Autobiography of Mark Twain (137 page)

Caleb W. Lindley, a stranger from Illinois, was shot in this city on Friday night last, by a woman named Weir, a widow, living in a house on Holliday’s Hill. He with several others, went to the house of the woman about 11 o’clock at night and demanded admittance, with permission to stay all night. Being refused, they threatened to do violence to the house, if their demands were not gratified. The woman ordered them away, and threatened to shoot, if they did not cease to molest her. One of them, Lindley, bolder than the rest, approached, and told her to “shoot ahead.” She accordingly fired, and he fell pierced with two balls and several buck shot.

The woman, a poor widow with several children, was not charged with a crime (20 May 1850, quoted in Wecter 1952, 159–60). The incident was the basis for chapters 29 and 30 of
Tom Sawyer
, in which Huck overhears Injun Joe threatening to disfigure the widow Douglas and summons help from the “Welchman” and his “brace of tall sons,” who live on Cardiff Hill (the fictional name for Holliday’s Hill), to thwart the attack.

158.26–27 a comrade—John Briggs, I think] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 16 March 1906, note at 420.17–18.

159.27–28 in an earlier chapter I have already described what a raging hell of repentance I passed through then] No such pre-1900 account has been found. Clemens returns to the subject of his temporary repentance in the Autobiographical Dictation of 8 March 1906.

159.30 Jim Wolf] Wolf (b. 1833?) was an apprentice printer who lodged with the Clemens family in the early 1850s when he worked with Samuel on Orion Clemens’s Hannibal
Western Union
(begun in 1850). Clemens, amused by his bashfulness, humorously described his slow response to the threat of an office fire in his first published piece, “A Gallant Fireman,” printed in Orion’s newspaper in January 1851 (SLC 1851). Wolfwas also the prototype for the bumpkin Nicodemus Dodge in chapter 23 of
A Tramp Abroad
(1880) (
Inds
, 351).

161.9–10 I was offered a large sum ... “Jim Wolf and the Cats.”] Clemens contributed his first piece to the New York
Sunday Mercury
in 1864—“Doings in Nevada,” 7 February—at the urging of Artemus Ward, after the two had met in Virginia City and enjoyed a “period of continuous celebration” in December 1863. “Jim Wolf and the Tom-Cats,” which appeared on 14 July 1867, was his ninth (and last) contribution to that journal (SLC 1864a, 1864b, 1867b, 1867c, 1867d, 1867f, 1867g, 1867j, 1867k).

161.13–17 “Jim Wolf and the Cats” appeared in a Tennessee paper ... His name has passed out of my memory] The Tennessee newspaper printing has not been found. In 1885, however, A. H. Warner (otherwise unidentified) sent Clemens a handwritten transcription of
a corrupt version of the text, which he had copied from an unknown source. Although Clemens’s original included a sprinkling of dialect words, this derivative text carried the concept much further. For example, “Our winder looked out onto the roof” was altered to “Wal our winder looked out onter the ruff.” It is likely that Clemens saw a printing of this text, or a variant of it, in the late 1860s; the popular “appropriator” has not been identified (A. H. Warner to SLC, 22 July 1885, and “Jim Wolfe and the Cats,” DV 275, CU-MARK).

161.24–27 In 1873 I was lecturing in London ... George Dolby, lecture-agent] The time referred to is December 1873. Dolby (d. 1900) was an experienced theatrical agent who in 1872 had tried and failed to persuade Clemens to lecture during his first visit to England. Clemens returned to London a year later, this time with his wife and infant daughter, Susy, and Dolby succeeded in booking him for five October days in London and one in Liverpool. At that point Olivia became desperately homesick, and Clemens accompanied his family home but immediately returned without them for a second round of lectures arranged by Dolby, from 1 to 20 December 1873 in London, and 8 to 10 January 1874 in Leicester and Liverpool (
L5:
15 Sept 1872 to OLC, 159–60; link note following 29 Sept 1873 to MacDonald, 446–47; 19 Sept 1873 to Stoddard, 456–58; 22 Nov 1873 to Lee, 481; 30 Dec 1873 to Fitzgibbon, 539, 541 n. 4).

