Explanatory Notes
Headnote
Apparatus Notes
Guide
MTPDocEd
Autobiographical Dictation, 16 October 1906 ❉ Textual Commentary

Source documents.

TS1 ribbon      Typescript, leaves numbered 1354–59, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.
TS1 carbon      Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1354–59, revised.
NAR 24pf      Galley proofs of NAR 24, typeset from the revised TS1 carbon (the same extent as NAR 24), ViU.
NAR 24      North American Review 186 (November 1907), 328–30: ‘Warner is . . . remember once——’ (260.13–261.42).

Paine reviewed TS1 ribbon for possible publication in NAR; he queried the anecdote about Jim Wolf, writing in the margin ‘all this story not very funny?’. Clemens made a few revisions on TS1 ribbon, and transferred them to TS1 carbon, which he further revised to create printer’s copy for an NAR installment. (The section of NAR 24pf corresponding to this dictation bears no revisions.) The AD was published in NAR 24, where it was grouped with the ADs of 9 October, 11 October (partial), and 12 October 1906 and 23 January 1907 (partial).

Marginal Notes on TS1 carbon Concerning Publication in NAR

Location on TS Writer, Medium Exact Inscription Explanation
TS1 ribbon, pp. 1356–57 Paine, pencil All this story not very funny?
passage bracketed and queried
possibly omit the anecdote about Jim Wolf, from ‘Once when’ (261.8) to the end
TS1 carbon, p. 1354 SLC, ink To follow what Susy says about Onteora. Quote her remark. (Use all of it.)
II
use as the second section of the NAR installment, which should begin with the AD of 9 Oct 1906
TS1 carbon, p. 1354 SLC, ink 2 R p’s number of NAR pages
TS1 carbon, p. 1354 Munro, pencil summary paragraph deleted  
TS1 carbon, p. 1355 unidentified NAR editor, pencil 1881
nightly reading of Uncle Remus
year of the events in this AD
TS1 carbon, p. 1359 SLC, ink stop end the excerpt at the end of this AD
Tuesday, October 16, 1906

Reminiscences of Charles Dudley Warner and Uncle Remus—Anecdote of Jim Wolftextual note and the wasps.

Warnertextual note is gone. Stockton is gone. I attended both funerals. Warner was a near neighbor, from the autumn of ’71 until his death, nineteen years afterwardexplanatory note. It is not the privilege of the most of us to have many intimate friends—a dozen is our aggregate—but I think he could count his by the score. It is seldom that a man is so beloved by both sexes and all ages as Warner was. There was a charm about his spirit, and his ways, and his words, that won all that came within the sphere of its influence. Our children adopted him while they were little creatures, and thenceforth, to the end, he was “Cousin Charley”textual note to them. He was “Uncle Charley”textual note to the children of more than one other friend. Mrs. Clemens was very fond of him, and he always calledtextual note her by her first name—shortened. Warner died, as she died, and as I would die—without premonition, without a moment’s warning.

Uncle Remus still lives, and must be over a thousand years old. Indeedtextual note I know that this must be so, because I have seen a new photograph of him in the public prints within the last month or soexplanatory note, and in that picture his aspects are distinctly and strikingly geological, and one can see thattextual note he is thinking about the mastodons and the plesiosaurians that he used to play with when he was young.

It is just a quarter of a century since I have seen Uncle Remus. He visited us in our home in Hartfordexplanatory note and was reverently devoured by the big eyes of Susy and Clara,—textual notefor Itextual note made a deep and awful impression upon the little creatures,textual note who knew his book by heart through my nightly declamation of its tales to them—by revealing to them privately that he was the real Uncle Remus whitewashedtextual note so that he could come into people’s houses the front way.

He was the bashfulesttextual note grown person I have ever met. When there were people about he stayedtextual note silent, and seemed to suffer until they were gone. But he was lovely, nevertheless; for the sweetness and benignity of the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, and the graces and sincerities of his character shone in his face.

