Item from Susy’s BiographyⒶtextual note about Sour Mash—Mr. Clemens describes the threeⒶtextual note kittens which he rented for the summer and will return to their home when he goes back to the city—Their characteristics likened to the characteristics of human beings—The ugliness of masculine attire.
From Susy’s Biography. Ⓐtextual note
Papa says that if the collera comes here he will take Sour Mash to the mountains.
This remark about the cat is followed by various entries, covering a monthⒺexplanatory note, in which Jean, General Grant, the sculptor GerhardtⒺexplanatory note, Mrs. Candace Wheeler, Miss Dora WheelerⒺexplanatory note, Mr. Frank Stockton, Mrs. Mary Mapes DodgeⒺexplanatory note, and the widow of General CusterⒺexplanatory note appear and drift in procession across the page, then vanish forever from the BiographyⒶtextual note; then Susy drops this remark in the wake of the vanished procession:
Sour Mash is a constant source of anxiety, care, and pleasure to papa.
I did, in truth, think a great deal of that old tortoise-shell harlot; but I haven’t a doubt that in order to impress Susy I was pretending agonies of solicitude which I didn’t honestly feel. Sour Mash never gave me any real anxiety; she was always able to take care of herself, and she was ostentatiously vain of the fact; vain of it to a degree which often made me ashamed of her, much as I esteemedⒶtextual note her.
Many persons would like to have the society of cats during the summer vacation in the country, but they deny themselves this pleasure because they think they must either take the cats along when they return to the city, where they would be a trouble and an incumbranceⒶtextual note, or leave them in the country, houseless and homeless. These people have no ingenuity, no invention, no wisdom;Ⓐtextual note or it would occur to them to do as I do: rent Ⓐtextual note cats by the month for the summer,Ⓐtextual note and return them to their good homes at the end of it. Early last May I rented a kitten of a farmer’s wife, by the month; then I got a discount by taking three. They have been good company for about five months now, and are still kittens—at least they have not grown much, and to all intents and purposes are still kittens, and as full of romping energy and enthusiasm as they were in the beginning. This is remarkable. I am an expert in cats, but I have not seen a kitten keep its kittenhood nearly so long before.
These are beautiful creatures—these triplets. Two of them wear the blackest and shiniest and thickestⒶtextual note of sealskin vestments all over their bodies except the lower half of their faces and the terminations of their paws. The black masks reach down below the eyes, therefore when the eyes are closed they are not visible; the rest of the face, and the gloves and stockings, are snow white. These markings are just the same on both cats—so exactly the same that when you call one the other is likely to answer, because they cannot tell each other apart. Since the cats are precisely alike, and can’t be told apart by any of us,Ⓐtextual note they do not need two names, so they have but one between them. We call both of them Sackcloth, and we call the gray one Ashes. I believe I have never seen such intelligent cats as these before. They are full of the nicest discriminations. When I read German aloud they weep; you can see the tears run down. It shows what pathos there is in the German tongue. I had not noticed, before,Ⓐtextual note that all German is pathetic, no matter what the subject is nor how it is treated. It was these humble observers that brought the knowledge to me. I have tried all kinds of German on these cats; romance, poetry, philosophy, theology, market reports; and the result has always been the same—the cats sob, and let the tears run down, which shows that all German is pathetic. French is not a familiar tongue to me, and the pronunciation is difficult, and comes out of me incumberedⒶtextual note with a Missouri accent; but the cats like it, and when I make impassioned speeches in that language they sit in a row and put up their paws, palm to palm, and franticallyⒶtextual note give thanks. Hardly any cats are affected by music, but these are; when I sing they go reverently away, showing how deeply they feel it. Sour Mash never cared for these things. She had many noble and engagingⒶtextual note qualities, but at bottom she was not refined, and caredⒶtextual note little or nothing for theology and the arts.
It is a pity to say it, but these cats are not above the grade of human beings, for I know by certain signs that they are not sincere in their exhibitions of emotion, but exhibit them merely to show off and attract attention—conduct which is distinctly human, yet [begin page 249] with a difference: they do not know enough to conceal their desire to show off, but the grown human being does. What is ambition? It is only the desire to be conspicuous. The desire for fame is only the desire to be continuously conspicuous and attract attention and be talked about.
These cats are like human beings in another way: when Ashes began to work his fictitious emotions, and show off, the other members of the firm followed suit, in order to be in the fashion. That is the way with human beings; they are afraid to be outside; whatever the fashion happens to be, they conform to it, whether it be a pleasant fashion or the reverse, they lacking the courage to ignore it and go their own way. All human beings would like to dress in loose and comfortable and highly colored and showy garments, and they had their desire until a century ago, when a king, or some other influential assⒶtextual note, introduced sombreⒶtextual note hues and discomfort and ugly designs into masculine clothing. The meek public surrenderedⒶtextual note to the outrage, and by consequence we are in that odious captivity to-dayⒶtextual note, and are likely to remain in it for a long time to come.
