Autobiography of Mark Twain (152 page)

324.32 her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Crane] Susan Langdon Crane (1836–1924) was born Susan Dean, but was orphaned at the age of four and adopted by the Langdon family. Although she was nearly ten years older than Olivia, her foster sister, they remained close throughout their lives. In 1858 she married Theodore Crane (1831–89), who later became a partner in the Langdon family coal business. The Cranes lived at Quarry Farm, outside Elmira. The uncle present during Susy’s final illness was Charles Langdon, not Crane, who had died some years earlier (19 Aug 1896 to OLC [1st], CU-MARK, in
LLMT
, 321–22; Notebook 39, TS p. 55, CU-MARK).

325.15–25 In one of her own books I find some verses . . . whispered “I am rest.”] As Clemens later discovered (see AD, 22 Jan 1907), this poem was not written by Susy but by Canadian poet William Wilfred Campbell (1860?–1918). Entitled “Love,” it was first published in the October 1891 issue of the
Century Magazine
, where Susy most likely saw it (Campbell 1891).

326.13–21 Miss Foote (the governess) had been teaching her . . . God and a heaven—or something better] Since about 1880 Susy and Clara’s Hartford governess had been Lilly Gillette Foote (1860–1932), a “recent graduate of Cambridge University’s Newnham College, . . . worldly, well-travelled, and socially progressive,” and also “the niece of Harriet Foote Hawley, one of the five Hartford women who in October 1880 founded the Connecticut Indian Association, a
female native rights advocacy organization” (Salsbury 1965, 426; Driscoll 2005, 8). Clemens was not above learning something from his daughter and her governess. In 1884 he extensively annotated Richard Irving Dodge’s
Our Wild Indians: Thirty-Three Years’ Personal Experience among the Red Men of the Great West
(Dodge 1883), saying at one point that “The Indian’s bad God is the twin of our only God; his good God is better than any heretofore devised by man.” Also: “Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge.” And: “We have to keep our God placated with prayers, and even then we are never sure of him—how much higher and finer is the Indian’s God” (
HH&T
, 90; quoted in Driscoll 2005, 5).

326.22–23 I wrote down this pathetic prayer . . . children’s sayings] In 1881 Clemens did indeed record this exchange in “A Record of the Small Foolishnesses of Susie & ‘Bay’ Clemens (Infants)”:

Susie (9 yrs old,) had been sounding the deeps of life, & pondering the result. Meantime the governess had been instructing her about the American Indians. One day Mamma, with a smitten conscience, said—

“Susie, I have been so busy that I haven’t been in at night lately to hear you say your prayers. Maybe I can come in tonight. Shall I?”

Susie hesitated, waited for her thought to formulate itself, then brought it out:

“Mamma, I don’t pray as much as I used to—& I don’t pray in the same way. Maybe you would not approve of the way I pray now.”

“Tell me about it, Susie.”

“Well, mamma, I don’t know that I can make you understand; but you know, the Indians thought they knew: & they had a great many gods. We know, now, that they were wrong. By & by, maybe it will be found out that
we
are wrong, too. So, now, I only pray
that there may be a God
—&
a heaven
—
OR SOMETHING BETTER
.”

It was a philosophy that a sexagenarian need not have been ashamed of having evolved. (SLC 1876–85, 89–90)

327.11–13 She had written a play . . . friends in our house in Hartford] Susy’s play, entitled
A Love-Chase
, was performed in the drawing room of the Hartford house on Thanksgiving night 1889, and repeated twice on later occasions. The cast included Susy, Clara, Jean, and Margaret (Daisy) Warner (1872–1931), the daughter of George and Lilly Warner (3 Dec 1889 to Baxter, NN-BGC). Clemens gave a fuller version in “Memorial to Susy”:

When Susy was nearly seventeen she wrote a play herself—a lovely little fancy, formed upon Greek lines. There were songs in it, & music, & several dances. There were only five characters: Music, Art, Literature, Cupid, & a shepherd lad. Susie was Music, Margaret Warner was Literature, Clara was Art, Fanny Frees was the shepherd lad, & our Jean—what there was of her—was Cupid. She was very little. Susy was a vision. I can see her yet as she parted the curtains & stood there, young, fresh, aglow with excitement, & clothed in a tumbling cataract of pink roses. (SLC 1896–1906, 42–43)

327.14 George] George H. Warner (1833–1919) worked for the American Emigrant Company, which helped foreign settlers. His wife, Lilly (1835–1915), was the former Elisabeth Gillette (link note following 7 Mar 1872 to OC,
L5
, 56).