It may be that Jim Wolftextual note was as bashful as Harris. It hardly seems possible, yet as I look back fifty-six years and consider Jim Wolf,textual note I am almost persuaded that he was. He [begin page 261] was our longtextual note slim apprentice in my brother’s printing-office in Hannibal. However, in an earlier chapter I have already introduced him. He was the lad whom I assisted with uninvited advice and sympathy the night he had the memorable adventure with the catsexplanatory note.textual note He was seventeen, and yet he was as much as four times as bashful as I was, though I was only fourteen. He boarded and slept in the house, but he was always tongue-tied in the presence of my sister, and when even my gentle mother spoke to him he could not answer save in frightened monosyllables. He would not enter a room where a girl was; nothing could persuade him to do such a thing. Once when he was in our small parlor alone,textual note two majestic old maids entered and seated themselves in such a way that Jim could not escape without passing by them. He would as soon have thought of passing by one of Harris’s plesiosaurianstextual note ninety feet long. I came in presently, was charmed with the situation, and sat down in a corner to watch Jim suffer, and enjoy it. My mother followed,textual note a minute later,textual note and sat down with the visitors and began to talk. Jim sat upright in his chair, and during a quarter of an hour he did not change his position by a shade—neither General Grant nor a bronze image could have maintained that immovable pose more successfully. I mean as to body and limbs; with the face there was a difference. By fleeting revealments of the face I saw that something was happening—something out of the common. There would be a sudden twitch of the muscles of the face, an instant distortion, which in the next instant had passed and left no trace. These twitches gradually grew in frequency, but no muscle outside of the face lost any of its rigidity, or betrayed any interest in what was happening to Jim. I mean if something was textual note happening to him, and I knew perfectly well that that was the case. At last a pair of tears began to swim slowly down his cheeks amongst the twitchings, but Jim sat still and let them run; then I saw his right hand steal along his thigh until half waytextual note to his knee, then take a vigorous grip upon the cloth.

That was a wasp textual note that he was grabbing!textual note A colony of them were climbing up his legs and prospecting around, and every time he winced they stabbed him to the hilt—so for a quarter of an hour one group of excursionists after another climbed up Jim’s legs and resented even the slightest wince or squirm that he indulged himself with,textual note in his misery. When the entertainment had become nearly unbearable, he conceived the idea of gripping them between his fingers and putting them out of commission. He succeeded with many of them, but at great cost, for,textual note as he couldn’t see the wasp,textual note he was as likely to take hold of the wrong end of him as he was the right; then the dying wasp gave him a punch to remember the incident by.

If those ladies had stayedtextual note all day, and if all the wasps in Missouri had come and climbed up Jim’s legs, nobody there would ever have known it but Jim and the waspstextual note and me. There he would have sat until the ladies left.

Whentextual note they finally went awaytextual note we went up stairstextual note and he took his clothes off, and his legs were a picture to look at. They looked as if they were mailed all over with shirt-buttons,textual note each with a single red hole in the centretextual note. The pain was intolerable—no, would have been intolerable, but the pain of the presence of those ladies had been so much harder to bear that the pain of the wasps’ stings was quite pleasant and enjoyable by comparison.

