Mr. Clemens’s Club of ten angel-fishes—Headquarters to be in billiard roomⒶtextual note of new home in Redding—Letter to Mr. Twichell regarding the New Movement originating in Boston.
One day at Riverdale-on-the-HudsonⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note Mrs. Clemens and I were mourning for our lost little ones. Not that they were dead, but lost to us all the same. Gone out of ourⒶtextual note lives forever—as little children. They were still with us, but they were become women, and they walked with us upon our own level. There was a wide gulf,Ⓐtextual note a gulf as wide as the horizons, between these children and those. We were always having vague dream-glimpses of them as they had used to be in the long-vanished years—glimpses of them playing and romping, with short frocks on, and spindle legs, and hair-tails down their backs—and always they were far and dim, and we could not hear their shouts and their laughter. HowⒶtextual note we longed to gather them to our arms! but they were only dainty and darling spectres, and they faded away and vanished, and left us desolate.
That day I put into verse, as well as I could, the feeling that was haunting us. The [begin page 214] verses were not for publication, and were never published, but I will insert them here as being qualified to throw light upon my worship of schoolgirlsⒶtextual note—if worship be the right name, and I know it is.Ⓐtextual note
“In Dim and Fitful Visions They Flit Across the Distances.” Ⓐtextual note
————
In Memory of
Olivia Ⓐtextual note Susan Clemens
———— Ⓐtextual note
Departed this life August 18, 1896Ⓔexplanatory note.
———— Ⓐtextual note
“I am old, poor lady.If sympathy of one whose years—”
“Experience is age; not years!
Your face is ignorantly smooth, and ignorantly pink;
You have lived long, and nothing suffered.
You try to pity me, I see the good intent, I know it is your best;
But how shall you pay out in coin
What yet lies bedded in your ores?
The fires of grief—they lap the heart in flame,
They smelt the red gold free! It is the bleeding heart
That pays the due of woe in metal fire-assayed,—
Not kindly-meaning paper
Drawn upon an unexploited mine Ⓐtextual note
Which one may find some day in case by malice of the fates
Misfortune shall so order it.”
She dreamed a moment in her past,
With absent look, and mumbled, in her pain,
“Oh, I am old in grief—so old!” And presently began
The story of her wounds, as one who muses to himself,
Scarce knowing that he speaks:
“My curly-headed fay! Ⓐtextual note
My baby girl—how long ago that was!—
’Tis five and twenty years—an age! Ⓐtextual note
“There sat I, thinking of my happiness,
The riches garnered in my heart, my hopes
Fulfilled beyond my dreams, and wondering
If any in the world knew such content as I:
“And now, from out my veiling lids
I caught a flash of sun-lit golden hair,
But kept the secret to myself. I knew the game:
A bear was lurking there, I knew it well,
And knew its ways. All stealthily it crept
In shadow and concealment of the wood—
(Which others thought a sofa of the horse-hair type)—
Until it gained the nearest coign of vantage:
[begin page 215] Then—out it burst upon me with a roar, and I
Collapsed in fright!—Ⓐtextual notewhich was my part to play.
“O, I can see my darling yet: the little form
In slip of flimsy stuff all creamy white,
Pink-belted waist with ample bows,
Blue shoes scarce bigger than the housecat’sⒶtextual note ears—
Capering in delight and choked with glee
To see me so becrazed with fright.
“ThenⒶtextual note suddenly the laughter ceased— Ⓐtextual note
Drowned, dear heart, in penitential tears—
She flew to me and hugged me close,
And kissed my eyes and face and mouth,
And soothed away my fears with anxious words,
‘LookⒶtextual note up, mammaⒶtextual note, don’t cry; it’s not a real bear, it’s only me.’
“Ah me, ah me, how could I know
That I should look upon her face no more!”
“Poor soul! She died? That very day?”
“No. Lost, I think—or stolen away;
We never knew.”
It smote me cold; it smote me dumb;
There were no words to say. She noted not
Or if I spoke or no, but drifted on
Along her tale of griefs—that weary road
The wretched travel day and night,
From eve to dawn and dawn to eve again,
Whilst happier mortals toil or sleep:
“No, I have not been spared.
So long ago it seems an age, misfortune came again.
’Tis sixteen years. Could I forget the count? Ah, no, ah, no. Ⓐtextual note
The dearest little maid—scarce ten years old—
How strange it was—how strange—how strange!
“It was a summer afternoon; the hill
Rose green above me and about, and in the vale below
The distant village slept, and all the world
Was steeped in dreams. Upon me lay this peace,
And I forgot my sorrow in its spell. And now
My little maid passed by, and she
Was deep in thought upon a solemn thing:
A disobedience, and my reproof. Upon my face
She ‘mustⒶtextual note not look until the day was done;’ Ⓐtextual note
For she was doing penance. . . . She?
O, it was I! What mother knows not that?
And so she passed, I worshiping and longing. . . .
It was not wrong? You do not think me wrong?
I did it for the best. Indeed I meant it so.
And it was done in love—not passion; no,
[begin page 216] But only love. You do not think me wrong?
’Twould comfort me to think I was not wrong. . . .
If I had spoken! If I had known—if I had only known!
“As then she was, I see her still;
And ever as I look, awake or in my dreams,
She passes by. Unheeding me, she passes by!
“By duty urged, I checked the hail all charged with love
That burned upon my tongue, and let her pass unwelcomed—
Sat worshiping, and let her pass unwelcomed. . . .
Ah, how was I to know that doom was in the air!
