Comments on the hand “readings” which precede this instalment—Mr. Clemens’sⒶtextual note recent visit to the German clairvoyant, who tells him some correct details of his life—All the experts agree that he is to live to very old age—Appointment with Wilkerson, who says same thing about long life—Remarks about the New Orleans fortune-teller, and letter mentioned which Mr. Clemens wrote to Orion at the time in regard to the visit.
Those hand “readings” were made two years ago, at the suggestion of ColonelⒶtextual note Harvey, who wanted them for Harper’s Weekly. I was to comment upon the “readings;” then Harvey was to comment upon my comments, with the best severity he could command. I liked the scheme. I pressed my hands upon an inked roller in the printing-office; then pressed them upon sheets of white paper; the reproductions were sharp and clear. These were sent to the experts, (withⒶtextual note no name attached,)Ⓐtextual note and when the “readings” founded upon them reached Harvey I wrote outⒶtextual note my comments upon them, but Harvey went on neglecting his end of the agreement until the manuscript was mislaid and the matter [begin page 401] forgotten. But last week a circumstance recalled it to my mind, and we made a search and found my copy of it among my accumulation of unused manuscripts. That circumstance was this: I was invited to come to the house of an acquaintance up townⒶtextual note and witness the performance of a clairvoyant who was said to possess extraordinary powers. I gladly went. I found twenty ladies there, but none of the other sex except the host and the clairvoyant. The clairvoyant was a portlyⒶtextual note middle-aged gentlemanⒺexplanatory note with a smooth round face and honest eyes, good eyes, candid eyes. His manner was Germanically simple, unaffected, and engaging. He was on his feet, talking. His English was good, with just enough of his own nationality about it to give it a pleasant alien flavor. There was one vacant place; it was in the middle of a short sofa,Ⓐtextual note between two ladies whom I did not know, but who whispered their names to me and made me properly and comfortably welcome. Ladies generally do this, for I have a winning way with me which I learned in a hand-book of etiquette. The clairvoyant had distributed a number of slips of paper among the ladies, and had asked them to write questions upon the slips and crumple them up in their hands and wait until he called for them. He presently began the call. He said to a lady,Ⓐtextual note
“Please hold up your fist, with your paper gripped in it, and I will tell you what you have written.”
The lady held up her fist, and the clairvoyant said,
“I cannot make out this writing very well; there is a word in it which I do not know. If I see it right, it is c-r-o-i-s-e-t.” (The ladies all laughed.)Ⓐtextual note The clairvoyant continued: “You laugh at my spelling, but that is as I see it, although I may be wrong. The question says, ‘Shall I receive it in time from Croiset?’ ”
A quiet, happy, and unanimous laugh followed this, and the clairvoyant said:
“Now I understand; Croiset is the name of a person, and that person is making a gown for the lady and she wishes to know if she is going to receive it in time—the time stipulated. I am glad to be able to inform her that she will receive it in time.”
The lady was asked if the reading was correct, and she said it was. After this,Ⓐtextual note several fists were held up; the clairvoyant read their contents; the accuracy of his readings was verified by inspection. Three of these papers were passed to me, and I saw that the clairvoyant had read them correctly. No doubt all the others present were familiar with this kind of miracle, but as I had never encountered it before,Ⓐtextual note it filled me with wonder and admiration. By and by the clairvoyant said,
“But this is monotonous. I would like to do something better—something better entitled to your attention. I would like to tell a little part of somebody’s biography. Would that gentleman permit it, in his case?”—indicatingⒶtextual note me. “I do not know his name; I have never seen him before; I have never heard of him; he is a total stranger to me, but if he will go into a private room with me I will tell him some of his history.”
It didn’t ring true. It probably didn’t ring true to anybody present there. I knew it could easily be true, nevertheless, and that it was not fair to give hospitality to my suspicions; still he had seemed to me to protest too much. I said I should be glad to go to the private room with him, so we went. He tore some slips from a small pad, and said,Ⓐtextual note
“Write on one of them the maiden name of your mother. Write upon each of the [begin page 402] others a question—any question you please.” He pulled aside the cloth and exposed the naked surface of the polished mahogany table. He said “You must have nothing underneath the paper but a hard surface like that. If you wrote upon a soft surface the pencil would leave an indentation which a person with an abnormally delicate touch could read with his fingers.”