Fortunately the women were not included in the disaster, and so their graces and their beauty still have the enhancing help of delicate fabrics and varied and beautiful colors. Their clothing makes a great opera-audienceⒶtextual note an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and the spirit, a Garden of Eden for charm and color. The men, clothed in dismalⒶtextual note black, are scattered here and there and everywhere over the GardenⒶtextual note like so many charred stumps, and they damage the effectⒶtextual note but cannot annihilate it.
In summer we poor creatures have a respite, and may clothe ourselves in white garments; loose, soft, and in some degree shapely; but in the winter—the sombreⒶtextual note winter, the depressing winter, the cheerless winter, when white clothes and bright colors are especially needed to brighten our spirits and lift them up—we all conform to the prevailing insanityⒶtextual note and go about in drearyⒶtextual note black, each man doing it because the others do it, and not because he wants to. They are really no sincererⒶtextual note than Sackcloth and Ashes. At bottom the Sackcloths do not care to exhibit their emotions when I am performing before them, they only do it because Ashes started it.
I would like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks and velvets, resplendent with all the stunning dyes of the rainbow, and so would every saneⒶtextual note man I have ever known; but none of us dares to venture it. There is such a thing as carrying conspicuousness to the point of discomfort; and if I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning, at church timeⒶtextual note, clothed as I would like to be clothed, the churches would beⒶtextual note vacantⒶtextual note and I should have all the congregations tagging after me, toⒶtextual note look, and secretly envy, and publicly scoff. ItⒶtextual note is the way human beings are made; they are always keeping their real feelings shut up inside, and publicly exploiting their fictitious ones.
Next after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the summer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white clothes and enter for the winter into the depressingⒶtextual note captivity of the shapeless and degradingⒶtextual note black ones. It is mid-October now, and the weather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will not succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the neighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid. I made a brave experiment, the other night, to see [begin page 250] how it would feel to shock a crowd with these unseasonable clothes, and also to see how long it might take the crowd to reconcile itself to them and stop looking astonished and outraged. On a stormy evening I made a talk before a full house, in the village, clothed like a ghostⒺexplanatory note, and looking as conspicuous, all solitary and alone on that platform,Ⓐtextual note as any ghost could have looked; and I found, to my gratification, that it took the house less than ten minutes to forget about the ghost and give its attention to the tidings I had brought.
I am nearly seventy-one, and I recognize that my age has given me a good many privileges; valuable privileges; privileges which are not granted to younger persons. Little by little I hope to get together courage enough to wear white clothes all through the winterⒺexplanatory note, in New York. It will be a great satisfaction to me to show off in this way; and perhaps the largest of all the satisfactions will be the knowledge that every scoffer, of my sex,Ⓐtextual note will secretly envy me and wish he dared to follow my lead.
That mention that I have acquired new and great privileges by grace of my age, is not an uncalculated remark. When I passed the seventieth milestoneⒶtextual note, ten months ago, I instantly realized that I had entered a new country and a new atmosphere. To all the public I was becomeⒶtextual note recognizably old, undeniably old; and from that moment everybody assumed a new attitude toward me—the reverent attitude granted by custom to age—and straightway the stream of generous new privileges began to flow in upon me and refresh my life. Since thenⒶtextual note I have lived an ideal existence; and I now believe what Choate saidⒶtextual note last MarchⒺexplanatory note, and which at the time I didn’t credit:Ⓐtextual note that the best of life begins at seventy; for then your work is done;Ⓐtextual note you know that you have done your best, let the quality of the work be what it may; that you have earned your holiday—a holiday of peace and contentment—and that thenceforth, to the setting of your sun, nothing will break it,Ⓐtextual note nothing interrupt it.
various entries, covering a month] In these entries Susy records her parents’ visit to Onteora Park, a colony of artists and writers in the Catskills, from 24 to 29 August 1885, while she and her sisters remained at Quarry Farm in Elmira. Clemens continues to talk about his experiences there in the Autobiographical Dictations of 9 October and 10 October 1906.
General Grant, the sculptor Gerhardt] In the spring of 1885 Karl Gerhardt had sculpted a bust of the dying Grant that greatly pleased his family. At Clemens’s suggestion, he tried to win a commission to make a statue of Grant—a bid that was ultimately unsuccessful ( N&J3, 157; for Gerhardt, and Clemens’s account of his work on the Grant bust, see AutoMT1 , 86–91, 480 n. 74.2–7).