“She flits before me now:
The peach-bloom gown of gauzy crêpe,
The plaited tails of hair,
The ribbons floating from the summer hat,
The grieving face, droop’dⒶtextual note head absorbed with care. Ⓐtextual note
O, dainty little form!— Ⓐtextual note
I see it move, receding slowⒶtextual note along the path,
By hovering butterflies besiegedⒶtextual note; I see it reach
The breezy top and show clear-cut against the sky. . . .
Then pass beyond and sink from sight—forever!”
“To death?”
“God knows. But lost to me;
To come no more, to bless my eyes no more in life.
Where now she wanders—if she wander still and live—
That shall I never know. . . . And there is yet
Another.”
“Gone?”
“Taken while I stood and gazed!”
“O, pitiful!”
“In presence of a hundred friends
She vanished from my eyes! In my own house
It was. Within, was light and cheer; without,
A blustering winter’s night. There was a play;
It was her own; for she had wrought it out,
Unhelped, from her own head—and she
But turned sixteen! A pretty play,
All graced with cunning fantasies,
And happy songs, and peopled all with fays,
And silvan gods and goddesses,
And shepherds, too, that piped and danced,
And wore the guileless hours away
In care-free romps and games.
“Her girlhood mates played in the piece,
And she as well: a goddess, she,—
And looked it, as it seemed to me.
[begin page 217] “ ’Twas fairyland restored—so beautiful it was
And innocent. It made us cry, we elder ones,
To live our lost youth o’er again
With these its happy heirs.
“Slowly, at last, the curtain fell.
Before us, there, she stood, all wreathed and draped
In roses pearled with dew—so sweet, so gladⒺexplanatory note,
So radiant!—andⒶtextual note flung us kisses through the storm
Of praise that crowned her triumph. . . . O,
Across the mists of time I see her yet,
My Goddess of the Flowers!
. . . . “The curtain hid her. . . .
Do you comprehend? Till time shall end!
Out of my life she vanished while I looked!
. . . . “TenⒶtextual note years are flown.
O, I have watched so long,
So long. But she will come no more. . . .
No more. No, she will come no more.”
She sobbed, and dumbly moaned, a little time,
I silent, wanting words to comfort griefs like these;
Then, sighing, took she up her tale again:
“YetⒶtextual note even this I over-lived
And in my heart of hearts gave thanks
That of my jewels one was left,
That of my jewels still the richest one
Was spared me to delight my eye
And light the darkness of my days.
“My idol, she!
I hugged her to my dreading soul—my precious one!— Ⓐtextual note
And daily died with fear. For now,
To me all things were terrors, that before
Were innocent of harm: the rain, the snow, the sun—
I blenched if they but touched her.
“O, tall and fair and beautiful she was! Ⓐtextual note
And all the world to me, and I to her. In her I lived,
And she in me. We were not two, but one.
And it was little like the common tie that binds
The mother and the child, but liker that
Which binds two lovers:
The hours were blank when we were separate;
The time was heavy and the sun was cold,
Life lost its worth. And when the blank was past,
And we drank life again from out each other’s eyes
And lips and speech—oh, heaven itself could nothing add
To that contenting joy! . . .
“I would you could have seen her.
[begin page 218] If you, a stranger . . . But you will never see her now;
Nor I—oh, never more!
. . . . “How beautiful she was!
Not outwardly alone,—within, as well. Her spirit
Answered to her face, her mind ennobled both. . . .
And now. . . .
O, now to know that in that wonder-working intellect
The light is quenched, the cunning wheels are still,
The eyes that spoke, the voice that charmed,
Have ceased from their enchantments!
. . . . “How dear she was! how full of life!
A creature made of joyous fire and flame and impulse—
A living ecstasy! Ah who could dream
That she could die? . . . Two years—two little years ago. . . .
“It seems so strange. . . . so strange . . .
Struck down unwarned!
In the unboughtⒶtextual note grace of youth laid low—
In the glory of her fresh young bloom laid low—
In the morning of her life cut down!
“And I not by! Not by
When the shadows fell, the night of death closed down,
The sun that lit my life went out. Not by to answer
When the latest whisper passed the lips
That were so dear to me—my name!
Far from my post! the world’s whole breadth away.
O, sinking in the waves of death she cried to me
For mother-help, and got for answer—
Silence!”Ⓔexplanatory note
“O, you wring my heart!
God pity you, poor lady! God pity you, and grant
That this hard stroke shall be the last
That in His providence—”
I stopped—rebuked by something in her face.
She drifted into dreams—Ⓐtextual noteshe did not hear;
Her thoughts were far away,
Wandering among the ruins of her life.
Then presently she muttered to herself,
“All gone.
All; and she, the last, my joy, my pride, my solace—
Dead. Dead, in the perfected flower of her youth.”
She rose, and went her way.
I questioned one who seemed to know her, and he said,
“Poor lady, she is mad.
She is bereft of four, she thinks. There was but one.”
AhⒶtextual note, God!
And yet, poor broken heart, she said the truth!
We that are old—we comprehend; even we
[begin page 219] That are not mad: whose grown-up scions still abide,
Their tale complete:
Their earlier selves we glimpse at intervals
Far in the dimming past;
We see the little forms as once they were,
And whilst we ache to take them to our hearts,
The vision fades. We know them lost to us—
Forever lost; we cannot have them back;
We miss them as we miss the dead,
We mourn them as we mourn the dead.
S. L. C.Ⓐtextual note
York Harbor, August 18, 1902.