Then he stepped to the other side of the room and said to a housemaid who was at some kind of work there, “Sprechen Sie DeutschⒶtextual note?” The girl said she couldn’t speak it much, but she could understand it. Then the conversation went on, in German, and I presently said,
“I have finished.”
He said “Crumple the slips of paper up, put one of them in your vest pocket, hide one in your spectacle-case, shove another inside of your glove, and hold the other two in your fists.”
I did as he directed. Then he came and sat at the table and rapidly wrote some sentences on a pad, then turned the pad upside-down, and said:
“Your mother’s maiden name was Jane Lampton. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“She had nine children?”
“Yes, I think she had. I know she had eight, and I think there were nine.”
“In what part of this procession was your place?”
“I was No. 5Ⓐtextual note, if there were eight children; I was No. 6Ⓐtextual note, if there were nine.”
“Were you twelve years old when you began to earn your living?”
“Yes.”
“Were you thirty-four when you married?”
“Yes.”
“You became the father of four children?”
“Yes.”
Then he said, “The paper in your vest pocket gives your mother’s maiden name, Jane Lampton; the one in your spectacle-case asks how many children she had; the one in your glove—”
And so on. I took the crumpled papers from their concealment and found that he had located them correctly, and had delivered their contents with accuracy. He then turned his pad right-side up and handed it to me. What he had written upon it was this:
YourⒶtextual note mother,Ⓐtextual note Jane Lampton,Ⓐtextual note had nine children and you were her sixth child. At the age of twelve years you began to earn your own way of living and when thirty-four years old you married and became the father of four children, and you have surprised many people who have known you from childhood, byⒶtextual note your success.Ⓐtextual note
I was full of astonishment—an astonishment which lasted me the rest of the afternoon; but at dinner, in the evening, when I was telling about this adventure, a new suspicion rose in my mind, for I remembered that only a week or two ago I had published [begin page 403] a chapter of this Autobiography in which I had stated my mother’s maiden name, and the names of her children, up to eight, and that either in that chapter or in one which preceded it, I had told how old I was when I began to earn my own living, and all about my marriage and my childrenⒺexplanatory note. And so my doubts crowded in upon me and spoiled the pleasure which the clairvoyant’s surprising performance had furnished me.
Still there was one remark of his whose interest for me survived. He said it over twice, and assured me that it would come exactly true. This is it:
“You will live to be ninety-eight years, ten months, and two days old, and will not have a serious illness in all that time, and you will die in a foreign land.”
This had an interest for me—a distinctly depressing interest—for I do not wish to live forever, either here or elsewhere. It had another interest for me, too, for I remembered that those experts whose “readings” of my handsⒶtextual note, two years ago, I have already mentioned, had been in irritating and offensive agreement upon that very thing—my liability to overstay my time here—much as they differed about me in other regards. One of them had said I was to outlive the Scriptural time-limitⒶtextual note, and it has since come true. Another, whom I will call Wilkerson, which is not his name, said I had a long life-lineⒶtextual note; and the third expert—whom I take to be a man without a conscience—said I would live to be ninety-five.
This vicious unanimity moved me to examine into the matter further, so I made an appointment with Wilkerson and went to his place, under my own proper name, and he examined my hands for me. He said he had seen me more than once on the platform, years ago, and had often wanted to read my hands. During the next hour he told me all about my character, and I found that it still remained about as he had discovered it to be two years ago. Of course he couldn’t refrain from malignities about my old-ageⒶtextual note possibilities; toward the end, I was going to ask him about them, but he forestalled me, and said,
“You will live to be close upon a century old, and you will not die in your own country.”