Mrs. Candace Wheeler, Miss Dora Wheeler] Candace Wheeler (1827–1923), a pioneering decorative artist and an associate of Louis Comfort Tiffany, helped to decorate the Clemenses’ Hartford house in 1881. In 1883 she was one of the founders of Onteora Park. Dora (1857–1940), Candace’s daughter, was an artist and portrait painter. The Clemenses met them through their mutual friend Dean Sage and began a “long and enjoyable friendship” (Wheeler 1918, 324; N&J3, 178, 212, 221, 562).
Mr. Frank Stockton, Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 9 October 1906, notes at 250.29 and 250.30.
widow of General Custer] Elizabeth B. Custer (1842–1933) married General George A. Custer in 1864 and thereafter accompanied him wherever he was stationed, including the front lines during the Civil War. After his death at Little Bighorn in 1876, she glorified his memory in lectures and books. In 1887 Webster and Company issued Tenting on the Plains, her account of their experiences at military forts in Texas and Kansas in 1865–67.
I made a brave experiment . . . I made a talk before a full house, in the village, clothed like a ghost] Clemens described the “experiment” in a letter to Mary Rogers:
The night of the great storm I drove to the village through the deluge & talked, in the basement of the church, to a housefull of wet farmers & their families (it’s a gratis monthly function instituted by the ladies of the church) all clothed in sombre colors; & my spectral costume was the only cheerful object in that place. I meant to explain my clothes, but as I was passing to the platform Miss Fanny Dwight—summer-resorter, friend of ours, a person of extraordinary taste & wonderful judgment—halted me & whispered, “Mr. Clemens, you look just too sweet for anything!” I whispered back, “Miss Fanny, I was going to explain & justify these clothes, but in my opinion they don’t need it now.” My, but some girls do have the clear eye! (11–16 Oct 1906, NNC, in Leary 1961, 69–75)
I hope to get together courage enough to wear white clothes all through the winter] Clemens first wore his now-famous white suit to speak to a congressional committee on copyright in Washington on 7 December 1906 (see AD, 26 Dec 1906, where his speech is reprinted). He had appeared in the suit during interviews earlier in the day, giving several reporters a preview of the coming spectacle. Howells recalled:
Nothing could have been more dramatic than the gesture with which he flung off his long loose overcoat, and stood forth in white from his feet to the crown of his silvery head. It was a magnificent coup; but the magnificent speech which he made, tearing to shreds the venerable farrago of nonsense about non-property in ideas which had formed the basis of all copyright legislation, made you forget even his spectacularity. (Howells 1910, 96)
He began to wear the suit so regularly, both in private and for public appearances, that on 1 May the Washington Post called it his “copyrighted white flannel suit” (“Mark Twain in Gloom,” 5; for an excellent discussion of the white suit phenomenon see Shelden 2010, xvii–xxiv and notes on 433–35).
what Choate said last March] Clemens and Choate spoke at the 29 March 1906 meeting of the New York State Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind (see AutoMT1 , 649 n. 464.17–19). Choate’s remarks, as reported in the New York Times, did not include any comments about life after seventy; they were probably expressed in a private conversation (“Twain and Choate Talk at Meeting for Blind,” 30 Mar 1906, 9).
Source documents.
TS1 ribbon Typescript, leaves numbered 1319–27, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS1 carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1319–27, revised.
NAR 15pf Galley proofs of NAR 15, typeset from the revised TS1 carbon (the same extent as NAR 15), ViU.
NAR 15 North American Review 184 (5 April 1907), 673–77: ‘Monday . . . 1906’ (247 title); ‘From Susy’s . . . interrupt it.’ (247.26–5.7).
Clemens revised TS1 ribbon, and Lyon transferred his revisions (most of them) to TS1 carbon. He then further revised TS1 carbon to serve as printer’s copy for an NAR installment; he marked no revisions on the galley proofs. The phrase ‘and engaging’ that is present in NAR 15pf but not in NAR 15 (at 248.38) was evidently deleted at the magazine to save space: the installment completely fills all the pages, and otherwise would have run to another page. The dictation was paired in NAR 15 with the AD of 22 January 1907; according to a canceled note on the first page of TS1 carbon, Clemens evidently considered preceding it with the AD of 8 August 1906 (identified by its last typescript page, ‘p. 1026’), which was ultimately not included.
Marginal Notes on TS1 carbon Concerning Publication in NAR
The two will make 9 Review pages.
On a separate sheet Clemens wrote a calculation of NAR pages: