Authorship of the lines beginning “Love Came at DawnⒶtextual note”—Also authorship of lines inscribed on Susy’s gravestone—Mr. Clemens will try his billiard scheme for winning bets from Mr. Dooley when he comes to play billiards on Friday—Tells how he tried it on Mr. GeorgeⒶtextual note Robinson, long ago.
In an earlier chapter I inserted some verses beginning “Love Came at DawnⒶtextual note”Ⓔexplanatory note which had been found among Susy’s papers after her death. I was not able to say that they were hers, but I judged that they might be, for the reason that she had not enclosed them in quotation marks according to her habit when storing up treasures gathered from other people. Stedman was not able to determine the authorship for me, as the verses were new to him, but the authorship has now been traced. The verses were written by William Wilfred CampbellⒺexplanatory note, a Canadian poet, and they form a part of the contents of his book called “Beyond the Hills of Dream.”Ⓔexplanatory note
The authorship of the beautiful lines which my wife and I inscribed upon Susy’s gravestone was untraceable for a time. We had found them in a book in India, but had lost the book,Ⓐtextual note and with it the author’s name. But in time an application to the editor of [begin page 377] Notes and Queries Ⓐtextual note furnished me the author’s name,* and it has been added to the verses upon the gravestoneⒺexplanatory note.
Last night, at a dinner partyⒶtextual note where I was present, Mr. Peter DunneⒶtextual note DooleyⒺexplanatory note handed to the host several dollars, in satisfaction of a lost bet. I seemed to see an opportunity to better my condition, and I invited Dooley, apparently disinterestedly, to come to my house Friday and play billiards. He accepted, and I judge that there is going to be a deficit in the Dooley treasuryⒶtextual note as a result. In great qualities of the heart and brain, Dooley is gifted beyond all propriety. He is brilliant; he is an expert with his pen, and heⒶtextual note easily stands at the head of all the satirists of this generationⒺexplanatory note—but he is going to walk in darkness Friday afternoon. It will be a fraternal kindness to teach himⒶtextual note that with all his light andⒶtextual note culture, he does not know all the valuable thingsⒶtextual note; and it will also be a fraternal kindness to him to complete his education for him—and I shall doⒶtextual note this on Friday, and send him home in that perfectedⒶtextual note condition.
I possess a billiard secret which can be valuable to the Dooley septⒶtextual note after I shall have conferred it upon Dooley—Ⓐtextual notefor a consideration. It is a discovery which I made by accident, thirty-eight years ago, in my father-in-law’s house in Elmira. There was a scarred and battered and ancient billiard tableⒶtextual note in the garret, and along with it a peck of checked and chipped balls, and a rackful of crooked and headless cues. I played solitaire up there every day with that difficult outfit. The table was not level, but slanted sharply to the southeastⒶtextual note; there wasn’t a ball that was round, or would complete the journey you started it on, but would always get tired and stop half wayⒶtextual note and settle, with a jolty wobble,Ⓐtextual note to a standstill on its chipped side. I tried making counts with four balls, but found it difficult and discouraging, so IⒶtextual note added a fifth ball, then a sixth, then a seventh, and kept on adding until at last I had twelve balls on the table and a thirteenth to play with. My game was caromsⒺexplanatory note—caroms solely—caroms plain, or caroms with cushion to help—anything that could furnish a count. In the course of time I found to my astonishment that I was never able to run fifteenⒶtextual note, under any circumstances. By huddling the balls advantageously in the beginning, I could now and then coax fourteenⒶtextual note out of them, but I couldn’t reach fifteenⒶtextual note by either luck or skill. Sometimes the balls would get scattered into difficult positions and defeat me in that way; sometimes if I managed to keep them together I would freeze; and always when I froze, and had to play away from the contact, there was sure to be nothing to play at but a wide and uninhabited vacancy.