In the course of our talk, coincidences were mentioned. He said,
“When your secretary telephoned me about this appointment, yesterday evening, I had just read in the evening paper of the death of Mrs. Hooker; it brought you to my mind, for of course you would know Mrs. Hooker, you and she being residents of Hartford for so many yearsⒺexplanatory note.”Ⓐtextual note I said,Ⓐtextual note
“NowⒶtextual note we have come upon another coincidence. Fifteen minutes before my secretaryⒺexplanatory note telephoned you, she had answered a long-distance telephone call from Dr. Hooker in Hartford, asking me to act as a pall-bearer at his mother’s funeralⒺexplanatory note. And there is stillⒶtextual note another one. Mr. Paine has been at his country home for a week, and on Thursday my secretary was writing him, and asked me if I had any word to send. At five o’clock on the previous afternoon I had fallen up the front steps of this house and peeled off from my starboard shin a ribbon of skin three inches long. This disaster being still in my mind, where it had persistently and urgentlyⒶtextual note been for twenty-four hours, I said,
“ ‘TellⒶtextual note him I am sorry he fell and skinned his shin at five o’clock yesterday afternoon.’Ⓐtextual note
[begin page 404] “WhenⒶtextual note his answering letter came, next day, itⒶtextual note said,
“ ‘IⒶtextual note did Ⓐtextual note fall and skin my shin at five o’clock yesterday afternoon, but how did Mr. Clemens find it out?’ ”Ⓐtextual note
These shin-skinningsⒶtextual note had actually occurred at the same hour, on the same day, and if it were not so serious a matter, it would be funny.
Two years ago, when my secretary was examining my brother Orion’s autobiographyⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note, she found in it a copy of a letter which I had written from a steamboat on the Mississippi River to my brother Orion in February 1861 when I was twenty-five years old—as I cipher it. I was born almost at the extreme end of 1835, and I hope to never be born again, it is so much trouble to me to cipher from my birth-dateⒶtextual note and find out how old I am; oftener than any other way, I am a year out in the calculation one way or the other. Evidently myⒶtextual note letter had impressed Orion very much, and he had copied it faithfully, word for word, and put it into his autobiographyⒶtextual note. It was an account of a visit which I had paid to a fortune-teller in New Orleans, by request of an old Hannibal friend of ours, Mrs. Holliday, who was always consulting fortune-tellersⒶtextual note and believingⒶtextual note everything they saidⒺexplanatory note. The day after my visit to Mr. Wilkerson we hunted up that old letter, to find out what my character had been forty-six years ago, and how long that New Orleans experimenter had condemned me to hold down this planet. I will append that letter here, and it will be seen that that woman, in that early day, had postponed my funeral until the completion of my eighty-sixth year,—so there is one thing that all the experts agree upon in my case: I am not to die young. Very well, let it go. I do not care anything more about it.
The New Orleans lady did certainly paint my brother’s character with astonishing accuracy. She could not have done her work any better if she had had access toⒶtextual note the chapter which I dictated about Orion’s character a few months ago, and which was lately published in the North American Review. Ⓔexplanatory note According to my letter, this lady began to read me at once, and very volubly—as if she had a great deal to say and not time enough at her disposal to sayⒶtextual note it in; according to my letter she was impatient of my interruptions. These things would indicate that she didn’t ask me any questions, but read me off-handⒶtextual note out of her own head. I am obliged to acceptⒶtextual note my own testimony, because I am not able at this distant day to refute it. I know that fortune-tellers who followed after her, in later years, did not read me off-handⒶtextual note, but befooled me into talking, and that afterward,Ⓐtextual note when I came to think their performances over, I was vexed with myself by discovering that they hadn’t furnished me any information at first hand, but had slyly pumped it out of me, in my innocence and credulity, and then had handed it back to me as being original discoveries of their own, and had astonished me with the wonderful results of their penetration. If my own testimony in the New Orleans lady’s case is true and trustworthy, she was surely a marvelous creature. She did not deal much in prophecy, and what she did furnish in that line was poor—so poor that I could have beaten it myself;Ⓐtextual note but she was undeniably and quite strikingly accurate when she was dealing with my historyⒶtextual note and with my brother’s character. Her references to my sweetheartⒶtextual note, and her description of the sweetheart, and of how our estrangement was brought about, is so exactly in accordance with the facts, [begin page 405] that I feel sure she pumped these things out of me without my being aware of it; anybody can be tempted to talk about his sweetheart, the only thing that is difficult is to get him to stop some time or other. The sweetheart was Laura Wright—the same who wrote me a letter last summer, from California, and from whom I had not heard for forty-seven yearsⒺexplanatory note. I injectedⒶtextual note her,Ⓐtextual note and that incident,Ⓐtextual note into this Autobiography at that time.
