Autobiography of Mark Twain (146 page)

263.27–28 “ ‘Is yonder . . . breed?’] From Emerson’s “Monadnoc” (1847).

263.31 ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’] This popular Civil War song was by bandmaster and composer Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (1829–92), who published it in 1863 under the pseudonym “Louis Lambert” (Library of Congress 2008).

263.36–39 “ ‘Lives . . . Time.’] From Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” (1838).

264.9–19 Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Chamberlaine . . . I had been irreverent beyond belief, beyond imagination] The Clemenses had met Augustus P. Chamberlaine and his wife in Venice in October 1878. The Chamberlaines’ acquaintance with Emerson permitted them to assure Clemens then that his Whittier dinner speech had not given offense to the venerable poets (see
N&J2
, 220–21). There had in fact been some negative comments in the press in the days following the dinner. The Boston
Transcript
, for example, noted that the speech “was in bad taste and entirely out ofplace” (19 Dec 1877, 4); and the Worcester
Gazette
opined that “Mark’s sense of propriety needs development, and it is not his first offense” (reprinted in the Boston
Evening Traveller
, 26 Dec 1877, 1). Several other newspapers, however, gave Clemens positive reviews. The Boston
Advertiser
noted that “the amusement was intense, while the subjects of the wit, Longfellow, Emerson and Holmes, enjoyed it as much as any” (“Whittier’s Birthday,” 18 Dec 1877, 1). The Boston
Globe
reported that the speech “produced the most violent bursts of hilarity” and that “Mr. Emerson seemed a little puzzled about it, but Mr. Longfellow laughed and shook, and Mr. Whittier seemed to enjoy it keenly” (“The Whittier Dinner,” 18 Dec 1877, 8). The Boston
Journal
observed that Clemens’s speech “soon aroused uproarious merriment” (“Whittier’s Birthday,” 18 Dec 1877, unknown page), and the
Evening Traveller
noted that Clemens “served up a characteristic series of parodies on Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes, ‘setting the table in a roar’ as is his wont” (“A Bard’s Birthday Banquet,” 18 Dec 1877, 1). Nevertheless, on 27 December 1877, in the depths of his remorse, and with Howells’s encouragement, he wrote letters of apology addressed to Holmes, Emerson, and Longfellow. On 29 December Holmes replied that “it grieves me to see that you are seriously troubled about what seems to me a trifling matter. It never occurred to me for a moment to take offence, or to feel wounded by your playful use of my name” (CU-MARK). On 31 December Ellen Emerson replied for her father—not to Clemens himself, but to Olivia—saying that although the family was “disappointed” in Clemens’s speech, “no shadow of indignation has ever been in any of our minds. The night of the dinner, my Father says, he did not hear Mr Clemens’s speech he was so far off, and my Mother says that when she read it to him the next day it amused him” (CU-MARK). And on 6 January 1878 Longfellow wrote Clemens that the incident was “a matter of such slight importance. The newspapers have made all the mischief. A bit of humor at a dinner table is one thing; a report of it in the morning papers is another” (CU-MARK). By 5 February 1878 Clemens had rebounded sufficiently from his initial embarrassment to write his
Quaker City
mentor, Mary Mason Fairbanks:

I am pretty dull in some things, & very likely the Atlantic speech was in ill taste; but that is the worst that can be said of it. I am sincerely sorry if it in any wise hurt those great poets’ feelings—I never wanted to do that. But nobody has ever convinced me
that that speech was not a good one——for me; above my average, considerably. (
Letters 1876–1880
)

(For an extended discussion of the Whittier dinner speech and its aftermath, including texts of Clemens’s letter of apology and the responses to it, see Smith 1955; see also AD, 23 Jan 1906, for additional comments on the speech.)

264.38–39 I can see those figures with entire distinctness across this abyss of time] There were sixty
Atlantic
contributors and associates at the dinner. Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, Houghton, and Howells were at the head of the table. Clemens’s good friend James R. Osgood was seated on one side of him, and on the other was their mutual friend Charles Fairchild, a Boston paper manufacturer. Elsewhere were seated Charles Dudley Warner and James Hammond Trumbull (see AD, 12 Jan 1906, note at 272.31–32). Other more casual acquaintances of Clemens’s were present, including agriculturist and sanitary engineer George E. Waring (1833–98), Unitarian minister Thomas W. Higginson (1823–1911), and poet and fiction writer John T. Trowbridge (1827–1916). Many of the guests, including Clemens, had also attended the
Atlantic
’s 15 December 1874 dinner for its contributors (see the link note following 14 Dec 1874 to Howells,
L6
, 317–20).