One day Mr. DillonⒶtextual note called on my brother-in-law, on a matter of businessⒺexplanatory note, and I was asked if I
could entertain him a while, until my brother-in-law should finishⒶtextual note an engagement with another gentleman. I said I could, and took him up to the billiard
tableⒶtextual note. I had played with him many times at the clubⒺexplanatory note, and knew that he could play billiards tolerably well—only tolerably well—Ⓐtextual notebut not any better than I could. He and I were just a match. He didn’t know ourⒶtextual note table; he didn’t know those balls; he didn’t knowⒶtextual note those warped and
*Robert Richardson, deceased, of Australia.Ⓐtextual note [begin page 378] headless cues; he didn’t know the southeasternⒶtextual note slant of the table, and how to allow for it. I judged it would be safe and profitable to offer him a bet on my scheme. I emptied the avalanche of thirteen balls on the table and said,Ⓐtextual note
“Take a ball and begin, Mr. DillonⒶtextual note. How many can you run with an outlay like that?”
He said, with the half-affrontedⒶtextual note air of a mathematician who hasⒶtextual note been asked how much of the multiplication table he canⒶtextual note recite without a break,Ⓐtextual note
“I suppose a million—eight hundred thousand, anyway.”
I said “You shall have the privilege of placing the balls to suit yourself, and I want to bet you a dollar that you can’t run fifteenⒶtextual note.”
I will not dwell upon the sequel. At the end of an hour his face was red, and wet with perspiration; his outer garments lay scattered here and there over the place; he was the angriest man in the State, and there wasn’t a rag or remnant of an injurious adjective left in him anywhere—and I had all his small change.
When the summer was overⒶtextual note we went home to Hartford, and one day Mr. George RobinsonⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note arrived from Boston with two or three hours to spare between then and the return train, and as he was a young gentleman to whom we were in debt for much social pleasure, it was my duty, and a welcome duty, to make his two or three hours interesting for him. So I took him up stairsⒶtextual note and set up my billiard scheme for his comfort. Mine was a good table,Ⓐtextual note in perfect repair; the cues were in perfect condition; the balls were ivory, and flawless—but I knew that Mr. RobinsonⒶtextual note was my prey, just the same, for by exhaustive tests with this outfit I had found that my limit was thirty-oneⒶtextual note. I had proved to my satisfaction that whereas I could not fairly expect to get more than six or eight or a dozen caroms out of a run, I could now and then reach twentyⒶtextual note and twenty-fiveⒶtextual note, and after a long procession of failures finally achieve a run of thirty-oneⒶtextual note; butⒶtextual note in no case had I ever got beyond thirty-oneⒶtextual note. Robinson’sⒶtextual note game, as I knew, was a little better than mine, so I resolved to require him to make thirty-twoⒶtextual note. I believed it would entertain him. He was one of these brisk and hearty and cheery and self-satisfiedⒶtextual note young fellows who are brimful of confidence, and who plunge with grateful eagerness into any enterprise that offers a showy test of their abilities. I emptied the balls on the table and said,
“Take a cue and a ball, George, and begin. How many caroms do you think you can make out of that layoutⒶtextual note?”
He laughed the laugh of the gay and the care-freeⒶtextual note, as became his youth and inexperience, and said,
“I can punch caroms out of that bunch a week without a break.”
I said “Place the balls to suit yourself, and begin.”
Confidence is a necessary thing in billiards, but over-confidenceⒶtextual note is bad. George went at his task with much too much lightsomeness of spirit and disrespect for the situation. On his first shot he scored three caroms; on his second shot he scored four caroms; and on his third shot he missed as simple a carom as could be devised. He was very much astonished, and said he would not have supposed that careful play could be needed with an acre of bunched balls in front of a person.
[begin page 379]He began again, and played more carefully, but still with too much lightsomeness; he couldn’t seem to learn to take the situation seriously. He made about a dozen caroms,Ⓐtextual note and brokeⒶtextual note down. He was irritatedⒶtextual note with himself now, and he thought he caught me laughing. He didn’t. I do not laugh publicly at my client when this game is going on; I only do it inside—or save it for after the exhibition is over. But he thought he had caught me laughing, and it increased his irritation. Of course I knew he thoughtⒶtextual note I was laughing privately—for I was experienced; they all think that, and it has a good effect; it sharpens their annoyance and debilitates their play.