I now offer for examination the letter which I wrote my brother Orion forty-six years ago.Ⓐtextual note
I have just received the following letter from SamⒺexplanatory note:
Steamer “Alonzo
Child.”
Cairo, Ill., Feb. 6th, 1861
My Dear Brother:
After promising Mrs. Holliday a dozen times (without anything further than a very remote intention of fulfilling the same)—to visit the fortune teller, Madame CaprellⒺexplanatory note—I have at last done so. We lay in New Orleans a week, and towards the last, novelties began to grow alarmingly scarce; I did not know what to do next. Will Bowen had given the matter up, and gone to bed for the balance of the trip; the Captain was on the Sugar Levee, and the clerks were out on business. I was revolving in my mind another foray among the shipping in search of beautiful figure-heads or paragons of nautical architecture, when I happened to think of Mrs. Holliday; and as the Devil never comes unattended, I naturally thought of Madame Caprell immediately after, and then I started toward the St. Charles Hotel for the express purpose of picking up one of the enchantress’s bills, with a view to ascertaining her whereabouts. The bill said 37 Conti, above Tchoupitoulas—terms, $2 for gentlemen in my situation, i.e., unaccompanied by a lady.
Arrived at the place, the bell was answered by a middle-aged lady (who certainly pitied me—I saw it in her eye), who kindly informed me that I was at the wrong door—turn to the left. Which I did. And stood in the Awful Presence. She’s a very pleasant little lady—rather pretty—about 28—say 5 feet 2¼—would weigh 116—has black eyes and hair—is polite and intelligent—uses good language, and talks much faster than I do.
She invited me into the little back parlor, closed the door; and we were—alone. We sat down facing each other. Then she asked my age. And then she put her hand before her eyes a moment, and commenced talking as if she had a good deal to sayⒶtextual note and not much time to say it in. Something after this style:
Yours is a watery planet; you gain your livelihood on the water; but you should have been a lawyer—there is where your talents lie; you might have distinguished yourself as an orator; or as an editor; you have written a great deal; you write well—but you are rather out of practice; no matter—you will be in practice some day; you have a superb constitution; and as excellent health as any man in the world; you have great powers of endurance; in your profession, your strength holds out against the longest sieges without flagging; still, the upper part of your lungs—the top of them, is slightly affected—and you must take more care of yourself; you do not drink, but you use entirely too much tobacco; and you must stop it; mind, not moderate, but stop the use of it, totally; then I can almost promise you 86, when you will surely die; otherwise, look out for 28, 31, 34, 47 and 65; be careful—for you are not [begin page 406] of a long-lived race, that is, on your father’s side; you are the only healthy member of your family, and the only one in it who has anything like the certainty of attaining to a great age—so, stop using tobacco, and be careful of yourself; in nearly all respects, you are the best sheep in your flock; your brother has an excellent mind, but it is not as well balanced as yours; I should call yours the best mind, altogether; there is more unswerving strength of will, and set purpose, and determination and energy in you, than in all the balance of your family put together; in some respects you take after your father, but you are much more like your mother, who belongs to the long-lived, energetic side of the house.
S.L.C. But madam, you are too fast—you have given me too much of these qualities.
Madame. No, I have not. Don’t interrupt me. I am telling the truth. And I’ll prove it. Thus: you never brought all your energies to bear upon an object, but what you accomplished it—for instance, you are self-made, self-educated.
S.L.C. Which proves nothing.
Madame. Don’t interrupt. When you sought your present occupation, you found a thousand obstacles in your way—obstacles which would have deterred nineteen out of any twenty men—obstacles unknown,—not even suspected by any save you and me, since you keep such matters to yourself,—but you fought your way through them, during a weary, weary length of time, and never flinchedⒶtextual note or quailed, nor ever once wished to give over the battle—and hid the long struggle under a mask of cheerfulness, which saved your friends anxiety on your account. To do all this requires the qualities which I have named.