After my wife’s death, June 5, 1904, I experienced a long period of unrest and loneliness. Clara and Jean were busy with their studies and their labors, and I was washing about on a forlorn sea of banquets and speech-making in high and holy causes—industries which furnished me intellectual cheer and entertainment, but got at my heart for an evening only, then left it dry and dusty. I had reached the grandpapa stage of life; and what I lacked and what I needed, was grandchildren, but I didn’t know it. By and by this knowledge came by accident, on a fortunate day, a golden day, and my heart has never been empty of grandchildren since. No, it is a treasure-palace of little people whom I worship, and whose degraded and willing slave I am. In grandchildren I am the richest man that lives to-day: for I select my grandchildren, whereas all otherⒶtextual note grandfathers have to take them as they come, good, bad and indifferent.
The accident I refer to, was the adventⒶtextual note of Dorothy Butes, fourteenⒶtextual note years old, who wanted to come and look at me. Her mother brought her. There was never a lovelier child. English, with the English complexion; and simple, sincere, frank and straightforward, as became her time of life. This was more than two years ago. She came to see me every few weeks, until she returned to England eight months ago. Since then, we correspondⒺexplanatory note.
My next prize was Frances Nunnally, schoolgirlⒶtextual note, of Atlanta, Georgia, whom I call Francesca for short. I have already told what pleasantⒶtextual note times we had together every day in London, last summer, returning calls. She was sixteenⒶtextual note then, a dear sweet grave little body, and very welcome in those English homes. She will pay meⒶtextual note a visit six weeks hence, when she comes North with her parents Europe-boundⒺexplanatory note. She is a faithful correspondent.
My third prize was Dorothy Quick—ten years and ten-twelfths of a year old when I captured her at sea last summer on the return-voyage from England. What a Dorothy it is! How many chapters have I already talked about herⒺexplanatory note, and aboutⒶtextual note her bright and booming and electrical ways, and her punctuationless literature and her adorably lawless spelling? Have I exhausted her as a text for talk? No. Nobody could do it. At least nobodyⒶtextual note who worships her as I worship her. She is eleven years and nearly eight-twelfths of a year old, now, and just a dear! She was to come to me as soon as I should get back from Bermuda, but she has an earlier grandpaⒶtextual note, and he is leaving for Europe next Monday morning, and naturally he had to have the last of her before sailing. Is she still her old [begin page 220] self, and is her pen characteristicallyⒶtextual note brisk and her spelling and punctuation undamaged by time and still my pride and delight? Yes:Ⓐtextual note
DearⒶtextual note Mr Clemens
I am very glad you are home and I am so glad I am to see you on Monday I will not be able to come Monday Morning but will come on the one-nine train I will be so glad to see you I am sorry not being able to be with you on Saturday but I really want to be with grandpa and now I must close.
with love to you and miss Lyon
Your loving
Dorothy
P.S. Grandpa is going away that is why I must be with him on sunday
Dorothy
Next is Margaret—Margaret Blackmer, New York, twelveⒶtextual note years old last New Year’s. She of the identification-shell. (See a previous chapter.) Those shells were so frail and delicate that they could not endure exposure on a watch-chain, therefore we have put them safely and sacredly away and hung gold shells enameled with iridescent shell-colors on our watch-chains to represent them and do the identifying with. Margaret’s father will bring her down from her school at Briarcliff on the Hudson sixⒶtextual note days hence to visit me—as I learn per her letter of five days ago—and then she will go with me to a play at the Children’s Theatre, where, as Honorary President of that admirable institution, I am to say a few wordsⒺexplanatory note.
Next is Irene—Irene GerkenⒶtextual note, of 75thⒶtextual note streetⒶtextual note, New York, that beautiful and graceful and altogether wonderful child—I mean fairy—of twelveⒶtextual note summersⒺexplanatory note. To-morrow she will go to a matinée with me, and we are to play billiards the rest of the day. In Bermuda, last January, we played much billiards together, and a certain position of the balls is still known by her name there. When her ball backed itself against the cushion and became thereby nearly unusable, she wasⒶtextual note never embarrassed by that defect but always knew how to remedy it: she just moved it out to a handier place, without remark or apology and blandly fired away! Down there, now, when a ball lies glued to a cushion, gentlemen who have never seen that child lament and say, “OⒶtextual note, hang it, here’s another Irene!”
Next is HellenⒶtextual note Martin, of Montreal, CanadaⒺexplanatory note, a slim and bright and sweet little creature aged ten and a half years.
Next is Jean Spurr, aged thirteenⒶtextual note the 14th of last MarchⒺexplanatory note, and of such is the kingdom of HeavenⒶtextual note.
Next is Loraine Allen, nine and a half years oldⒺexplanatory note, with the voice of a flute and a face as like a flower as can be, and as graciously and enchantingly beautiful as ever any flower was.
Next is Helen Allen, aged thirteenⒶtextual note, native of BermudaⒺexplanatory note, perfect in character, lovely in disposition, and a captivatorⒶtextual note at sight!
Next—and last, to date—is Dorothy Sturgis, aged sixteenⒶtextual note, of BostonⒺexplanatory note. This is the charming child mentioned in yesterday’s chapter when I was talking about Lord Grey. [begin page 221] On the voyage we were together at the stern watching the huge waves lift the ship skyward then drop her, most thrillingly H—alifaxward, when one of them of vast bulkⒶtextual note leaped over the taffrail and knocked us down and buried us underⒶtextual note several tons of salt water. The papers, from one end of America to the other, made a perilous and thundersome event of itⒺexplanatory note, but it wasn’t that kind of a thing at all. Dorothy was not discomposed, nobody was hurt, we changed our clothes from the skin outward, and were on deck again in half an hour. In talkingⒶtextual note of Dorothy yesterday I referred to her as one of my “angel-fishes.”