He made another trial and failed. Once more he was astonished; once more he was humiliated—and as for his anger, it rose to summer-heat.Ⓐtextual note He arranged the balls again, grouping them carefully, and said he would win this time, or die. When a client reaches this conditionⒶtextual note it is a good time to damage his nerve further, and this can always be done by saying some little mocking thing or other that has the outside appearance of a friendly remark—so I employed this art. I suggested that a bet might tauten his nervesⒶtextual note, and that I would offer one, but that as I did not want it to be an expense to him, but only a help, I would make it small—a cigar, if he were willing—a cigar that he would fail again;Ⓐtextual note not an expensive one, but a cheapⒶtextual note native one, of the Crown Jewel breed, such as is manufactured in Hartford for the clergy. It set him afire all over!Ⓐtextual note I could see the blue flame issue from his eyes. He said,
“Make it a hundred!Ⓐtextual note—and no Connecticut cabbage-leaf product, but HavanasⒶtextual note, twenty-five dollarsⒶtextual note the box!Ⓐtextual note”
I took him up, but said I was sorry to see him do this, because it did not seem to me right or fair for meⒶtextual note to rob him under our own roof, when he had been so kind to us. He said, with energy and acrimony,Ⓐtextual note
“You take care of your own pocket, if you’ll be so good, and leave me to take care of mine.”
And he plunged at the congress of balls with a vindictiveness which was infinitely contenting to me. He scored a failure—and began to undress. I knew it would come to that, for he was in the condition now that Mr. Dooley will be in at about that stage of the contest on Friday afternoon. A clothes-rack will be provided for Mr. Dooley to hang his things on, as fastⒶtextual note as he shallⒶtextual note from time to timeⒶtextual note shed them. George raised his voice four degrees and flung out the challenge—Ⓐtextual note
“Double or quits!Ⓐtextual note”
“Done,” I responded, in the gentle and compassionate voice of one who is apparently getting sorrier and sorrier.
There was an hour and a half of straight disaster after that, and if it was a sin to enjoy it, it is no matter—I did enjoy it. It is half a lifetime ago, but I enjoy it yet, every time I think of it. George made failure after failure. His fury increased with each failure as he scored it. With each defeat he flung off one or another rag of his raiment, and every time he started on a fresh inning he made it “double or quits” once more. Twice he reached thirtyⒶtextual note and broke down; once he reached thirty-oneⒶtextual note and broke down. These “nears” made [begin page 380] him frantic, and I believe I was never so happy in my life, except the time, a few years later, when the ReverendⒶtextual note J. H. Twichell and I walked to Boston and he had the celebrated conversation with the hostlerⒺexplanatory note at the Inn at Ashford, Connecticut.
At last, when we were notified that PatrickⒺexplanatory note was at the door to drive him to his train, George owed me five thousand cigars at twenty-five cents apiece, and I was so sorry I could have hugged him. But he shouted,Ⓐtextual note
“Give me ten minutes more!Ⓐtextual note” and added stormily, “it’s double or quits again, and I’ll win out free of debt or owe you ten thousand cigars, and you’ll pay the funeral expenses.”
He began on his final effort, and I believe that in all my experience among both amateurs and expertsⒶtextual note I have never seen a cue so carefully handled in my lifetime as George handled his upon this intensely interesting occasion. He got safely up to twenty-fiveⒶtextual note, and then ceased to breathe. So did I. He labored along, and added a point, another point, still another point, and finally reached thirty-oneⒶtextual note. He stopped there, and we took a breath. By this time the balls were scattered all down the cushions,Ⓐtextual note about a foot or two apart, and there wasn’t a shot in sight anywhere that any man might hope to make. In a burst of anger and confessed defeat, he sent his ball flying around the table at random, and it crotched a ball that was packed against the cushion and sprang acrossⒶtextual note to a ball against the bank on the opposite side,Ⓐtextual note and counted!Ⓐtextual note
His luck had set him free, and he didn’t owe me anything. He had used up all his spare time, but we carried his clothes to the carriageⒶtextual note and he dressed on his way to the station, greatly wondered at and admired by the ladies, as he drove along—but he got his train.