S.L.C. You flatter well, madam.
Madame. Don’t Ⓐtextual note interrupt!Ⓐtextual note Up to within a short time, you had always lived from hand to mouth—now you are in easy circumstances—for which you need give credit to no one but yourself. The turning point in your life occurred in 1847–8.Ⓐtextual note
S.L.C. Which was?—Ⓐtextual note
Madame.—a death, perhaps; and this threw you upon the world and made you what you are; it was always intended that you should make yourself; therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as early as it did. You will never die of water, although your career upon it in the future seems well sprinkled with misfortune; but I entreat you to remember this: no matter what your circumstances are, in September of the year in which you are 28, don’t go near the water—I will not tell you why, but by all that is true and good, I charge you, while that month lasts, keep away from the water—
(Which she repeated several times, with much show of earnestness—“makeⒶtextual note a note on’t,” and let’s see howⒶtextual note much the woman knows.)Ⓐtextual note
[TheⒶtextual note italics are Sam’s, as he made them 20 years ago. O.C.]Ⓐtextual note
Madame. Your life will be menaced in the years I have before mentionedⒶtextual note—will be in imminent peril when you are 31:Ⓐtextual note if you escape, then when you are 34—neither 47 nor 65 looks so badly; you will continue upon the water for some time yet; you will not retire finally until ten years from now; two years from now, or a little more, a child will be born to you!
S.L.C. Permit me to hope, madam, in view of this prospective good luck, that I may also have the good-fortune to be married before that time.
Madame. Well, you are a free-spoken young man. You will be married within two years.Ⓐtextual note Of course you will.
[begin page 407] (Make another note, Orion—I think I’ve caught her up a played-out chute on a falling river this time—but who knows?)
Madame. And mind—your whole future welfare depends upon your getting married as soon as you can; don’t smile—don’t laugh—for it is just as true as truth itself; if you fail to marry within two years from now, you will regret that you paid so little attention to what I am saying; don’t be foolish, but go and marry—your future depends upon it; you can get the girl you have in your eye, if you are a better man than her mother— she Ⓐtextual note (the girl) is; the old gentleman is not in the way, but the mother is decidedly cranky, and much in the way; she caused the trouble and produced the coolness which has existed between yourself and the young lady for so many months past—and you ought to break through this ice; you Ⓐtextual note won’t commence, and the girl won’t—you are both entirely too proud—a well-matched pair, truly; the young lady is—
S.L.C. But I didn’t ask after the young lady, madamⒶtextual note, and I don’t want to hear about her.
Madame. There, just as I said—she would have spoken to me just as you have done. For shame! I must go on. She is 17—not remarkably pretty, but very intelligent—is educated, and accomplished—and has property—5 feet 3 inches—is slender—dark brown hair and eyes—you don’t want to see her? Oh, no—but you will, nevertheless, before this year is out—here in New Orleans (mark that), too—and then—look out! The fact of her being so far away now—which is the case, is it not?—doesn’t affect the matter. You will marry twice—your first wife will live—(I have forgotten the number of years. S.L.C.)— Your second choice will be a widow—your family, finally, all told, will number ten children—
S.L.C. Slow!—madam, slow!—and stand by to ship up!—for I know you are out of the channel.
Madame. Some of them will live and some will not—
S.L.C. There’s consolation in the latter, at least.
Madame. Yes, ten is the number.
S.L.C. You must think I am fond of children.