Jim never could enjoy wasps. I remember once——textual note

Textual Notes Tuesday, October 16, 1906
  Wolf ●  Wolfe (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon) 
  Warner ●  Warner (TS1 ribbon)  . . . . Warner (TS1 carbon)  . . . Warner (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  “Cousin Charley” ●  Cousin Charley (TS1 ribbon)  Cousin Charley  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  “Cousin Charley” (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  “Uncle Charley” ●  Uncle Charley (TS1 ribbon)  Uncle Charley  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  “Uncle Charley” (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  called ●  called (TS1 ribbon, NAR 24pf, NAR 24)  ch alled (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  Indeed ●  Indeed (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  Indeed, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  that ●  that (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon, NAR 24pf)  not in  (NAR 24) 
  Clara,— ●  Clara, (TS1 ribbon, NAR 24pf, NAR 24)  Clara, dash added by SLC, deleted by Munro  (TS1 carbon-SLC + Munro) 
  I ●  I (TS1 ribbon, NAR 24pf, NAR 24)  I I illegible revision canceled  (TS1 carbon-SLC) 
  creatures, ●  creatures— (TS1 ribbbon)  creatures ,  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  creatures, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  whitewashed ●  whitewashed,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  whitewashed (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  bashfulest ●  bashfulest (TS1 ribbon, NAR 24pf, NAR 24)  bashfullest (TS1 carbon-Munro) 
  stayed ●  staid (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon, NAR 24pf)  stayed (NAR 24) 
  Wolf ●  Wolfe  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  Wolf (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  Wolf, ●  Wolfe ,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  Wolf, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  long ●  long,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  long (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  However . . . cats. ●  However . . . cats. (TS1 ribbon)  However . . . cats.  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  not in  (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  alone, ●  alone,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  alone, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  plesiosaurians ●  plesiosaurians,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  plesiosaurians (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  followed, ●  followed, (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  followed (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  later, ●  later, (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  later (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  was  ●  was ‘was’ underscored  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  was  (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  half way ●   (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  half-way (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  wasp  ●  wasp (TS1 ribbon)  wasp ‘wasp’ underscored  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  wasp  (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  grabbing! ●  grabbing. (TS1 ribbon)  grabbing. ! period mended to an exclamation point  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  grabbing! (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  with, ●  with (TS1 ribbon)  with,  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  with, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  for, ●  for (TS1 ribbon)  for,  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  for, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  wasp, ●  wasp (TS1 ribbon)  wasp,  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  wasp, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  stayed ●  staid (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon, NAR 24pf)  stayed (NAR 24) 
  wasps ●  wasps,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  wasps (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  [¶] When ●  no When (TS1 ribbon)  When (TS1 carbon-SLC)  [¶] When (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  finally went away ●  were gone (TS1 ribbon)  were gone finally went away  (TS1 carbon-SLC)  finally went away (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  up stairs ●  upstairs (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  up-stairs (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  shirt-buttons, ●  shirt buttons,  (TS1 ribbon-SLC, TS1 carbon-SLC)  shirt buttons, (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  centre ●  center (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  centre (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
  once—— ●  once—— (TS1 ribbon, TS1 carbon)  once— (NAR 24pf, NAR 24) 
Explanatory Notes Tuesday, October 16, 1906
 

Warner is gone. Stockton is gone. I attended both funerals . . . nineteen years afterward] Warner died in October 1900 (twenty-nine years after the Clemenses settled in Hartford). His funeral took place in the Asylum Hill Congregational Church; Clemens was an honorary pallbearer, and the Reverend Joseph Twichell officiated. Frank Stockton died in April 1902, and his funeral was held at his sister’s home in Philadelphia; Clemens was again an honorary pallbearer (“Funeral of Mr. Warner,” Hartford Courant, 24 Oct 1900, 4; “Frank R. Stockton’s Funeral,” New York Times, 25 Apr 1902, 3).

 

Uncle Remus still lives . . . photograph of him in the public prints within the last month or so] Clemens probably saw a photograph of Joel Chandler Harris taken by Underwood and Underwood that was published in the Washington Post on 15 July 1906 (17) and possibly elsewhere. Harris was fifty-seven years old (see the photograph following page 300; AutoMT1 , 532–33 n. 217.25–27).

 

It is just a quarter of a century since I have seen Uncle Remus . . . our home in Hartford] Harris made a long-promised visit to Hartford in the spring of 1883 (12 Dec 1881 and 5 Sept 1882 to Harris, GEU; Harris 1918, 191–92).

 

in an earlier chapter I have already introduced him . . . memorable adventure with the cats] See “Scraps from My Autobiography. From Chapter IX” ( AutoMT1 , 159–61).