All the ten schoolgirlsⒶtextual note in the above list are my angel-fishesⒶtextual note, and constitute my Club, whose name is “The Aquarium,” and contains no creature but these angel-fishes and one slave. I am the slave. The Bermudian angel-fish, with its splendid blue decorations, is easily the most beautiful fish that swims, I think. So I thought I would call my ten pets angel-fishesⒶtextual note, and their ClubⒶtextual note the AquariumⒺexplanatory note.
The Club’sⒶtextual note badge is theⒶtextual note angel-fish’s splendors reproduced in enamels and mounted for service as a lapel-pin—at least that is where the girls wear it. I get these little pins in Bermuda; they are made in Norway.
A year or two ago I bought a lovely piece of landscape of 210 acres in the country near Redding, Connecticut, and John Howells, the son of his father, is building a villaⒶtextual note there for me. We’ll spend the coming summerⒶtextual note in itⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note
The billiard room willⒶtextual note have the legend “The Aquarium” over its door, for it is to be the Club’s official headquarters.Ⓐtextual note There is an angel-fish bedroom—double-bedded—and I expect to have a fish and her mother in it as often as Providence will permit.Ⓐtextual note
There’s a letter from the little Montreal HellenⒶtextual note. I will begin an answer now, and finish it laterⒺexplanatory note:
I miss you, dear HellenⒶtextual note. I miss Bermuda too, but not so much as I miss you; for you were rare, and occasional, and select, and Ltd., whereas Bermuda’s charms and graciousnesses were free and common and unrestricted,—like the rain, you know, which falls upon the just and the unjust alikeⒺexplanatory note; a thing which would not happen if I were superintending the rain’s affairs. No, I would rain softly and sweetly upon the just, but whenever I caught a sample of the unjust outdoorsⒶtextual note I would drown him.
Reverend Twichell is coming down from Hartford, and I will send him a word of welcomeⒺexplanatory note right now:Ⓐtextual note
IⒶtextual note am glad, Joe—uncommonly glad—for you will tell me about the “new movement” up your way which your clergy have been importing from Boston. Something of it has reached me, and has filled me to the eyelids with irreverent laughter. You will tell me if my understanding of the New Movement is correct: to witⒶtextual note, that it is just Christian Science, with some of the ear-marksⒶtextual note painted overⒺexplanatory note and the others removed, after the fashion of the unanointed cattle-thievesⒶtextual note of the wild, wild West. My word, how ecclesiastical history do repeat herself! The Jews steal a God and a Creation and a Flood and a Moral Code from Babylon; Egypt steals the like from a forgotten Antiquity; Greece steals the swag from Egypt; Rome steals it from [begin page 222] Greece; Christianity comes belated along and steals morals and miracles and one thing and another from Budh and Confucius; Christian Science arrives and steals the Christian outfitⒺexplanatory note and gives it a new name; and now at last comes the Boston puritan—hater of ChristianⒶtextual note Science—and steals the plunder anew, and re-baptizesⒶtextual note it, and shouts tearful and grateful glory to God for winking at the mulct and not letting on—according to His shady custom these thirty million years.
Oh yes, I am aware that the Science was emptying New England’s churches, and that the wise recognized that something had got to be done or the Church must go out of businessⒶtextual note and put up its pulpits at auction; I am aware that the peril was forestalled, and how; I am awareⒶtextual note that Christian Science, disguised and new-named, has arrived in Hartford and is being preached and thankfully welcomed—where? In the most fitting of all places: the Theological FactoryⒺexplanatory note, which was largely built out of stolen money. Money stolen from me by that precious Christian, Newton Case, and his pals of the American Publishing CompanyⒺexplanatory note.
OhⒶtextual note, dear Joe, why doesn’t somebody write a tract on “How to BeⒶtextual note a Christian and yet keep your Hands off of Other People’s Things.”
One day at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson] The Clemens family lived principally in Riverdale from 1 October 1901 until their departure for Italy in the fall of 1903 ( AutoMT2 , 506 n. 82.4–9, 507–8 n. 99.16–19, 651).
Mrs. Clemens and I were mourning . . . departed this life August 18, 1896] This “dictation” is actually a transcription of two manuscripts. One of them, on which Clemens wrote “Dictated April 17/08,” contains the two prose sections of the text. The inserted poem is in a second manuscript, which he finished at York Harbor, the resort in Maine where the family spent the summer of 1902. Dated “August 18, 1902,” it was written to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the death of Susy Clemens at age twenty-four, from meningitis (SLC 1902). The “lost little ones” were Clara, born in 1874, and Jean, born in 1880 (see the Appendix “Family Biographies”). The poem is a revised version of “Broken Idols,” written in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, on 18 August 1898 (SLC 1898b). Many lines of the 1902 poem are identical to the 1898 version, but other sections are new, or rearranged. In both poems the old woman and her lost child clearly represent Olivia and Susy (for a full discussion of “Broken Idols” see Bush 2007, 246–50).
But turned sixteen . . . In roses pearled with dew—so sweet, so glad] At age seventeen Susy wrote and staged A Love-Chase, a play “formed upon Greek lines.” Clemens described the occasion in his “Memorial to Susy” (see AutoMT1 , 327, 580 n. 327.11–13, and the photograph following page 204).
“And I not by! . . . For mother-help, and got for answer—Silence!”] Susy died in the family home in Hartford while her parents and sister were abroad: see the Autobiographical Dictation of 2 February 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 323–25).