Madame. And you are, although you pretend the contrary—which is an ugly habit; quit it; I grant you that you do not like to handle them, though. What is your brother’s age? 33,—and a lawyer?—and in pursuit of an office? Well, he stands a better chance than the other two, and, he may get it—he must do his best—and not trust too much to others, either—which is the very reason why he is so far behind, now; he never does do anything if he can get anybody else to do it for him; which is bad; he never goes steadily on till he attains an object, but nearly always drops it when the battle is half won; he is too visionary—is always flying off on a new hobby; this will never do—tell him I said so. He is a good lawyer—a very good lawyer—and a fine speaker—is very popular, and much respected, and makes many friends; but although he retains their friendship, he loses their confidence, by displaying his instability of character; he wants to speculate in lands, and will, some day, with very good success; the land he has now will be very valuable after a while—
S.L.C. Say 250 years hence, or thereabouts, madam—
Madame.—No—less time—but never mind the land, that is a secondary consideration—let him drop that for the present, and devote himself to his business and politics, with all his might, for he must hold offices under Government, and 6 or 8 [begin page 408] years from this time, he will run for Congress. You will marry, and will finally live in the South—do not live in the North-West; you will not succeed well; you will live in the South, and after a while you will possess a good deal of property—retire at the end of ten years—after which your pursuits will be literary—try the law—you will certainly succeed. I am done, now. If you have any questions to ask,Ⓐtextual note ask them freely,Ⓐtextual note and if it be in my powerⒶtextual note I will answer without reserve—without reserve.
I asked a few questions of minor importance—paid her $2 and left—under the decided impression that going to the fortune-teller’s was just as good as going to the opera, and cost scarcely a trifle more—ergo, I will disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when other amusements fail.
Now isn’t she the devil? That is to say, isn’t she a right smart little woman? I have given you almost her very language to me, and nothing have IⒶtextual note extenuated, nor set down aught in malice. Whenever she said anything pointed about you, she would ask me to tell you of it, so that you might profit by it—and confound me if I don’t think she read you a good deal better than she did me. That Congress business amused me a little, for she wasn’t far wide of the mark you set yourself, as to time. And father’s death in ’47–8, and the turning-point in my life, were very good. I wonder if there is a past and future chronological table of events in a man’s life written in his forehead for the special convenience of these clairvoyants? She said father’s side of the house was not long-lived, but that he doctored himself to death. I do not know about that, though. She said that up to 7 years, I had no health, and then mentioned several dates after that when my health had been very bad. But that about that girl’s mother being “cranky,” and playing the devil with me, was about the neatest thing she performed—for although I have never spoken of the matter, I happen to know that she spoke truth. The young lady has been beaten by the old one, though—through the romantic agency of intercepted letters, and the girl still thinks I was in fault—and always will, I reckon, for I don’t see how she’ll ever find out the contrary. And theⒶtextual note woman had the impudence to say that although I was eternally falling in love, still, when I went to bed at night, I somehow always happened to think of Miss Laura before I thought of my last new flame—and it always would be the case [whichⒶtextual note will be very comfortable, won’t it, when both she and I (like one of Dickens’ characters) are Another’s?]Ⓐtextual note But hang the woman, she did tell the truth, and I won’t deny it. But she said I would speak to Miss Laura first—but I’ll stake my last button on it she missed it there.
So much for Madame Caprell. Although of course, I have no faith in her pretended powers, I listened to her for half an hourⒶtextual note with the greatest interest, and I am willing to acknowledge that she said some very startling things, and made some wonderful guesses. Upon leaving she said I must take care of myself; that it had cost me several years to build up my constitution to its present state of perfection, and now I must watch it. And she would give me this motto: “L’ouvrage de l’annéeⒶtextual note est détruitⒶtextual note dans un jour,”—which means, if you don’t know it, “The work of a year is destroyed in a day.”
We shall not go to St. Louis. We turn back from here, to-morrow or next day. When you want money, let mother know, and she will send it. She and Pamela are always fussing about small change, so I sent them a hundred and twenty quarters yesterday—fiddler’s change enough to last till I get back, I reckon.
Sam.
[begin page 409] Comments—by Orion.
1. The italics are as Sam made them 20 years ago.
2. Sam smoked too much for many years, and still smokes.
3. My mother’s mother died when my mother was 13 years of age. Her father died at the age of 63. Her grandfather on her father’s side lived beyond 60, and his widow beyond 80. On my father’s side his father was killed accidentally when my father was 7 years old. My father’s mother lived beyond 60. My father died at 48Ⓔexplanatory note. My mother is now (1880) 78. My father may have hastened the ending of his life by the use of too much medicine. He doctored himself from my earliest remembrance. During the latter part of his life he bought Cook’s pillsⒺexplanatory note by the box and took one or more daily. In taking a pill he held it between his right thumb and forefinger, turned his head back, cast the pill to the root of his tongue, and from a glass of water in his left hand, took a sup and washed down the bitter dose.