327.19 Mrs. Cheney, I think, author of the biography of her father] Mary Bushnell Cheney published
Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell
in 1880.

327.31 In Munich] The Clemens family—Samuel, Olivia, Susy, and Clara, with family friend Clara Spaulding and the children’s nurse Rosina Hay—toured Europe in 1878–79, visiting Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, and England. They were in Munich from November 1878 through February 1879. This European tour furnished Clemens with material for his travel book
A Tramp Abroad (N&J2
, 3, 41–43, 48).

327.36
she
was “never the one that ate, but always the one that was eaten.”] Clemens recorded Susy’s comment in his manuscript “A Record of the Small Foolishnesses of Susie & ‘Bay’ Clemens (Infants),” where it is given in Susy’s “exact language”: “But mamma, the trouble is, that I am never the
bear
but always the
PERSON
” (SLC 1876–85, 31).

327.38 When she was six and her sister Clara four] In “Small Foolishnesses” Clemens dated this incident 7 December 1880, at which time Susy was eight, and Clara six (SLC 1876–85,86).

328.12 Marjorie Fleming] Marjorie (properly Marjory) Fleming, born in Kirkcaldy (Fife, Scotland) in 1803, died of spinal meningitis at the age of eight, leaving behind her a small but precocious body of writing: letters, journals, and poems. In 1858, H. B. Farnie published selections from her works in
Pet Marjorie: A Story of Child Life Fifty Years Ago
. Dr. John Brown (1810–82), an Edinburgh physician and man of letters best known for his dog story “Rab and His Friends” (1858), published an elaborate essay inspired by Farnie’s book in 1863, developing a sentimental and undocumented friendship between Marjory and Sir Walter Scott. Brown’s essay was frequently reprinted in book form. When the Clemenses befriended Dr. Brown in 1873, he gave Olivia a copy. Clemens’s enthusiasm for this literary child heroine found belated expression in his magazine article “Marjorie Fleming, the Wonder Child” (SLC 1909d). Susy might have reminded Clemens of Marjory for reasons beyond their connection with Dr. Brown: both were precocious literary talents, both died of meningitis, and Clemens was now engaged in publishing Susy’s juvenilia (Fleming 1935, xiii–xxii; Farnie 1858; OLC and SLC to Langdon, 2 and 6 Aug 1873,
L5
, 428–29 n. 2; John Brown 1863a, 1863b; Gribben 1980, 1:87).

328.16 In 1873 . . . we arrived in Edinburgh] The Clemens family—with Clara Spaulding, Clemens’s secretary (Samuel C. Thompson), and Susy’s nursemaid (Nellie)—arrived in London in May 1873 expecting to stay in England until October. Clemens was greatly lionized, and his social schedule left the family little time for sightseeing, leisure, and the collection of materials for a book. Clemens wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks on 6 July: “We seem to see nothing but English social life; we seem to find no opportunity to see London sights. . . . nothing, in fact, to make a book of”; and to Warner he complained, “We only dine. We do nothing else.” For relief, they decided to “ ‘do’ Scotland,” and went to Edinburgh (
L5
: 12 May 1873 to Redpath, 364; OLC and SLC to Langdon, 17 May 1873, 366–67; 6 July 1873 to Fairbanks, 402; 10? July 1873 to Warner, 411).

328.30–33 Mr. Douglas, the publisher . . . the support of himself and his maiden sister] Brown suffered from depression. On 28 February 1876 George Barclay wrote to Clemens that Brown’s health had “so completely given way under the strain of professional practice, as to make in the opinion of his friends more than doubtful whether D
^r
Brown will ever be able safely to attempt
regular
practice as a physician again” (CU-MARK). The friends who took it upon themselves to raise the fund were headed by Barclay and Edinburgh publisher David Douglas. For his part, Clemens gave a public reading with the proceeds going (confidentially) to Brown. In a letter of 5 May, Barclay acknowledged receipt of
£
40 from Clemens, adding that almost
£
7,000 had been raised and that Brown had announced his retirement. That same year Brown was awarded a royal pension “for distinguished literary eminence” (CU-MARK). Brown’s sister, Isabella Cranston Brown (1812–88), had managed his household since the marriage of his daughter in 1866 (17 Mar 1876 to Redpath, n. 2,
Letters 1876–1880;
OLC and SLC to Langdon, 2 and 6 Aug 1873,
L5
, 427, 429 n. 3).