264.40–265.5 Willie Winter . . . did love to recite those occasional poems] William Winter (1836–1917) was dramatic critic of the New York
Tribune
from 1865 to 1909 and also the author of several biographies of actors. He did not attend the Whittier birthday dinner. The occasion Clemens recalled was the 3 December 1879
Atlantic Monthly
breakfast for Oliver Wendell Holmes. In a well-received speech intended to redeem his 1877 performance, Clemens described how he had committed “unconscious plagiarism” by echoing Holmes’s dedication to “Songs in Many Keys” in
The Innocents Abroad
(see “Notes on ‘Innocents Abroad,’ ” note at 225.17–19). Winter appeared later in the roster of speakers and read his thirteen-stanza tribute, “Hearts and Holmes” (“The Holmes Breakfast,” Boston
Advertiser
, 4 Dec 1879, 1), which concluded:

True bard, true soul, true man, true friend!

Ah, lightly on that reverend head

Ye snows of wintry age descend,

Ye shades of mortal night be shed!

Peace guide and guard him to the end,

And God defend!

266.9–10 Howells, who was near me . . . couldn’t get beyond a gasp] Howells was seated at the head table, not close to Clemens. Nevertheless, given that newspaper reports do not confirm that Clemens’s speech was generally perceived to be a “disaster,” it is likely that it was chiefly Howells’s reaction that persuaded Clemens that it was.

266.12–13 If Benvenuto Cellini’s salamander . . . autobiography] See “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It],” note at 209.41.

266.15–17 Bishop . . . a most acceptable novel . . . in the
Atlantic Monthly
] William Henry
Bishop (1847–1928) was the author of
Detmold: A Romance
, serialized in the
Atlantic Monthly
from December 1877 through June 1878 and published in book form in 1879 (Bishop 1877–78; Bishop 1879).

266.32–33 at last he slumped down in a limp and mushy pile] Bishop’s speech did not follow Clemens’s. According to press reports, several speakers intervened, including poet Richard H. Stoddard and Charles Dudley Warner. Bishop spoke “last on the regular list,” well past midnight, and after Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow had all left (“Whittier’s Birthday,” Boston
Advertiser
, 18 Dec 1877, 1; Boston
Evening Transcript
, “The Atlantic Dinner,” 18 Dec 1877, 3). No account of Bishop’s speech is known to survive, other than the Boston
Journal
’s observation that he was one of those who talked “briefly and suitably” (“Whittier’s Birthday,” 18 Dec 1877, unknown page) and the Boston
Evening Traveller’s
remark that he “closed very gracefully the list of regular speakers” (“A Bard’s Birthday Banquet,” 18 Dec 1877, 1).

266.34–35 the program . . . ended there] The program did not conclude prematurely, as Clemens implied. By most newspaper accounts, following Bishop’s satisfactory delivery of the last “regular” speech, there was just one additional speaker before the festivities ended around 1
A.M.
on 18 December.

267.22–23 Even the Massacre did not produce a like effect, nor the Anthony Burns episode] The Boston Massacre occurred on 5 March 1770, when British troops opened fire on a rioting crowd and killed five colonists. Anthony Burns (1834–62) was a slave who fled from Richmond, Virginia, to Boston in 1854. That same year he was arrested and convicted under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, occasioning mass protests on a scale unknown since the days of the Revolution. After his forced return to Virginia, Boston supporters purchased his freedom and paid for his education at Oberlin College; he later became a Baptist minister.

267.27 the New Hampshire hills] Clemens spent the summer of 1906 at Upton Farm, near Dublin, New Hampshire, dictating his autobiography.