Dorothy Butes . . . we correspond] Margaret Dorothy Butes (1893–1975), Clemens’s first angelfish, was born in London to Alfred and Janet Butes. Her father, a skilled stenographer, was for many years the confidential secretary of New York publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Dorothy met Clemens in the fall of 1906 through George Barr Baker, an associate editor of Everybody’s Magazine, who chatted with Dorothy at a dinner and wrote Clemens of her desire to “know where Mark Twain lives” (Baker to SLC, 21 Oct 1906, CU-MARK). Three days later, on 24 October, Dorothy herself wrote Clemens, enthusiastically praising his works, and on 30 October her mother took her to meet him (CU-MARK; Lyon 1906, entry for 30 Oct; Lyon 1907, entry for 28 Aug). In early 1907 Dorothy submitted at least one story to St. Nicholas magazine: the March issue included her on a list of those whose work “entitled them to encouragement” (34:474). In mid-1907 Alfred Butes resigned his position with Pulitzer (forfeiting his role as a trustee of Pulitzer’s estate and a fifty-thousand-dollar legacy) and accepted a secretarial job with the English publisher Lord Northcliffe (see AD, 24 Nov 1908, note at 278.21–38). Dorothy returned to England with her family in July; Clemens was “heartsick” to see her go (Lyon 1907, entry for 25 July; see Schmidt 2009, an important source for the biographical information in many of the notes for this dictation). Ten of Dorothy’s letters survive in the Mark Twain Papers, but only three of Clemens’s to her have been found. Much of the correspondence between Clemens and his angelfish has been published in Mark Twain’s Aquarium (Cooley 1991, 285–93).
Frances Nunnally . . . Europe-bound] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 25 July 1907 and the note at 74.15–21. Frances and Clemens planned to meet in New York before her departure for Europe, but the date had not yet been fixed. They saw each other on 12 June, the day before she embarked (Nunnally to SLC, 30 Apr 1908, CU-MARK; 29 May 1908 to Welles, CU-MARK).
Dorothy Quick . . . How many chapters have I already talked about her] See the Autobiographical Dictations of 5 October 1907 and 14 February 1908.
Margaret Blackmer . . . I am to say a few words] Clemens describes his first meeting with Margaret, in Bermuda, in his Autobiographical Dictation of 13 February 1908 (see also the note at 203.7). She was a pupil at the Misses Tewksbury’s School for Girls in Briarcliff Manor, in Westchester County. Her letter of “five days ago” does not survive; on 15 April Clemens replied to it:
So I will look for you about the 23d. I am the honorary President of the Children’s Theatre, & on the 23d the children will give a performance in aid of one of the great charities. Ah, they are great, those gifted children. Of course I shall be there (for I have to speak a few words,) & it would be lovely if you could go there with Miss Lyon & me. Can you? Will you? (CtY-BR, in Cooley 1991, 136)
Lyon noted in her journal that on 23 April she and Clemens attended an evening performance at the Children’s Theatre with publisher Robert J. Collier and his wife (like Clemens, Collier was on the newly formed board of directors); she made no mention of Margaret (Lyon 1908, entry for 23 April; for the Children’s Theatre see AD, 13 Jan 1908, note at 199.9 [2nd]). According to the New York Times, Clemens gave a “short address” on the occasion, while the entire staff of the Children’s Theatre “ranged itself behind the curtains, with an eye at every possible peep hole, and an ear at every crack” to hear him (“Child Actors Warm to Their Mark Twain,” 24 Apr 1908, 9).
Irene Gerken . . . of twelve summers] Clemens “found” Irene (1896–1969) in Bermuda on 25 February 1908 (Lyon 1908, entry for 25 Feb). Her parents, Frederick and Charlotte Gerken, were both immigrants from Germany. Frederick was a wealthy businessman and real estate developer; one of his enterprises was a casino in Deal, New Jersey, where the family spent their summers. His interests included yachting and horse racing. In 1915 Irene married Joseph L. Egan, an attorney who later became the president of the Western Union Telegraph Company.
Hellen Martin, of Montreal, Canada] Hellen Elizabeth Martin (b. 1897) was the daughter of Robert Dennison Martin, born in Ontario, and the former Helen Moncrieff Morton, an immigrant from Scotland; they had lived in Montreal since 1899. Martin was a highly successful grain merchant. He died in 1905 at age fifty, leaving his widow with five young children, of whom Hellen was the second oldest. In about 1947 she married Rudolf James Waeckerlin, the Swiss consul to Jamaica (Atherton 1914, 3:94–97; Lowrey 2013).
Jean Spurr, aged thirteen the 14th of last March] Clemens met Jean Woodward Spurr (1896–1979) in Bermuda no later than 20 March, when Lyon noted in her journal, “Jean wears a blond wig & has no eyebrows or lashes, but the King doesn’t care about a detail like that. He sees into her fair young soul & is very glad” (Lyon 1908). She was the daughter of Harriet and Edwin Robert Spurr of New Jersey. Spurr was a contractor of cut stone; his company, founded by his father, supplied stone for many important buildings in New York. Jean graduated from Vassar College in 1917, and in 1919 married Walter Wood Gamble of Jersey City, an engineer in the oil industry ( Connecticut Death Index 1949–2001, record for Jean Woodward Spurr; Vassarion 29 [1917]: 86).
Loraine Allen, nine and a half years old] Loraine Allen (1898–1984) was the only child of the former Grace Fanshawe and George Marshall Allen of New York. In 1904 her father incorporated the Bermuda Electric Light, Power and Traction Company, which began to supply electric current in May 1908. In 1917 Loraine married Allan MacDougall, a coffee merchant; they divorced in 1941. She later married Godfrey Stephen Beresford.
