Mr. Clemens expresses his gratitude to Mr. Rogers—Describes the man as one of the threeⒶtextual note handsomest men in America.Ⓐtextual note
Who saves my soul does me a service; who saves my family’s bread and butter does me a service that is worth thirty of it. For I am well acquainted with my soul, and know its value to a farthing.Ⓐtextual note To ReverendⒶtextual note Joseph H. Twichell I owe thanks for the impending halo,Ⓐtextual note to Mr. Rogers I oweⒶtextual note gratitude. A person’s soul is not an asset of serious importance,Ⓐtextual note now that hellⒶtextual note has become so doubtful. In this world we can get along without it, and manyⒶtextual note, many of us do. Its condition and prospects interest us in a colorless and perfunctory way, Sundays, but do not go to the heart and set a grip upon it. It is the peril of the wife and children’s bread and butter that does that. When the bread and butter of one’s dearest in all the world is in danger, that person realizes that he stands in the presence of a tremendous reality Ⓐtextual note , and that by comparison with this sharp and searching exigency, the saving of his soul is a light matter and can be put off to another time. I will take up these theological aspects in a future chapter and thresh them out—but for the present I will return to business.
There are many and various kinds of sacrifice which a person can make for his friend, but I think the highest and greatestⒶtextual note of themⒶtextual note is his sacrifice of time and labor in the cause. Mr. Rogers gave a part of his time, daily, during several weeks, to the straightening out of my Paige entanglementsⒺexplanatory note; heⒶtextual note gave many weeks of his time to the arranging of an agreement between the American Publishing Company and the HarpersⒶtextual note whereby I got the use of my Harper books in a completed set to be issued by the former CompanyⒺexplanatory note; heⒶtextual note had the Webster matter on his hands for five years; threeⒶtextual note years ago he labored at another contract between the twoⒶtextual note publishing firms and myself during a good many weeks, and at last got it accomplished and signed—a contract which released me from slavery to two masters and left me in the happier condition of servant to only one—the Harper CorporationⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note. Any one who has served two masters in this world will understand the almost inestimable value of this modification.
[begin page 161]Mr. Rogers’s time is worth several thousand dollars an hour, and I have had almost daily use of it for thirteen years; heⒶtextual note has not charged me anything for it, therefore I stand morally indebted to him in the sum of several millions of dollars. He could have sold it to great corporations for that—but I am aware that he is always squandering his time and talent and labor in a spendthrift fashion upon his friends, and so I argue that he gets more pleasure and more satisfaction out of working for his friends for nothing than he would get out of working for those other people at Standard Oil wages.
extra line of space Ⓐtextual note
Mr. Rogers is a very handsome man,Ⓐtextual note symmetrically formed, compactlyⒶtextual note constructed; he is warm-heartedⒶtextual note, affectionate, and as sensitive as a woman. He has a wellspringⒶtextual note of humor in him that never runs dry, and an infallible perception of humorⒶtextual note in others. He is sixty-seven years old by the almanac, but otherwise only twenty-five, and is as lively and companionable as any other youth of his age. When he is conducting a stern business matter with his peers,Ⓐtextual note his eye knows how to take care of its affairs, but when none but friends are around it is as frank and as candid as an eagle’s;Ⓐtextual note and out of it looks—if my affection is not deceiving me—the spirit of that which resides within:Ⓐtextual note high-mindedness, honor, honesty.
His pictures do not do him justice. It is the common fault of pictures. Thirteen years ago, when I first knew him, he and two others were the especiallyⒶtextual note handsome men of America. Those othersⒶtextual note were Choate and Twichell. I was not in the competition at that time. I think that those three are still the handsomest men in America, though this cannot be determined by their pictures, because of the inadequacy of pictures in general. Half an hour ago a darling little creature, in summer frock and with her hair hanging in plaitedⒶtextual note tails down her back, arrived here, and I put my arm around her shoulders and snuggledⒶtextual note her head against my breast and inquired, and acquired, her name. PresentlyⒶtextual note she said,
“I have never seen you before, but I knew you by your pictures.”
Then she nestled her head back, tilted up her face,Ⓐtextual note and looked sweetly up and added,Ⓐtextual note
“But they are not half so beautifulⒶtextual note as you are.”
I was aware of it before, but to please her I pretended that it was a discovery, and that this was the first time any one had exhibited so delicate and so just a penetration.
Those three men are extravagantly and satisfyingly handsome, but I doubt if Henry Rogers is second in the competition. It is an old saying that whatever is unpleasant in a person’s character and disposition will come out at sea, and that if he has any disagreeable infirmities of temper he will not be able to conceal them on shipboard. I have made a great many voyages with Mr. Rogers and his friends in his yacht, and his character and disposition always stood the test. He was always genial, always courteous, always diligently thoughtful of others. On land it is the same. Consider that most temper-trying game—billiards. When Mr. Rogers painstakingly tries for an easy shot and misses it a couple of yards and I burst into an unfeeling laugh, he does not resent it, he only leans on his cue and looks wounded, and says “I should be sorry to have a disposition like yours.”