267.28–29 I will go before . . . Twentieth Century Club] The Twentieth Century Club (since 1934 the Twentieth Century Association for the Promotion of a Finer Public Spirit and a Better Social Order) was begun in Boston in January 1894. Membership was open to

men and women over the age of 21 who had “rendered some service in the fields of science, art, religion, government, education or social service; and those who in their business, home life, or civic relations have made some contribution to the life of the community, state or nation, worthy of recognition. . . .” Club activities centered around Saturday Luncheons. Begun as men-only affairs, they were opened to women by 1895. . . . Speakers were told to expect vigorous questioning. . . . Speakers included: newspaper editors, reformers, missionaries, socialists, educators, authors, labor leaders, economists and others. (Massachusetts Historical Society 2008)

Clemens had appeared before the club on 4 November 1905, speaking satirically on peace, missionaries, and statesmanship (SLC 1905f). He is not known to have resurrected the Whittier dinner speech before the club. For his additional remarks on that speech, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 23 January 1906.

267
title
January 12, 1906] The first page of this dictation is reproduced in facsimile in the Introduction (
figure 15
).

267.35 Colonel Harvey] George Brinton McClellan Harvey (1864–1928) worked as a reporter for the Springfield (Mass.)
Republican
and the Chicago
News
before he became managing editor of Pulitzer’s New York
World
while still in his twenties. He made a very large fortune building electric railways, and in 1899 he purchased the venerable
North American Review
and became its editor. The following year he became president of the financially troubled Harper and Brothers, and in 1901 he also became editor of
Harper’s Weekly
. It was he who negotiated with Clemens and Rogers to secure the 1903 contract that gave Harper essentially exclusive rights to everything Clemens wrote or had written. In an interview published on 3 March 1907 by the Washington
Post
Harvey identified Clemens as the best-paid writer in the United States, thanks to this contract, which guaranteed payment for “everything he wrote, whether it was printed or thrown away” (“Mark Twain’s Exclusive Publisher Tells What the Humorist Is Paid,” A12). His title of “Colonel” was civilian rather than military, and was the rank he held from 1885 to 1892 as an aide-de-camp on New Jersey gubernatorial staffs (
HHR
, 513 n. 2).

268.15–16 President and the Governors had to have my birthday—the 30th—for Thanksgiving Day] In 1789 George Washington created the first nationally designated Thanksgiving Day, held on 26 November that year. Subsequently, the holiday was appointed by presidential and gubernatorial proclamation, but irregularly and not on a uniform date. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that a national Thanksgiving Day henceforth would be celebrated on the last Thursday in November, which in 1905 was the fifth Thursday, and also Clemens’s birthday. In 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the date to the third Thursday of November, and in 1941 Congress passed legislation definitively establishing Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November.

268.23–24 several vicious and inexcusable wars] In addition to the Russian Revolution (see AD, 10 Jan 1906, note at 257.18–21), Clemens doubtless alludes to the Russo-Japanese War and possibly to uprisings in Yemen, Crete, the French Congo, and German East Africa (Tanzania), all in 1904–5.

268.24–25 King Leopold . . . slaughters and robberies in the Congo State] Leopold II (1835–1909) had been king of Belgium since 1865. Between 1878 and 1884, with the help of explorer Henry M. Stanley, he had personally acquired treaty rights to a vast section of central Africa (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), which he organized into the Congo Free State and then, over the next decade, brought under his ruthless control. He ruled it as his private commercial empire, enriching himself while exploiting and brutalizing the Africans compelled to work for the mining and rubber companies that were his concessionaires. Clemens’s scathing satire,
King Leopold’s Soliloquy
, written in 1905, helped bring these cruelties under scrutiny (SLC 1905a). In 1908 Leopold was forced to relinquish control of the Congo Free State to the Belgian government.

268.25 Insurance revelations in New York] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 10 January 1906.

268.28 birthday celebration . . . 5th of December] The lavish banquet to commemorate Clemens’s birthday was held at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York. Following this paragraph he dictated the instruction “(Here paste in the proceedings of the Birthday Banquet).” This was not done in any of the later typescripts, however, where the instruction was merely retranscribed. The “proceedings,” including photographs of the guests as well as texts of the speeches and other tributes, filled thirty-two pages in the 23 December 1905 “Mark Twain’s Birthday Souvenir Number” of
Harper’s Weekly
(SLC 1905g). In his Autobiographical Dictation of 16 December 1908, Clemens again noted, “I think I will insert here (if I have not inserted it in some earlier chapter of this autobiography) the grand account of the banquet.” A facsimile of the publication is available at
MTPO
.