Helen Allen, aged thirteen, native of Bermuda] Helen Schuyler Allen (1895–1956) was the daughter of William Henry Allen, the American vice-consul to Bermuda, and his wife, Marion. Clemens noticed Helen when she came to the Princess Hotel to watch the dancing, and two days later she invited him to her home, Bay House. There he learned that he had met Helen’s grandfather, Charles Maxwell Allen, who had been the U.S. consul to Bermuda when the Quaker City stopped there on its return to New York in 1867. And he discovered an even more remarkable coincidence: as a child, Olivia Clemens had been acquainted with Helen’s grandmother, Susan Elizabeth Allen, whom he visited in Flatts Village to reminisce about the Langdon family. The Allens became warm and hospitable friends; in 1910, during his last trip to Bermuda, Clemens made his home at Bay House. In 1913 Helen’s mother recorded her memories of his stay in a magazine article, “Some New Anecdotes of Mark Twain” (Allen 1913; Hoffmann 2006, 120). In 1915, at age nineteen, Helen married Percy Walker Nelles, who had a successful career in the Royal Canadian Navy, retiring in 1945 as an admiral.
Dorothy Sturgis, aged sixteen, of Boston] Dorothy Sturgis (1891–1978) was visiting Bermuda with her parents and older brother while her mother recovered from an operation. Clemens became acquainted with her at the Princess Hotel; he had already met her father, prominent architect Richard Clipston Sturgis (1860–1951), at the Tavern Club in Boston. Dorothy, who attended the prestigious Winsor School for girls (housed in a Boston building designed by her father), was interested in art. She later studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, worked as a draftsman at the Portsmouth (N.H.) Naval Shipyard, and had a successful career as a bookplate designer and book illustrator (Harding 1967, 3–4; “Social Life,” Boston Herald, 12 Apr 1908, 2; American Antiquarian Society 2013).
On the voyage . . . made a perilous and thundersome event of it] In a letter to Clemens of 14 April 1908, Dorothy commented on the dramatic accounts of their misadventure: “I suppose you saw what they said in the newspapers about our being caught by that wave. The account in the Boston Herald was really very funny, and of course mostly incorrect!” (CU-MARK, in Cooley 1991, 135). The Herald story was entitled “Mark Twain Near Death from Huge Wave”:
The humorist was one of a very few that ventured on the deck during the 60-mile gale and his companion was Miss Dorothy Sturgis, daughter of a well known New York architect. Mr. Clemens had Dorothy by the arm, and they were making great sport of their hazardous progress down the promenade deck, slipping from side to side as the wind buffeted them and the spray dashed in their faces.
Suddenly a giant comber hurled itself slantwise at the ship and burst in a deluging cloud of water over the rail. A swirl of the water descended upon Mark Twain and the young girl and snatched her from his protecting arm. She was swept from him and down into the scuppers. Then Mr. Clemens’ feet went out from under him as another wave pounded over the side, but he managed by an agile movement to catch the rail and save himself.
As soon as he could gain his feet he worked his way down the scuppers to where Miss Sturgis lay gasping and in a perfect swoon. He caught the young girl in his arms and carried her safely to a gangway and down into the shelter of the cabin. (14 Apr 1908, 16)
The story was picked up by newspapers across the country: see, for example, “Mark Twain a Hero,” in the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier (15 Apr 1908, 4), and “Twain Nearly Goes Overboard” in the Los Angeles Times (14 Apr 1908, I1).
All the ten schoolgirls in the above list are my angel-fishes . . . their Club the Aquarium] Clemens visited the Bermuda aquarium on 1 March (see AD, 16 Apr 1908, note at 212.5–6). According to Paine, it was the angelfish he saw there—which “suggested youth and feminine beauty”—that inspired him to establish his club for young girls ( MTB , 3:1440). Lyon noted in her journal on 1 April: “He has his aquarium of little girls—& they are all angel fish—while he wears a flying fish scarf pin, though he says he is a shad. Off he goes with a flash when he sees a new pair of slim little legs appear; & if the little girl wears butterfly bows of ribbon on the back of her head then his delirium is complete” (Lyon 1908, entries for 1 Mar and 1 Apr). The roster of “The Aquarium” in Clemens’s June 1908 notebook (Notebook 48, TS p. 3, CU-MARK) includes two members whom he does not mention in his autobiography: Marjorie Breckenridge (1893–1980), daughter of Maude Breckenridge and stepdaughter of her second husband, attorney John M. Dater, Redding neighbors of Clemens’s; and Louise Paine (1894–1968), the oldest daughter of Albert Bigelow Paine and his wife, Dora. The roster includes Dorothy Harvey, whom he refers to only as his “American” Dorothy in the Autobiographical Dictation of 14 February 1908. He also makes no mention in the autobiography of Gertrude Natkin (1890–1969), whom he did not consider an official angelfish, possibly because she was more mature than the others. (He addressed her as “Marjorie,” after Marjory Fleming, the precocious Scottish girl whose writing he admired: see AutoMT1 , 581 n. 328.12.) Clemens met Gertrude in New York in December 1905, and corresponded with her frequently until April 1906, when she turned sixteen. His letters then became brief and intermittent (most of their correspondence is in CU-MARK). On her birthday he wrote her: “Sixteen! Ah, what has become of my little girl? I am almost afraid to send a blot [kiss], but I venture it. Bless your heart it comes within an ace of being improper! Now back you go to 14!—then there’s no impropriety” (8 Apr 1906, CU-MARK, in Cooley 1991, 1–3, 24–25).
A year or two ago I bought a lovely piece of landscape . . . We’ll spend the coming summer in it] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 26 March 1907, note at 13.20–22. Paine described the house as “simple and severe in its architecture—an Italian villa, such as he had known in Florence, adapted now to American climate and needs.” Clemens left all the oversight of design and construction details to Clara Clemens and Isabel Lyon, preferring not to see the house, he said, “until the cat is purring on the hearth” ( MTB , 3:1446, 1450): “I was not willing to discuss the plans nor look at the drawings. I merely said I wanted three things—a room of my own that would be quiet, a billiard-room big enough to play in without jabbing the cues into the wall, and a living-room forty by twenty feet” (Dugmore 1909, 608). The builders, William W. Sunderland and his son, Philip, of Danbury, Connecticut, broke ground on 23 May 1907. As work progressed, Lyon enthusiastically took on the job of decorating and furnishing the new home; by early June she was working “night & day” to prepare it for occupancy (14 June 1908 to Quick, CU-MARK). On 18 June Clemens, accompanied by Paine, traveled by train to Redding, where he entered the house for the first time. He wrote to Clara, who was in London on a concert tour:
I have been in residence two days, now, & I realize that this is the most satisfactory house I was ever in & also about the most beautiful. The Hartford house was a lovely home, but the architect damaged many of its comfort-possibilities & wasted a deal of its space. The New York house is a roomy & pleasant home, but it is sunless not beautiful. This house is roomy & delightful & beautiful, & no space has been wasted. The sun falls upon it in such floods that you can hear it. Miss Lyon has achieved wonders, I think. (20 June 1908, photocopy in CU-MARK)
Clemens at first intended to live in Redding only during the summer, spending the rest of the year at 21 Fifth Avenue. On 18 July, however, he wrote to Clara, “I do so delight in this home that the thought of ever going back to that crude & tasteless New York barn, even to stay over night, revolts me. I do not wish to live anywhere but here” (CSmH); and by mid-August he had decided to “stay here winter & summer both” (13 Aug 1908 to Allen, BmuHA). For a detailed description of the house, with photographs and architectural plans, see Mac Donnell 2006.
There’s a letter from the little Montreal Hellen. I will begin an answer . . . finish it later] Although Clemens wrote “Dictated April 17, 1908” on the manuscript that is the source of this “dictation,” he may well have finished it some days later. Neither of the two letters that Hellen wrote by mid-April could have arrived by 17 April, but either one might have been delivered on 18 April. Her first letter, dated 7 April, was sent to Bermuda; the postmark indicates that it was not forwarded to New York until 16 April (CU-MARK):
Westmount
1 Murray Ave
April 7th 1908
Dear Mr Clemens
We arrived at home on Sunday morning April 5th, We stayed five day’s in New York and had a fine time there. We found our cat had run away on saturday evening, We did not get him back until Monday morning. Our dog was delighted at our coming back. How are you feeling. I was very sick on the boat and so was Mother, it was very rough coming back. The snow is going away very slowly. It is a lovely day and quite warm we seem to have brought good weather with us. I have not started my lessons yet. My little dickie Bird sing’s beautifully. We were down town yesterday. I wish you a Bright and Happy Easter. I am feeling quite well now. Lots of Love from xxxxxxxxxxxx
Your Little friend
Hellen Martin
P. S. Please write soon.
Hellen’s second letter, undated but postmarked in Montreal on 17 April (at 6 p.m.), was sent directly to New York (CU-MARK):
Dear Mr Clemens
I wrote you a letter but was just to late for the mail for Bermuda. I hope you had a pleasant voyage coming back. My Brother Charlie who is at Boarding School, is coming Back for the Easter Holidays. How are you feeling now? I am feeling fine, Lots of Love from
Your Loving Little friend
Hellen Martin
P. S. Wishing you a very Happy Easter. H. M.
No reply from Clemens other than the fragment in this dictation has been found. He did finish and send it, however: Hellen acknowledged his letter on 24 April, saying “I also miss you very much indeed” (CU-MARK).
rain, you know, which falls upon the just and the unjust alike] A paraphrase of Matthew 5:45.
Reverend Twichell is coming down from Hartford . . . a word of welcome] Twichell had written (CU-MARK):
Hartford.
Apr. 15. 1908
Dear Mark:
You were doubtless grieved to learn—if you did learn—on your arrival home that you had missed the honor and privilege of my “keep” over last Sunday.
But dry your tears. It is wonderful how Providence does favor some people. I am called to New York again:—this time to attend a meeting in Carnegie Hall next Monday evening (Apr. 20) and I will lodge with you then if you say so.
But there’s no compulsion about it, you understand.
Yours aff
Joe
On Sunday, 12 April 1908, Twichell, a former Union army battlefield chaplain, had been in New York to participate in a service of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, commemorating the end of the Civil War. The meeting that he planned to attend on 20 April was “held under the auspices of the Laymen’s Missionary Movement”; the featured speaker was Secretary of War Taft. Afterward, Twichell did “lodge” with Clemens at 21 Fifth Avenue. Presumably Clemens sent him a “word of welcome,” but perhaps not exactly the one he drafted here: the source of our text is a manuscript that remained in his possession; the letter he mailed to Twichell has not been found (“Agents of Trade Hurt Us in Orient,” New York Times, 21 Apr 1908, 3; AutoMT1 , 287, 312, 430–31, 632–33 nn. 430.29–30, 430.40–431.7; Twichell 1874–1916, entries for 11–13 and 20–21 Apr 1908).