4. Sam was delicate when a child.
5. My father died March 24, 1847, Sam being then 11 years of age. My mother soon took him from school, and set him to learning the printing business.
6. I have carefully compared this copy with the original, to be certain that it is word for word the same.
an acquaintance up town . . . clairvoyant was a portly middle-aged gentleman] Isabel Lyon recorded that on the afternoon of 23 January 1907 Clemens went to the home of social worker and suffragist Maud Nathan (1862–1946) “to see a clever clairvoyant Prof. Bert Rees, a big-faced German who read the contents of folded bits of paper in quite a wonderful way. He told the King among other things that he would live to be 98 years ten months & 2 days old—& the King wants to swap off some of those years & months & days” (Lyon 1907). “Prof. Bert Reese” (W. Berthold Riess, 1840–1926) was a native of Prussia who moved to New York around 1890. He traveled in America and Europe as a professional psychic entertainer, achieving fleeting notoriety in 1910 when Thomas Edison bore witness to his clairvoyant powers. Reese was a “billet-reader”: his audience wrote questions on slips of paper and folded them; Reese would read the questions clairvoyantly and would also answer them. Harry Houdini said that “of all the clever sleight-of-hand men, he is the brainiest I have ever come across” (Ernst and Carrington 1932, 120–23; Marshall 1910; “W. Bert Reese Dies; Famed Clairvoyant,” New York Times, 11 July 1926, E9).
a chapter of this Autobiography . . . all about my marriage and my children] Clemens apparently refers to his Autobiographical Dictation of 28 March 1906, part of which appeared in the 18 January 1907 issue of the North American Review (NAR 10). Neither it nor the chapter “which preceded it,” in the 4 January issue (NAR 9), incorporating his dictations of 1, 2, and 13 December 1906, gives all the family details he recalls here.
death of Mrs. Hooker . . . being residents of Hartford for so many years] Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822–1907) was the half-sister of Henry Ward Beecher. John and Isabella Hooker, whom Clemens had met in early 1868 through Olivia’s family, were among the original residents of the Nook Farm community in Hartford. The Clemenses rented their house for three years (from October 1871 to September 1874) while building their own home nearby. Isabella Hooker, a lifelong champion of women’s rights, died on 25 January (8 Jan 1868 to JLC and PAM, L2, 146 n. 4; 20 Sept 1874 to Parish, L6, 236–37; “Last of Beecher Family Is Dead,” Hartford Courant, 25 Jan 1907, 1).
Dr. Hooker . . . pall-bearer at his mother’s funeral] Edward Beecher Hooker (1855–1927) was a physician and president of the American Institute of Homeopathy. Clemens served as an honorary pallbearer at his mother’s funeral, which took place on 28 January in Hartford (“Homeopaths Elect Officers,” Washington Post, 14 Sept 1906, 3; “Dr. Edward Beecher Hooker,” New York Times, 24 June 1907, 23; “Mrs. Hooker’s Funeral,” Hartford Courant, 29 Jan 1907, 6).
my secretary] Isabel Lyon.
my brother Orion’s autobiography] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 6 April 1906, note at 27.15–16.
Mrs. Holliday, who was always consulting fortune-tellers and believing everything they said] Mrs. Richard Holliday (born Melicent S. McDonald in about 1800) was the model for the character of Widow Douglas in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn ( Inds, 325). In 1897 Clemens described her in “Villagers of 1840–3”: “Well off. Hospitable. Fond of having parties of young people. Widow. Old, but anxious to marry. Always consulting fortune-tellers; always managed to make them understand that she had been promised 3 husbands by the first fraud. They always confirmed the prophecy. She finally died before the prophecies had a full chance” ( Inds, 96).
chapter which I dictated . . . lately published in the North American Review] Clemens refers to the Autobiographical Dictations of 28 March, 29 March, and 2 April 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 451–55, 455–62). He originally selected a series of excerpts from these three dictations to comprise a single chapter in the North American Review. Starting with the issue of 4 January 1907, however, the magazine had a shorter format, and the proposed chapter was split in two: half appeared in the 18 January 1907 issue (NAR 10), and the other half in the most recent issue, of 1 February (NAR 11).