One would think I am painting an angel; but it is only a future one.Ⓐtextual note If there is a better [begin page 162] man among us, a cleaner man, a kindlier man, a man with fewer faults, I have not met him.
In mid-July, 1895, Mrs. Clemens and Clara and I started on our lecturing and book-making money-grubbing raid around the globe, and every day we melted a layer off the Webster debt. At the end of two and a half years we had earned the necessary money, then Mr. Rogers paid off all of the ninety-six creditors at one sitting. We still had ten thousand dollars in bank in London, and eighteen thousand five hundred dollars left over in his hands in New York. We were living in Vienna. I sent over and asked him to bet on Federal Steel with the eighteen thousand five hundred dollars. He bought the stock, and after two or three months he sold it for considerably more than twice the figure he had paid for itⒺexplanatory note. The wolf has not molested our door since. Whenever I have trusted Mr. Rogers to invest my savings for me I have prospered; but nearly every time that I have stealthily and clandestinely crept into the market and invested them on my own judgment I have got struck by lightning.Ⓐtextual note
Now let us go back to the beginning and see if we can adequatelyⒶtextual note do up that man—No. 14Ⓐtextual note in the blatherskite gallery. No, gentle stenographer,Ⓐtextual note put up your pencil—this is not the time. I don’t seem to be loaded—and when I take hold of him I want to warm him up so competently that when he lands at his final home Satan will be obliged to say “You can come in if you like, but after what you have been through with my nephew we’ve nothing fresh to offer you here.”Ⓐtextual note
The man has done me no harm, but I have never liked his complexion.Ⓐtextual note
Mr. Rogers gave a part of his time . . . to the straightening out of my Paige entanglements] For Rogers’s role in dealing with the failure of the Paige typesetting machine see AutoMT1 , 497–98 n. 106.23–24.
an agreement between the American Publishing Company and the Harpers . . . issued by the former Company] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 17 July 1906, note at 143.34–144.5.
three years ago . . . servant to only one—the Harper Corporation] In October 1903 Harpers bought the American Publishing Company for $50,000, half of it paid by Harpers and half by the Clemenses. Harpers agreed to pay the Clemenses a royalty of 20 percent on individual titles and 17 percent on uniform editions ( HHR, 691–99, 700–708). Clemens wrote in his notebook at the time:
The contract . . . concentrates all my books in Harper’s hands, & now at last they are valuable: in fact they are a fortune. They guarantee me $25,000 a year for 5 years, but they will yield twice as much as that for many a year, if intelligently handled. Four months ago I could not have believed that I could ever get rid of my 30-years’ slavery to the pauper American Publishing Co—a worthless concern which always kept a blight upon the books. (Notebook 46, TS p. 15, CU-MARK)
Federal Steel . . . more than twice the figure he had paid for it] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 2 June 1906, note at 80.6–7.
Source documents.
TS1 ribbon (lost) Typescript, leaves numbered 1009–14, made from Hobby’s notes and revised (conjecturally); now lost.TS1 carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1009–14, revised.
TS2 Typescript carbon (the ribbon copy is lost), leaves numbered 1008–14, made from the revised TS1 ribbon (lost).
TS4 Typescript, leaves numbered 1407–13, made from the revised TS1 ribbon.
Most unusually, the ribbon copies of both TS1 and TS2 are missing; their respective carbon copies are our extant primary documents. Collation reveals that Clemens revised the lost TS1 ribbon, and those changes are reflected in the text of TS2. If any revisions were made to the (lost) TS2 ribbon, they are beyond recovery; the sigil ‘TS2’ refers to the carbon copy.
Because of the loss of TS1 ribbon, TS4 takes on an atypical potential significance. It was typed from the revised TS1 ribbon; so it stands alongside TS2 as an independent witness to the readings of the lost document. Where the (typed, unrevised) TS2 and TS4 are at variance, either could potentially be correct. TS4 has been fully collated; in the event, it contributes no readings (‘warm-hearted’ [at 161.9] is emended in line with our standardization policy).
The single sentence added by Clemens to the end of TS1 carbon (‘The man has done me no harm, but I have never liked his complexion.’) does not appear in TS2 or in TS4, and therefore was not among the revisions on TS1 ribbon. It could be a late addition to TS1 carbon—and indeed we have no way of knowing whether it was added to TS1 ribbon at the same time. There seems no compelling reason to reject this authorial addition.