Taking up the thread of dictation again after a silence of a month or more—Four hundred thousandⒶtextual note words of Autobiography already dictated—The opening of the Actors’ Fund Fair—The trip to the Jamestown Exposition in Mr. Rogers’s yacht—The proposed trip to England on June 8th to receive honorary degree from Oxford University—Copy of poem “To Mark Twain.”
It seems a long time since I have done any dictating; and it really is a long time, though not so long as it seems, perhaps. In March, after a second trip to BermudaⒺexplanatory note, I made a pretense of working, but it probably amounted to nothing more than a pretense, substantially. But I am not grieving about it; I am not reproaching myself. If I could have gotten more pleasure, more comfort, more satisfaction, out of dictating autobiography than I could get out of other forms of play, I should have gone on dictating, instead of seeking other forms of amusement. During a stretch of thirty-five years I exercised my pen, in my trade of authorship, in the summertimeⒶtextual note and in the summertimeⒶtextual note only. I worked three months in the year and amused myself in other ways during the other nine. My average literary output for the thirty-five years was short of seventy thousand words a year; but since I began to dictate, on the 9th of January 1906, I have not limited myself to the summer vacation as a working time but have spread my labors over all the months. Last March, when I went to Bermuda the second time, I estimated that I had dictated four hundred thousand words in the previous thirteen or fourteen months; I recognized that I had put together enough Autobiography, if spread through my existing books, to secure for those books a twenty-eight years’ renewal of copyright lifeⒺexplanatory note, and as that renewal, in the interest of the bread and butter of my daughters,Ⓐtextual note had been the Autobiography’s main object, I did not care whether I added anything to that Autobiography or not; indeed I rather formally retired from all human industries and set apart the remaining weeks or years of my life to be observed and enjoyed by me as a holiday—the first very real one in a lifetimeⒶtextual note of seventy years and upwards. This has a nonsensical sound, for I am not able to disguise from myself the fact that my life for the past thirty-five years and more has really been nothing more nor less than one long holiday, with three months’ scribbling in each year which other people dignified with the great name of “work,”Ⓐtextual note but which to me was not work at all, but only play, delicious play, and was never a result of compulsion or of the prodding of conscience, but only of a strong desire to entertain myself.
Many things which I have wanted to talk about have happened in the past month or two, but they are ancient history now—let them go. I helped to open the Actors’ Fund Fair on the 6th of this present monthⒺexplanatory note. We raised seventy-five thousand dollars for the Fund. I went down to Jamestown in Mr. Rogers’s yacht, the Kanawha Ⓐtextual note, and saw the opening of the World’s Fair thereⒺexplanatory note. Two or three days of fog followed, and Mr. Rogers and all the guests except Mr. BroughtonⒶtextual note and I got tired and went back home by railⒺexplanatory note, but [begin page 52] we waited a couple of days; then the fog lifted in the night for a moment and we got to sea and came through to New York without any trouble, although the newspapers said the vessel had gone to the bottom and carried us along with itⒺexplanatory note.
Meantime, I have been invited by Oxford University to receive an honorary degree on the 26th of June, and shall sail on that quest on the 8thⒺexplanatory note. I have made no effort to conceal the fact that I am vain of this distinction. Sometimes they catch an illustrious American who has wandered to the English shores on his own affairs, and Oxford transfigures him with a degree, but I am one of the very few that have beenⒶtextual note sent for from over the ocean.
I like compliments, praises, flatteries; I cordially enjoy all such things, and am grieved and disappointed when what I call a “barren mail”Ⓐtextual note arrives—a mail that hasn’t any compliments in it. I am always trying to find plausible excuses for copying these tributes into this Autobiography, but at cost of a good deal of pain IⒶtextual note refrain from doing it. However, I mean to break the rule, to-day, for yesterday’s mail brought me from Texas a complimentary poem which is so fine and so sincere—and I hope I may say affectionate—Ⓐtextual notethat I want it to live, and am not willing to suppress it. It is by a judge on the benchⒺexplanatory note.
We crave as guerdon of our unsought birth,
Some height to scale, some glory to attain;
And in our march we fill the wayward earthⒶtextual note
With monuments portraying joy or pain,
Or the cold factors of some loss or gain,
As Selfishness or Love our being sways.
How few are they who reach that higher plane
Of Life’s broad triumph, where its quiet days
Shine with more light and hope, and far serener rays.
But thou hast gained an eminence thine own,
Beyond the reach of envy or of blame;
And of all human passions, love alone
Will cherish and perpetuate thy name,
With other mortals of immortal fame,
As bearer of the tidingsⒶtextual note that on earthⒶtextual note
Our hopes, our dreads, our sorrows are the same;
And he the only gainer from his birthⒶtextual note
Who mingles with his toilⒶtextual note God’s boon of joy and mirth.Ⓐtextual note
The sunny humour of thy useful lifeⒶtextual note
Hath filled with gladness many a cheerless mind,Ⓐtextual note
Equipped it for a nobler, better strife,
Against the faults and follies of mankind.
Philosopher and humourist combined!
To whom at last a Voice shall cry “well done.”
By thee e’en wretchedness shall solace find,
For thou hast brought—and thereby glory won—
Good will to all thy kind, and malice unto none.
[begin page 53] The world is happier in that thou wert born:
Thy gift to man is never draped in woe,
But diamonded in laughter, as the morn
With dew drops greets the Day-King’s early glow;
And we would have thee, while in life, to know
How strong from every warm and buoyant breastⒶtextual note
Love and love’s attributes around thee grow.
If these beget a blessing—thou art blessed,
As in our hearts thou liv’st an ever welcome guest.
John A. Kirlicks.Ⓐtextual note
In March, after a second trip to Bermuda] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 26 March 1907, note at 13.31.
I had put together enough Autobiography . . . twenty-eight years’ renewal of copyright life] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 26 March 1907, note at 14.32–33.
I helped to open the Actors’ Fund Fair on the 6th of this present month] The fair was held at the Metropolitan Opera House to raise funds for aged or infirm actors. The main hall, transformed into a Shakespearean village with shops and dwellings, provided one of the numerous entertainments, which also included games of chance, palmists and fortune tellers, and vaudeville performers. Clemens’s “famous white suit and white hair made him a conspicuous figure from the minute he entered the hall” (“Actors’ Fund Fair Opens with Vim,” New York Times, 7 May 1907, 5).
I went down to Jamestown in Mr. Rogers’s yacht . . . the opening of the World’s Fair there] The Jamestown Exposition was held from 26 April through November 1907 to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America. It took place at Sewell’s Point, Virginia, a peninsula north of Norfolk and south of Jamestown Island, where the original colony had been founded. On 24 April Clemens and several other guests departed New York on the Kanawha, Rogers’s fast yacht, to attend the elaborate opening ceremonies. On the day before the opening, they made an early tour of the fair, which included numerous exhibit buildings, animal acts, and amusement rides. The following day, 26 April, they viewed from the deck of the Kanawha a “dazzling naval pageant” performed by warships of the United States and thirteen other nations, which welcomed President Roosevelt with a fusillade of gun salutes. Clemens mentions the fair again in the Autobiographical Dictation of 26 September 1907 (Lyon 1907, entry for 24 April; “Roosevelt Day at Jamestown,” Washington Post, 27 April 1907, 1; for the Kanawha see AutoMT2 , 506 n. 82.9–10; for a complete description of the trip see Shelden 2010, 57–65).
Two or three days of fog followed . . . all the guests except Mr. Broughton and I got tired and went back home by rail] Clemens was “marooned” on the yacht by heavy fog because it was unsafe to return to New York by sea, and he preferred not to take the train (“Mark Twain in Gloom,” Washington Post, 1 May 1907, 5). Rogers had already left, accompanied by most of the other guests: Henry H. Rogers, Jr. (see AD, 26 Sept 1907, note at 142.30); William Evarts Benjamin, one of his sons-in-law (see AutoMT2 , 622 n. 387.8–10); and Charles Lancaster, a capitalist from Liverpool (see “The Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript,” note at 368.18–20). Clemens’s remaining companion was Urban H. Broughton (1857–1929). Born in Worcester, England, he was trained as a civil engineer and emigrated to the United States in 1887. In 1895, while working on a drainage project in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, he met and married Cara Leland Rogers (1867–1939), Rogers’s widowed daughter. He became an officer in several mining, financial, and railway companies—most of which were connected with Rogers—and president of the Utah Consolidated Mining Company ( HHR , 736; “Urban H. Broughton Dies in London at 71,” New York Times, 31 Jan 1929, 23).
we got to sea and came through to New York . . . carried us along with it] On 4 May the New York Times ran a front-page article—“Twain and Yacht Disappear at Sea”—reporting that the Kanawha, on which Clemens had sailed from Old Point Comfort three days earlier, was missing at sea. According to the Washington Post, Rogers had “sent out a frenzied call to the wireless station at Cape Henry to look out for his yacht” (“Joke on Mark Twain,” 5 May 1907, 14). The following day the Times reported that Clemens was safe (“Mark Twain Investigating,” 2):
“You can assure my Virginia friends,” said he, “that I will make an exhaustive investigation of this report that I have been lost at sea. If there is any foundation for the report, I will at once apprise the anxious public. I sincerely hope that there is no foundation for the report, and I also hope that judgment will be suspended until I ascertain the true state of affairs.”
To his friend, Milt. Goodkind of 121 West Forty-second Street, Mr. Clemens sent the following telegram as soon as he had read a report from Norfolk telling of the fear there that he was lost on the bosom of the briny deep:
Latitude 43 degrees 5 hours and 41 seconds west by southeast of Central Park West. Kanawha heading toward nowhere; terrific cyclone raging; all the houses down in our vicinity; trees and telegraph poles interfering with our progress; vessel leaking badly; passed a school of whales and several elephants at dawn. Fire Department badly crippled; extension ladder out of commission; water very low; two of our crew lost overboard last evening. Please send airship and some bock beer at once; crew starving.
Deny report that I am dodging Mrs. Eddy or Actors’ Fund Fair. Ship sinking; send financial relief at once.
MARK TWAIN.
The Washington Post announced that Clemens had in fact arrived home safely on 1 May, the same day he had left Virginia, and reported his suspicion that the rumor had originated with Rogers, who was “having fun” with him:
The Standard Oil wizard showed a remarkable willingness to let the newspapers into the workings of his mind—and the narrative of the missing humorist was born.
Mark Twain, who has been safe at home since last Wednesday, seemed to be more amused than annoyed at the report that he had been lost at sea. . . . The only way he was lost at sea, he added, was for something to do. (“Joke on Mark Twain,” 5 May 1907, 14)
I have been invited by Oxford University . . . shall sail on that quest on the 8th] See the Autobiographical Dictations of 23 May, and 25, 26, and 30 July 1907.
a complimentary poem . . . by a judge on the bench] The poem was sent by John A. Kirlicks (CU-MARK):
john a. kirlicks, b. f. frederick
judge clerk
office of
Corporation Court
city of houston
Houston Texas, May 9th 1907.
Samℓ L. Clemens, Esq.
(Mark Twain)
New York City,
N. York.
|Dear Sir:
I take the liberty of enclosing you a few verses that are justified by your life.
I have tried to avoid fulsomeness, and attempted only to say what is true.
I have been asked for permission to publish some, but have doubted the propriety of doing so without first submitting the lines to you.
If the piece does not displease you, and you can afford to hear the truth about yourself, even when uttered by a stranger, I would prefer it to be given to the public in some New York City publication.
I am with profound respect,
Your Obedient Servant,
John A. Kirlicks
Kindly excuse the worn appearance of the manuscript; I have worn it in my coat pocket so long, to permit it to cool off, and thereby enable me to detect and eliminate any error of fact, sentiment or meter.
Kirlicks (1852–1923) was born in Prussia and emigrated to Texas as a young boy. He was a member of the Texas bar, and served as a Democrat in the state legislature in 1887–89. For a time he was the deputy sheriff of Galveston, and for much of his career he occupied the bench of the Houston Corporation Court, a municipal court that tried misdemeanor offenses ( Galveston Census 1900, 1637:7A; Legislative Reference Library of Texas 2012, entry for John Kirlicks). Clemens replied to Kirlicks on 15 May (MS facsimile, Houston Post, 24 Apr 1910, 8):
It is a beautiful poem & has touched me deeply. If I might venture to suggest, I should say that the proper place for it is either the “Century” or “Harper’s Monthly”—preferably the “Century,” because I am not connected with it, except by old ties of friendship, whereas I am connected with “Harper’s” commercially.
Very gratefully yours
S L. Clemens
Kirlicks submitted his poem to the Century Magazine, which rejected it, and then to Harper’s Monthly, whose editor replied, “We are sorry that we are obliged to return your poem, ‘To Mark Twain,’ as it is not available for our use” (18 June 1907, CU-MARK). Kirlicks told Clemens of his disappointment on 8 July 1907, regretting the magazine’s judgment that “you have no right to hear what the people say about you while you live” (CU-MARK). He did ultimately publish the poem in the Houston Daily Post shortly after Clemens’s death (24 Apr 1910, 8), and included it in a collection of verse he published in 1913, Sense and Nonsense in Rhyme, along with a facsimile of Clemens’s 15 May letter (63, 65).
Source documents.
Kirlicks Printed poem bound into a booklet, sent by John A. Kirlicks to SLC in a letter of 9 May 1907: ‘To Mark Twain . . . John A. Kirlicks.’ (52.17–53.10).TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 2006–11, made from Hobby’s notes and Kirlicks and revised.
TS1, as revised by Clemens, and the Kirlicks typescript are the authoritative sources for the text. Hobby’s accidental variations from copy in transcribing Kirlicks are not reported. Reviewing TS1, Clemens revised some of the poem’s punctuation, deleting several commas and dashes. ‘Jim Gillis’ was written in pencil at the bottom of the last leaf, probably by Hobby; Clemens canceled it in ink.