161.27–30 Charles Warren Stoddard ... to have his company] Stoddard (1843–1909) began contributing poems anonymously to the San Francisco
Golden Era
in 1861. He had been friends with Clemens in San Francisco since at least 1865. In 1867, with help from Bret Harte, Stoddard published
Poems
, his first book. Clemens wrote him in April from New York: “I want to endorse your book, because I know all about poetry & I know you can write the genuine article. Your book will be a success—your book
shall
be a success—& I will destroy any man that says the contrary” (23 Apr 1867 to Stoddard,
L2
, 30–31 n. 1). Highly praised by some critics,
Poems
failed to win general acclaim. Stoddard had been raised as a Presbyterian, but converted that same year to Catholicism, an experience he wrote about in
A Troubled Heart and How It Was Comforted at Last
(1885). His most successful works were travel essays, a collection of which,
South-Sea Idyls
, was published in 1873. He traveled to England in mid-October 1873 as a roving reporter for the San Francisco
Chronicle
, and Clemens hired him as a secretary and companion in December. Over the following decade Stoddard traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East, and Hawaii, writing travel columns for the
Chronicle
and various journals. He taught literature in 1885–86 at the University of Notre Dame, and then from 1889 to 1902 at the Catholic University of America in Washington (link note following 14 Nov 1873 to OLC,
L5
, 476–78;
L6:
9 Jan 1874 to Moore, 16 n. 1; 12 Jan 1874 to Finlay, 19–20 n. 1; James 1911; Austen 1991, 4, 58, 65–69, 82, 88, 100, 103–14).

161.31 great trial of the Tichborne Claimant for perjury] In 1866 an Australian butcher claimed to be Roger Charles Tichborne (b. 1829), the heir to the Tichborne baronetcy and estates who it was thought had been lost at sea in 1854. The claimant was acknowledged by Tichborne’s mother (and several other people), but after her death he lost an ejection suit against the present baronet and was then charged with perjury. His trial, which lasted from April 1873 to February 1874 and included testimony about forged documents, multiple aliases,
murder, seduction, and insanity, fascinated the public. The jury determined that he was Arthur Orton, of Wapping. He was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison, of which he served ten. The identity of the claimant remains unresolved: at least one modern historian, Douglas Woodruff, has supported his claim. Clemens, who was personally interested in claimants, asked Stoddard to “scrap-book these trial reports,” intending to “boil the thing down into a more or less readable sketch some day.” In 1897 he devoted two pages to the case in chapter 15 of
Following the Equator
, but made no other literary use of the scrapbooks, which survive in the Mark Twain Papers (19 Oct 1873 to Stoddard,
L5
, 456–57; Scrapbooks 13–18, CU-MARK).

162.6 Dolby had been agent for ... Charles Dickens] Dolby escorted Dickens on his reading tours in Great Britain and America between 1866 and 1869. Dickens found him to be an amiable companion and efficient manager, and they became friends (15 Sept 1872 to OLC,
L5
, 160 n. 1; see also Dolby 1885).

162.18–19 baby had the botts] “Botts” (more commonly “bots”) is a condition in many animals caused by an infestation of botfly larvae. The only species of botfly to attack humans is
Dermatobia hominis
, which deposits its eggs under the skin.

162.32 Tom Hood’s Annual] Clemens had met humorist and illustrator Tom Hood (1835–74), the editor of the London magazine
Fun
, on his first trip to England, in 1872. Hood heard Clemens tell a story and encouraged him to write it down for inclusion in
Tom Hood’s Comic Annual for 1873
, where it appeared as “How I Escaped Being Killed in a Duel” (SLC 1872a; 11 Sept 1872 to OLC,
L5
, 155, 157 n. 10).

163.19–20 thing he sold to Tom Hood’s Annual ... he did not put my name to it] The stolen Jim Wolf sketch, retitled “A Yankee Story” and attributed to “G. R. Wadleigh,” was published in
Tom Hood’s Comic Annual for 1874
(SLC 1876j; Hood 1873, 78–79). George R. Wadleigh (b. 1845) was born in Boston, and listed himself in the 1881 census as a journalist (
British Census
1881, f. 129, p. 23; see also
N&J2
, 147). He probably found the text in
Practical Jokes with Artemus Ward, Including the Story of the Man Who Fought Cats
, by “Mark Twain and Other Humorists,” an unauthorized collection of stories issued in 1872 in London by John Camden Hotten. Stoddard also wrote an account of the incident:

There was an American who besieged us at the Langham as well as at the lecture-hall. His story was pitiful. Snatched from a foreign office by a change in the administration, a lovely young wife at the point of death, he penniless in a strange land, a born gentleman, delicately reared, unacquainted with toil,—would Mark be good enough to loan him a few pounds until he could hear from his estates at home? Mark did; how could he avoid it, when the unfortunate man assured him that they had been friends for years and that they had played many a (forgotten) game of billiards in days gone by? Well, a week later, when the person in question had disappeared, one of Mark’s early sketches was discovered in a copy of
London Fun
, bearing the name of the unfortunate; and there were two or three others on file, which, however, were detected in season to save them from the same fate. Coöperative authorship is not always agreeable, and this fellow proved he was one of the biggest frauds on record. (Charles Warren Stoddard 1903, 72–73)

Scraps from My Autobiography. Private History of a Manuscript That Came to Grief
(
Sources:
MS and TS [of the “ ‘Edited’ Introduction” only], written in 1900, CU-MARK)

164.2–10 An acquaintance had proposed ... the most competent person in Great Britain] The official records of Joan of Arc’s trials for heresy—the original one, which resulted in her execution in 1431, and the retrial, more than twenty years later, which annulled her condemnation—were first transcribed and published in five volumes by French archaeologist and historian Jules Quicherat in the 1840s. His work comprised selections, translated into modern French, of the original medieval French and Latin documents (Quicherat 1841–49). Clemens’s “acquaintance” was T. Douglas Murray, a wealthy barrister and amateur historian. In 1899 he asked Clemens to write an introduction to an English translation, the first ever published. Clemens was mistaken in his reference here to a translation published “a great many years before.” In the present case there were evidently two translators, one for each language (see the note at 164.11–12). Clemens was an obvious choice for this task. In 1896 he had published
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
, a historical novel for which he did extensive research. The work was an affectionate homage to his favorite historical figure, and he sometimes said it was his best work, a judgment shared chiefly with his family. Murray published his book (without Clemens’s participation) in 1902, with his own preface, introduction, and notes. He did not identify the “competent” translators (
MTB
, 3:1033–34; Murray 1902; Sayre 1932).

164.11–12 When he asked me to write an Introduction for the book, my pleasure was complete, my vanity satisfied] On 3 September 1899 Clemens wrote to Henry H. Rogers about the assignment: “The Official Records of the Joan of Arc Trials (in Rouen & the Rehabilitation) have at last been translated
in full
into English, & I was asked to write an Introduction, & have just finished it after a long & painstaking siege of work. I am to help edit it, & my name will go on the title page with those of the two translators. I expect it to be ever so readable & interesting a book” (Salm, in
HHR
, 409–10).

165.20–32 Introduction ... Let me have it back as soon as you can] Clemens initially invited Murray’s editing. In September 1899 he wrote, “When I send the Introduction, I must get you to do two things for me—knock the lies out of it & purify the grammar (which I think stinks, in one place.)” (3 Sept 1899 to Murray, CU-MARK; see the text shown as deleted at 175.10–11: “forget whom she was”). By January 1900 Clemens had reviewed a typed version, on which Murray had made suggestions, returning it with the note, “I have retained several of the emendations made, & have added some others” (31 Jan 1900 to Murray, CU-MARK). Murray, however, continued to edit this first typescript, making numerous additional changes before having a clean copy made; he then revised this second typescript still further. By the time Clemens withdrew from the project, he had received a third typescript, incorporating Murray’s editing on the second one (all three typescripts are in CU-MARK).

166.21–22 Hark from the Tomb] Serious or earnest reproof, as in Isaac Watts’s hymn “A Funeral Thought”: “Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound; / My ears, attend the cry— / Ye living men, come, view the ground / Where you must shortly lie.’ ”

166.23 I shall write him a letter, but not in that spirit, I trust] Clemens wrote three letters to Murray expressing dismay at his editing. One, which clearly he never intended to send, comprises the last section of this sketch, and is undated. He drafted two other letters on 27 August 1900, only one of which he actually posted. The first contained passages like the following:

I will hold no grudge against you for thinking you could improve my English for me, for I believe you innocently meant well, & did not know any better. Your lack of literary training, literary perception, literary judgment, literary talent, along with a deficient knowledge of grammar & of the meanings of words—these are to blame, not you. (CU-MARK)