I am very fond of Mr. Dooley, and shall await his coming with affectionate and pecuniary interest.
P.S. Saturday. He has been here. Let us not talk about itⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note
In an earlier chapter I inserted some verses beginning “Love Came at Dawn”] In the Autobiographical Dictation of 2 February 1906 (see AutoMT1 , 325, 579 n. 325.15–25).
Stedman was not able to determine the authorship . . . William Wilfred Campbell] In a letter of 17 January 1907 Frank Nicholls Kennin identified Campbell as the author of the poem, entitled “Love” (CU-MARK). Kennin had seen Clemens’s mistaken attribution to Susy Clemens in an excerpt from the 2 February 1906 Autobiographical Dictation published in the North American Review on 5 October 1906 (NAR 3). Isabel Lyon noted in her journal that Clemens was glad to have the correction, for
he would not want Susy to be claiming from the Grave, a thing that was not hers. He went on to say that the particular reason for his dislike of Stedman is due to the fact that the King wrote him just after we came home from Italy, asking if he could tell him who wrote the verses, & Stedman wrote him such an indifferent letter, one claiming all honor for Stedman the Anthologist, & evincing no interest for anyone’s but Stedman’s poems. (Lyon 1907, entry for 20 Jan)
For Stedman see the Autobiographical Dictation of 2 June 1906, note at 78.19–28. His “indifferent letter,” evidently written in July or August 1904, is not known to survive.
his book called “Beyond the Hills of Dream.”] Campbell’s book was published in 1899, three years after Susy’s death. “Love” had also appeared in the Century Magazine for October 1891, where Susy presumably saw it. On the 17 January letter from Kennin, which provided the title of Campbell’s book, Lyon noted Clemens’s instruction to “send & get the book” (CU-MARK). It is not known if she succeeded.
author’s name,* and it has been added to the verses upon the gravestone] The inscription on Susy Clemens’s headstone, in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York, now reads:
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind
Blow softly here,
Green sod above
Lie light, lie light—
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.”
Robert Richardson
The lines are the Clemenses’ adaptation of the last stanza of “Annette,” by Robert Richardson (1850–1901), from his 1893 collection, Willow and Wattle (Jerome and Wisbey 1977, 165; Robert Richardson 1893, 33–35; see also Gribben 1980, 2:577–78).
Last night, at a dinner party . . . Mr. Peter Dunne Dooley] Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) was the author of several popular collections of social and political commentary spoken in the voice of Martin Dooley, an Irish bartender. He and Clemens had met in London in 1899. The 21 January dinner party was at the home of publisher Robert J. Collier (1876–1918). In her journal Lyon noted that Clemens “came home at 10.30 with freesia in his button hole, & smoking a long thick cigar. He dropped into his big brown chair & told how Mr Dooley was there, & what a pleasant time it was” (Lyon 1907; Ellis 1941, 126–27).
Dooley . . . stands at the head of all the satirists of this generation] The admiration Clemens felt for Dunne was more than reciprocated during their decade-long friendship. And in 1935, upon the centenary of Clemens’s birth, Dunne wrote that “if any centennial anniversary should be celebrated it is that of our unequaled humorist. Emerson and Clemens our greatest writers; Emerson and Clemens, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Abraham Lincoln. No ‘centenary’ can be too vivacious, no monument too high for him and his fame” (Dunne 1963, 240).
My game was caroms] Carom billiards is played on a pocketless table with two white cue balls and one red object ball. To score a point, a player must make a shot in which the cue ball caroms (hits and rebounds off) each of the other two balls. If his shot fails to hit either one, he loses his turn, or “run.”
