Member of the tariff-revision commission brings message to Mr. Clemens from Emperor Wilhelm in regard to the dinner described in former chapter.
* * * * * * * * * * *Ⓐtextual note
Those stars indicate the long chapter which I dictated yesterday, a chapter which is much too long for magazine purposes, and therefore must wait until this Autobiography shall appear in book form, five years hence, when I am dead: five years according to my calculation, twenty-seven years according to the prediction furnished me a week ago by the latest and most confident of all the palmistsⒺexplanatory note who have ever read my future in my hand. The Emperor’sⒶtextual note dinner, and its beer-and-anecdote appendix, covered six hours of diligent industry, and this accounts for the extraordinary length of that chapter.
A couple of days ago a gentleman called upon me with a message. He had just arrived from Berlin, where he hasⒶtextual note been acting for our Government in a matter concerning tariff-revisionⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note, he being a member of the commission appointed by our Government to conduct our share of the affair. Upon the completion of the commission’s labors, the EmperorⒶtextual note invited the members of itⒶtextual note to an audience, and in the course of the conversation he madeⒶtextual note a reference to me; continuing, he spoke of my chapter on the German language in “A Tramp Abroad,” and characterized it by an adjective which is too complimentary for me to repeat [begin page 434] here without bringing my modesty under suspicion. Then he paid some compliments to “The Innocents Abroad,” and followed these with the remark that my account in one of my books of certain striking phases of German student life was the best and truest that had ever been written. By this I perceive that he remembers that dinner of sixteen years ago, for he said the same thing to me about the student-chapter at that time. Next he said he wished this gentleman to convey two messages to America from him and deliver them—one to the President, the other to me. The wording of the message to me was:
Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards. Ask him if he remembers that dinner, and ask him why he didn’t do any talking.Ⓐtextual note
Why,Ⓐtextual note how could I talk when he was talking? He “held the age,”Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note as the poker-clergy say, and two can’t talk at the same timeⒶtextual note with good effect. It reminds me of the man who was reproached by a friend, who said,
“I think it a shame that you have not spoken to your wife for fifteen years. How do you explain it? How do you justify it?”Ⓐtextual note
That poor man said,
“I didn’t want to interrupt her.”
If the EmperorⒶtextual note had been at my table, he would not have suffered from my silence, he would only have suffered from the sorrows of his own solitude. If I were not too old to travel I would go to Berlin and introduce the etiquette of my own table, which tallies with the etiquette observable at other royal tables. I would say, “Invite me again, yourⒶtextual note Majesty, and give me a chance;”Ⓐtextual note then I would courteouslyⒶtextual note waive rank and do all the talking myself. I thank his Majesty for his kind message, and am proud to have it and glad to express my sincere reciprocation of its sentiments.Ⓐtextual note
prediction furnished me a week ago by . . . all the palmists] Isabel Lyon recorded that on 26 January Clemens visited the palmist John William Fletcher: “At 4 o’clock he came home full of the amusement of it. Fletcher told him that he was to live close onto a century” (Lyon 1907). Fletcher had read a print of Clemens’s palm two years earlier (see AD, 28 Jan 1907, note at 391.21).
A couple of days ago a gentleman called . . . tariff-revision] S. N. D. North, the head of an American delegation to Germany concerning tariffs, visited Clemens in New York on 10 February, carrying a message from Wilhelm II (Lyon 1907, entry for 10 Feb; “German Tariff Prospects,” New York Times, 28 Jan 1907, 5).
“held the age,”] In draw poker as played in the nineteenth century, the player to the dealer’s left was said to “hold the age,” and had to bet before any of the other players could do so.
Source documents.
TS1 ribbon Typescript, leaves numbered 1822–24, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS1 carbon Typescript carbon, leaves numbered 1822–24, revised.
NAR 14pf (lost) Galley proofs of NAR 14, typeset from the revised TS1 carbon and further revised (conjecturally); now lost.
NAR 14 North American Review 184 (15 March 1907), 568–70: Tuesday . . . 1907’ (433 title); ‘row of 11 stars . . . its sentiments.’ (433.23–434.23).
TS1 ribbon was revised by Clemens, who then transferred his revisions to TS1 carbon. He did not further revise TS1 carbon, but prepared it for NAR publication by noting on the first page that it was to be used following the dictation of the previous day. The material was duly compounded with an excerpts from the AD of 11 February 1907, the full AD of 6 December 1906, and excerpts from the ADs of 17 December 1906 and 17 January 1906. TS1 ribbon was subsequently marked on its first page ‘(Used already.)’; yet on this copy, not seemingly destined for the magazine offices, Clemens effected the by-now-standard NAR styling of the dateline (adding ‘Dictated’), and on the verso of the last page he calculated the number of NAR pages produced by his intended agglomeration. All this tends to show that the TS1 ribbon and TS1 carbon were both, in some sense, being produced and revised with immediate publication in mind.
The NAR 14 galley proofs are missing. Consequently, there is no physical record of certain alterations which were evidently on the galleys and whose authorship has to be conjectured on a case-by-case basis.
Marginal Notes on TS1 ribbon and TS1 carbon Concerning Publication in NAR
1¾
1¼
1¾
4
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9 R. pages