The sweetheart was Laura Wright . . . had not heard for forty-seven years] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 30 July 1906, note at 149.38–150.1.
I have just received the following letter from Sam] Orion added this remark to the top of Clemens’s letter before forwarding it to his mother and sister in St. Louis. Clemens had directed the letter to Orion in Memphis, Missouri, where he was living with his wife and daughter and attempting to set up a law practice. The letter text inserted here has been lightly censored, presumably by Clemens on the now missing copy that Orion made of the original letter. Clemens says that Orion “copied it faithfully, word for word” (as Orion asserts in his appended notes), so it is a fair presumption that the departures from the original are not Orion’s. The original undoctored manuscript was published in Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 1 (107–16), and all of that volume’s texts and notes are available at MTPO. The thorough annotation supplied there supplements the notes here.
Madame Caprell] Madame Caprell worked as a fortune teller from 1857 to 1861 in St. Louis as well as in New Orleans. She undoubtedly drew some of her information about the Clemens family from her conversations with Mrs. Holliday, one of her clients (6 Feb 1861 to OC and MEC, L1, 112–13 n. 1).
mother’s mother . . . father died at 48] Clemens’s forebears, in the order mentioned, are: Margaret (Peggy) Casey (mother’s mother, 1783–1818); Jane Lampton (mother, 1803–90); Benjamin Lampton (mother’s father, 1770–1837); William Lampton (mother’s grandfather, 1724–90) and Martha (Patsy) Schooler (mother’s grandmother, 1741–1811); Samuel Clemens (father’s father, 1770–1805, killed by a falling log at a house raising); John Marshall Clemens (father, 1798–1847); Pamelia Goggin (father’s mother, 1775–1845) (Lampton 1990, 23, 30, 79, 88).
Cook’s pills] This drug, a combination of several strong laxatives (dried aloe juice, rhubarb, calomel, and soap powder), was formulated by John Esten Cooke (1798–1853) of Virginia and popularized—as “Cook’s pills”—by John C. Gunn in his Domestic Medicine (1830). It was used to treat a variety of ailments (Swiderski 2009, 140–41; Hiss and Ebert 1910, 560).
Source documents.
TS1 ribbon (incomplete) Typescript, leaves numbered 1–8, revised: ‘I have . . . the same.’ (405.8–409.18).TS1 carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1727–39 and 1–8 (altered in pencil to 1740–47), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.
Into this dictation Clemens inserted the text of a letter he had written to his brother Orion on 6 February 1861. Hobby’s source for the letter, however, was not Clemens’s manuscript (which survives at Vassar College [NPV]), but a transcript made by Orion Clemens in 1880 and inserted into his own autobiography (see AutoMT1, 599 n. 378.25–27). That transcript is not extant. Collation of the TS1 text against the original letter shows numerous variations; since Clemens states that Orion’s transcript was ‘faithful’ we must assume that these are Clemens’s own alterations. Many of them are designed to make the language more formal (altering, for example, ‘devilish’ to ‘very’, ‘Pa’ and ‘Ma’ to ‘father’ and ‘mother’, and ‘drat’ to ‘hang’). In the present text, an exception has been made to our general policy: variant spellings have not been altered to achieve consistency, and figures have not been expanded to prose. For a text of the letter based on the manuscript see L1, 107–12; also online at MTPO).
Of TS1 ribbon, the only surviving part is Hobby’s retyping of Orion’s transcript of the letter. TS1 carbon, however, comprises the complete dictation. There are authorial revisions on both the incomplete TS1 ribbon and on TS1 carbon. Where both witnesses are extant (i.e., in the letter text), all authorial revisions are adopted.
Preserved with the source documents is a single sheet, numbered 1726a, with the paragraph ‘Your mother . . . success.’ (402.34–37) typed on it. Its text varies only slightly from that of TS1 carbon, and it has not contributed any readings to the present text.
On TS1 carbon Paine queried the paragraph in which Clemens expresses his skepticism about the German clairvoyant (402.38–403.5), presumably questioning whether this passage was suitable for publication.