s Immortal Ode,” 1; “Downey Invades the Record,” 2; Downey 1880).

 

I replied to Mr. Orr as follows] Isabel Lyon recalled that she took down Clemens’s dictation of his letter to Orr as he lay in bed “roaring, and chuckling, and smoking and rejoicing” (note by Lyon, NN-BGC, TS in CU-MARK).

 

sumptuous edition . . . was made by Lieut. C. E. S. Wood at West Point—an edition of 50 copies] The so-called West Point edition of 1601 was printed in 1882 by Lt. Charles Erskine Scott Wood—with Clemens’s active consent—at the little press of West Point Military Academy. At least fifteen copies remained in Clemens’s hands at the time of his death and are now in the Mark Twain Papers. Wood (1852–1944), a polymath from Pennsylvania, was the adjutant to the superintendent of West Point, the director of the press, and a personal friend of Clemens’s. Pirated editions began to appear in 1901, but not until this correspondence with Orr did Clemens acknowledge to anyone outside his group of intimates that he was the author of the sketch (for a facsimile of the West Point edition, see SLC 1939; Barnes 2009; Kohn 1957; SLC 1882a, 1996b).

 

ten-mile walk to Talcott Tower and back] Bartlett Tower, a wooden lookout on the ridge of Talcott Mountain near Hartford, was about eight miles from the Nook Farm neighborhood where Clemens and Twichell lived. Built in 1867 by Matthew Henry Bartlett, it was part of a tourist resort with picnic tables, swings, and refreshments for sale (Brenda J. Miller 2012; Courtney 2008, 148–50).

 

Dean Sage . . . got a dozen copies privately printed in Brooklyn] Sage (1841–1902), the son of wealthy lumber merchant Henry W. Sage, was Clemens’s close friend and occasional financial adviser. He was well known as a writer on angling and collected books on the subject. No evidence has been found that he sponsored or printed any edition of 1601 ( AutoMT1 599 n. 377.14; 28 Mar 1875 to Sage, L6, 431 n. 1).

 

He sent one to David Gray, in Buffalo; one to a friend in Japan] David Gray, a poet and the longtime editor of the Buffalo Courier, and journalist Edward H. House, who in 1880 returned permanently from a ten-year stay in Japan, both received copies of the 1882 West Point edition of 1601 from C. E. S. Wood (see AutoMT1 , 594 n. 363.32–33, 598 n. 375.23; Wood to SLC, 25 July 1882, CU-MARK).

 

Lord Houghton] Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron Houghton (see AutoMT1 , 634 n. 433.27–35).

 

learned rabbi said it was a masterpiece . . . ‘He wrote the immortal “1601”.’ ] The rabbi in Albany has not been identified. When Clemens repeated this anecdote to a friend in 1907, he made it clear that the quoted remark about the epitaph was the rabbi’s, as “delivered” by Gray (Lyon to Owen, 19 Jan 1936, NN-BGC).

 

Rudolph Lindau, of the Foreign Office] Rudolf Lindau (1829–1910) was a German diplomat and novelist. Clemens became acquainted with him during the winter of 1891–92, when the Clemenses were living in Berlin. He tells a story about Lindau, disguising him as “Smith,” in the Autobiographical Dictation of 6 December 1906.

 

Mommsen] Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), the great historian of Rome, was Germany’s preeminent academic, a liberal politician, and a noted public figure. While living in Berlin, Clemens wrote in his notebook, “Been taken for Mommsen twice. We have the same hair, but upon examination it was found that the brains were different” (Notebook 31, TS p. 27, CU-MARK).

 

William Walter Phelps, who was our minister at the Berlin court] See AutoMT1 , 527 n. 204.25–26.

 

In 1890 I had published in Harper’s Monthly a sketch called “Luck,” . . . it is Lord Wolseley] This sketch was written in April 1886, the purported facts of the case deriving, according to Clemens, from Twichell’s report of an acquaintance’s story. The sketch, built around the revelation that a renowned British military hero was in reality “an absolute fool,” is slight, and Clemens did not publish it until what Paine called “the general house-cleaning which took place after the first collapse of the Paige typesetting machine”; it was published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in August 1891 ( MTB, 2:1106; N&J3, 226; SLC 1891b). As Clemens tells the story, he was later informed that in “Luck” he had unwittingly retailed the personal history of Garnet Wolseley, first Viscount Wolseley (1833–1913), the foremost British soldier of his day. Born into a poor family with military traditions, Wolseley rose through the ranks, campaigning in Burma, the Crimea, and Africa; he was made a peer in 1882 and commander in chief in 1895. Regarded as an intellectual and a professionalizing force within the army, he was publicly acclaimed as “our only general” and inspired the “very model of a modern major general” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. He does not, however, fit the details of the tale very closely, and the protagonist of Clemens’s sketch may be a composite of more than one military figure (Beck 2005). Clemens tells this anecdote again, with variations, in the Autobiographical Dictation of 27 December 1906.

 

In 1900, in London, I went to the Fourth of July banquet . . . Choate was presiding] Clemens did attend the American Society’s Independence Day dinner in London in 1900; Choate and Wolseley were also present (“London’s Fourth,” New York Daily People, 5 July 1900, 5).

 

he asked me for a copy of “1601,” . . . see whether it really is a masterpiece or not] Having recovered his store of copies, Clemens did eventually offer one—rather tentatively—to Wolseley. Writing on 17 April 1909, he correctly recalled the occasion of their meeting, but not the book’s exact title (UkBrH):

My dear Lord Wolseley:

It is long ago—8 or 9 years. I arrived late—it was a Fourth of July dinner & the last speakers were gasping out their feelings to half a crowd & many empty & emptying seats, & you halted me on my way & I sat down & had a pleasant chat with you. You see I am trying to identify myself.

With this purpose in view: to inquire if you asked me for a copy of “1603?” I believe it was your very self, but truly & sincerely I am not charging it, & would not charge it upon any innocent man, since the classic I speak of, being a quite free conversation between Queen Elizabeth, Shakspeare, Raleigh, etc., is not a proper thing to charge any unoffending person with wanting.

When I came home I ransacked this country & searched several foreign countries where it had been republished in the dark, but I failed to find a copy. I had promised three copies while in England, & I had to fall short of those promises.

Was your lordship one of the three? I am merely a well-meaning person who is trying to keep his word, so I know you will forgive me if I am off the right track. Perhaps I ought not to have written “1603,” but I was young then (34 years ago) & familiar with misdoing. Once I expurgated it, but then—well then there wasn’t anything left, of course.

With the pleasantest recollections of that now ancient Fourth of July chat, I am

Your lordship’s

Obedient servant to command,

Mark Twain