329.11–12 “Who is it? Some one you know?” He said “No, a dog I
don’t
know.”] This anecdote comes from Elizabeth T. McLaren’s memoir,
Dr. John Brown and His Sister Isabella: Outlines
. This little book was published in 1889 by Brown’s half-brother, Alex. Olivia’s copy, signed and dated 1890, is in the Mark Twain Papers (McLaren 1889, 14).

329.14 her big big brown eyes] In the first typescript of this dictation, Susy’s eyes are “blue”; Clemens apparently revised that to “brown,” the reading in the second typescript (his actual inscription is now illegible). He complained that he was almost never able to recall the eye color of others, even those closest to him. On one occasion—which he recalled took place in 1886—it was discovered that he did not know the eye color of any of his three daughters (see AD, 8 Nov 1906).

329.30 that anecdote . . . told some hundreds of times on the platform] Clemens frequently told the “whistling story” in his 1871–74 lectures, and on other occasions as well; he had Colonel Sellers tell it in act four of the
Gilded Age
play. He usually attributed the story to Artemus Ward (SLC 1874a; link note following 10 Nov 1875 to Seaver,
L6
, 590–91).

331.12 sale of Joseph by his brethren] Genesis 37.

331.21–27 Once when Susy . . . crooked teeth and spectacles!] The version of this anecdote set down at the time in Clemens’s “Record of Small Foolishnesses” reveals that the “guest” was actually Olivia, and gives Susy’s exclamation as “I wish
I
could have crooked teeth & spectacles, like mamma!” (SLC 1876–85, 37).

331.31 what the shade of Burns would think] See Robert Burns, “To a Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church” (Burns 1969, 157):

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us

An’ foolish notion . . .

332.9–22 Schloss gardens . . . “The ‘Slosh,’ at Heidelberg.”] The Schloss (castle) overlooking the town of Heidelberg has been a picturesque ruin since the eighteenth century. Adjoining it are the extensive Schloss Gardens, a place of public recreation, where Susy saw the “wild” snails. The first-class Schloss-Hotel—the subject of the interpolated anecdote—was on a hill above the castle, and was directly connected to the Schloss Gardens; the Clemenses stayed there from May through late July 1878. Clemens wrote about these places in chapters 2 and 4 and appendix B of
A Tramp Abroad
(Baedeker 1880, 226–29;
N&J2
, 79 n. 74).

334.11 sicisiors] Clemens reacted to Olivia’s spelling of this word in his letter of 17 January 1869: “ ‘Sicisiors’ don’t spell
scissors
, you funny little orthographist” (
L3
, 45). Olivia’s own letter is not extant. Some of Clemens’s remarks here about spelling, and about Susan Crane’s spelling in particular, recast material he had used long before at a spelling bee in 1875 (“Clemens’s ‘Spelling Match’ Speech,”
L6
, 659–63).

334.36–37 I took to the platform again . . . in company with George W. Cable] From 1874 to 1884 Clemens made no lecture tours, giving only isolated readings (Fatout 1976, 651–56). His tour with George Washington Cable extended from November 1884 through February 1885.

335.3 General Grant has actually concluded to write his autobiography] See “About General Grant’s Memoirs.”

335.8–9 took her to see him . . . I will return to it by and by] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 26 February 1906.

335.18–21 At once the curtain was drawn . . . Susy Clemens, arrayed in the silks and satins of the prince] The first performance of the family’s
Prince and the Pauper
play took place on 14 March 1885, after the Clemens-Cable lecture tour had ended. For Susy’s own account of the play and its preparation, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 8 August 1906 (14 Mar 1885 to Pond, NN-BGC).

335.28–32 George . . . had been born a slave, in Maryland . . . body-servant to General Devens all through the war] George Griffin (1849?-97) was the Clemens family’s butler from at least 1875 until their removal to Europe in 1891. He was born in Virginia, not Maryland; during the Civil War he served General Charles Devens (1820–91). After leaving the Clemens family he moved to New York City, where, according to Clemens, he became a waiter at the Union League Club and did business as a private banker (4 Nov 1875 to Howells,
L6
, 583 n. 5; Grace King 1932, 86; SLC 1906a, 21–23).