Mr. Dillon called on my brother-in-law, on a matter of business] Olivia Clemens’s younger brother, Charles J. Langdon, had succeeded their father, Jervis, as head of the family coal business after the latter’s death in 1870 (see AutoMT1 , 578 n. 321.25–27). Dillon has not been identified. For the North American Review version of this dictation, published on 5 April 1907 (NAR 15), Clemens changed “Dillon” to the fictional name “Dalton.”
I had played with him many times at the club] Probably the Elmira City Club.
Mr. George Robinson] George M. Robinson, an Elmira furniture manufacturer and dealer, was a longtime friend and billiards partner of Clemens’s (Boyd and Boyd 1872, 183–84; Towner 1892, 185–86; N&J2, 430; N&J3, 578). Clemens altered his name to “Robertson” for publication in the North American Review installment of 5 April 1907.
Twichell and I walked to Boston and he had the celebrated conversation with the hostler] The incident occurred on the evening of 12 November 1874, after the first day of the comically abortive “pedestrian excursion” that Clemens and Twichell made from Hartford to Boston. In 1882 Clemens included a nineteen-page account of the ostler’s “crimson lava-jets of desolating & utterly unconscious profanity” in the manuscript of chapter 34 of Life on the Mississippi, but cut it before the book was published. That account did not see print until 1940, when Bernard DeVoto published it in Mark Twain in Eruption, in the mistaken belief that it was an early autobiographical sketch. In 1907, therefore, the conversation was “celebrated” only among friends, who doubtless had heard Clemens recount it (12 Nov 1874 to OLC [1st and 2nd], L6, 277–79; AutoMT1 , 8 n. 21; SLC 1882c, 431, 437; MTE, 366–72).
Patrick] Patrick McAleer, the Clemens family’s coachman from 1870 until 1891 ( AutoMT1 , 579 n. 322.31–42, 621 n. 412.41–42).
P.S. Saturday. He has been here. Let us not talk about it] In her journal Lyon reported on Dunne’s billiards visit on Friday, 25 January:
The King says “I am just thirsting for blood & Mr Dooley is going to furnish it!”—Billiards!— Mr Dooley is coming for luncheon. But the King is walking up & down the billiard room with quick light eager steps—ready for dictation, but readier for the blood of Mr Dooley—
Later:—He got the blood, for he & Mr Dooley played all the afternoon—& while Mr D isn’t a good billiardist, he is good company, & the King was quite happy I think— (Lyon 1907)
Evidently recalling this same occasion, Paine noted that Dunne’s defeats “continued until Clemens had twenty-five dollars of Dunne’s money, and Dunne was sweating and swearing, and Mark Twain rocking with delight” ( MTB, 3:1367). Nevertheless, given that Clemens’s postscript suggests that the billiards contest was not to his satisfaction, this may also have been the occasion on which—according to Dunne’s biographer—he played his
trick of introducing one white billiard ball that was not quite round, and watching the consternation of his opponent as he tried to use it as his cue ball. But Dunne was either forewarned or quick to detect the imperfection; for he ignored it until Twain’s back was turned, and then he reversed the white balls and the shoe was on the other foot. (Ellis 1941, 195)
Source documents.
TS1 ribbon Typescript, leaves numbered 1655–66, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS1 carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1655–66, revised.
NAR 15pf Galley proofs of NAR 15, typeset from the revised TS1 ribbon and further revised (the same extent as NAR 15), ViU.
NAR 15 North American Review 184 (5 April 1907), 677–82: ‘Tuesday . . . 1907’ (376 title); ‘In an earlier . . . talk about it.’ (376.27–380.24).
In a reversal of his usual pattern, Clemens first revised TS1 carbon and then transferred most of his revisions to TS1 ribbon. He then further revised TS1 ribbon to serve as printer’s copy for an NAR installment. NAR editor David Munro made some changes of his own on TS1 ribbon. Clemens then revised the NAR galley proofs and the dictation was published in NAR, where it followed the AD of 8 October 1906. At one time, Clemens thought of including an excerpt from the AD of 8 August 1906, but ultimately omitted it (see the Textual Commentary).
Marginal Notes on TS1 ribbon Concerning Publication in NAR
(5 Review pages.)