“new movement” up your way . . . Christian Science, with some of the ear-marks painted over] In 1906 Elwood Worcester (1862–1940), rector of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston, established a clinic to treat people with “nervous disorders,” guided by the principles of psychology developed by Sigmund Freud and William James (among others), which emphasize the connection between physical and emotional health. Worcester rejected most of the theology of Christian Science, especially its repudiation of traditional medicine, but accepted its central idea of the healing power of Christ. He and his associate rector, Samuel McComb (1864–1938), treated only ailments which, in their judgment, originated in the mind or soul, such as melancholia, neurasthenia, anxiety, and alcohol addiction. Their techniques included psychotherapy, hypnosis, and the power of suggestion, which they described in a book published in May 1908 entitled Religion and Medicine: The Moral Control of Nervous Disorders (Worcester, McComb, and Coriat 1908). McComb became the primary spokesman for the Emmanuel movement. His lecture in Hartford on 31 January 1908 excited much interest among ministers and doctors (“Dr. McCombe Tells of His Clinics,” Hartford Courant, 1 Feb 1908, 6).
The Jews steal a God . . . Christian Science arrives and steals the Christian outfit] For similar comments see the Autobiographical Dictations of 20 June and 22 June 1906 ( AutoMT2 , 130–32, 136, 525–26 n. 136.10–12).
Christian Science, disguised . . . the Theological Factory] William D. Mackenzie, president of the Hartford Theological Seminary, was concerned that physicians and ministers in Hartford without adequate training might immediately begin to offer treatments like those being implemented at Emmanuel Church. To avert such a “hazardous” undertaking he arranged two courses of lectures at the seminary on nervous diseases. The first, by a doctor, was to cover their “physical basis.” The second, by Samuel McComb, would address “their psychology, their relation to the spiritual life, the therapeutic value of prayer and mental suggestion in dealing with them” (“The Healing of Sick Minds in Sick Bodies” and “Letters from the People: A Notable Announcement,” Hartford Courant, 11 Mar 1908, 8). According to the New Haven Register, Mackenzie’s “announcement can hardly do less than rivet the attention of students of the times everywhere. It is probably the most important indication so far given of the new turn toward the healing of the body which the church is taking” (“The Simpson-McComb Lectures,” Hartford Courant [reprinting the New Haven Register], 14 Mar 1908, 8).
largely built out of stolen money . . . his pals of the American Publishing Company] Clemens believed that Newton Case, a director of the American Publishing Company, had been complicit when Elisha Bliss, as the company’s secretary, falsely claimed that the royalties on Clemens’s books, which ranged from 5 to 10 percent, represented at least half the profits. After Bliss’s death in 1880, the account statement furnished by the board convinced Clemens that Bliss had been swindling him ever since he signed the contract for Roughing It in 1870. Clemens tried to buy his book contracts, but Case refused, prompting him to publish with another company. His next book, The Prince and the Pauper, was issued in 1881 by James R. Osgood. Case was also a trustee and generous benefactor of the Hartford Theological Seminary. By 1890 he had donated at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars—money that Clemens claimed was “stolen”—to build a library ( AutoMT1 , 370–72, 498 n. 112.20, notes on 596–97; AutoMT2 , 52–53, 488 n. 53.19–20; “Obituary. Newton Case,” Hartford Courant, 16 Sept 1890, 1).
Source documents.
MS1 Manuscript, leaves numbered 1–12 (CU-MARK) and 14–16 (VtMiM), written on 17 April 1908: ‘Dictated . . . 1908’ (213 title); ‘One day . . . it is.’ (213.27–214.3); ‘After my . . . Yes:’ (219.13–220.2); ‘Next is . . . will permit.’ (220.13–221.22); ‘Reverend Twichell . . . People’s Things.’ (221.31–222.16).MS2 Manuscript, leaves numbered [1]–11 (CU-MARK), written on 18 August 1902: ‘ “In Dim . . . 1902.’ (214.4–219.12).
Quick to SLC MS letter, Dorothy Quick to SLC, 16 April 1908: ‘Dear . . . Dorothy’ (220.3–12).
TS1 Typescript carbon (the ribbon copy is lost), leaves numbered 2479–88, made from MS1 and Quick to SLC and revised: ‘Dictated . . . it is.’ (213 title–214.3); ‘After my . . . People’s Things.’ (219.13–222.16).
This “dictation” is actually based on two manuscripts, a brief letter from Dorothy Quick, and TS1. Clemens’s MS letter to Hellen Martin (221.25–30) is now lost; Hobby’s TS1 transcription is the unique source. MS1 is written on buff-colored laid paper measuring 5¾ by 8¾ inches. At the top of the first leaf Clemens wrote ‘Dictated April 17/08’. The first eleven leaves are in the Mark Twain Papers. Page 13, containing the text ‘There’s . . . drown him.’ (221.23–30), is now missing. That passage is supplied by TS1 (which is also the unique source for the summary paragraph below the title). The last three leaves of MS1, comprising the letter to Twichell, remained in Paine’s possession and were sold at auction in 1937, after his death; they now reside at Middlebury College (VtMiM). Clemens revised TS1, deleting several passages.
At the bottom of the second leaf of MS1 Clemens wrote ‘Insert the verses here’—an instruction to Hobby to transcribe MS2, the text of Clemens’s poem dated ‘York Harbor, August 18, 1902’—the sixth anniversary of Susy Clemens’s death. It is written on buff-colored wove paper measuring 5⅝ by 8 15/16 inches. Hobby did transcribe MS2 in a separate typescript, paginated 24–34 (CU-MARK); this is unrevised by Clemens, however, and lacks independent authority. The 1902 poem is a revised version of “Broken Idols,” originally written in Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, on 18 August 1898; it reflects Clemens’s extensive changes in order and wording.
The letter to Twichell on the last three leaves of MS1 is clearly a draft. If Clemens mailed a fair copy to Twichell, its present location is unknown.
Hobby’s accidental variations from copy are not reported. Two substantive variants in TS1 have also been deemed her errors, apparently the result of eye skips (see the entries at 219.36 and 222.9–10); the present text follows MS1.