06 - Mark Twain; his life and work. A biographical sketch by William M. Clemens

Delve into the intriguing life of Mark Twain through the eyes of Will Clemens, who, despite not being related to the famed author, became an acquaintance and penned what may be the first comprehensive biography of Twain. Published on July 1, 1892, as No. 1 in The Pacific Library, this 200-page work was available for just 25¢ and garnered enough attention to be republished in 1894 by a Chicago publisher. In this insightful sketch, Clemens draws heavily on previously published works by other authors, offering a unique perspective on Twains literary legacy. (summary by John Greenman)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is chapter six of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch by William M. Clemens. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Chapter six Marriage, read by
John Greenman. Among those cultivated people who were passengers on
the steamer Quaker City in the now memorable excursion to

(00:23):
the Holy Land in eighteen sixty seven were Judge J. L.
Langdon and family of Elmira, New York. A son of
Judge Langdon figures as Dan in innocence Abroad. Miss Lizzie,
a handsome and accomplished sister of Dan, was introduced to
Mark Twain during the voyage outward, and when the Quaker

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City sailed homeward, mister Clemens was paying deep attention to
the young lady. She was somewhat of an invalid, and
upon the return of the family to Elmira, her illness
took a more serious form. Perhaps the proximity of Buffalo
to Elmira, the home of his sweetheart, occasioned Mark's removal
to the former city in the latter part of eighteen

(01:07):
sixty nine. For at all events, we find him there
occupying an editorial position on the Buffalo Express. Subsequently, we
find him making periodical visits to the neighboring city of Elmira.
Miss Langdon was a young lady of position and fortune.
Mark knew that her father did not look upon him

(01:28):
with favor, but nevertheless he acquired sufficient courage to propose
and was rejected, much to his sorrow. Well, he said
to the lady, I didn't much believe you'd have me,
but I thought i'd try. After a while, he tried again,

(01:48):
with the same result, and then he remarked, with his
celebrated drawl, I think a great deal more of you
than if you'd say yes, But it's hard to bear.
A third time he met with better fortune, and then
came to the most difficult part of his task, to

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address the old gentleman judge. He said, to the dignified millionaire,
have you seen anything going on between miss Lizzie and me? What? What?
Exclaimed the judge rather sharply, apparently not understanding the situation,
yet doubtless getting a glimpse of it from the inquiry.

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Have you seen anything going on between miss Lizzie and me? No? No, indeed,
replied the magnate sternly, No, sir, I have not. Well,
look sharp, and you will. The judge did look sharp
after that, and one day he called the ardent and

(02:53):
devoted young man into his study, and said, after some preamble,
mister Clements, I have something to say to you which
bears upon a subject of great importance, at least to
me and mine. You have been coming here for some time,
and your manners leave no doubt in my mind as

(03:14):
to your object. Now, my daughter's welfare is very dear
to me, and before I can admit you to her
society on the footing of a suitor to her hand,
I would like to know something more than I do
about you, your antecedents, et cetera. Stop a minute. You

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must remember that a man may be a good fellow
and a pleasant companion on a voyage and all that.
But when it is a question as grave as this,
a wise father tries to take every precaution before allowing
his daughter's affections to become engaged. And I ask of you,
as a gentleman, that you shall give me the names

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of some of your friends in California, to whom I
may write and make such inquiries as I deem necessary,
that is, if you still desire our friendship. Mark put
on a bold front, Sir, said, he bowing profoundly as
became a young man who respects his hoped for father

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in law. Your sentiments are in every way correct. I
approve of them myself, and hasten to add that you
have not been mistaken in my sentiments towards your daughter,
whom I may tell you candidly seems to me to

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be the most perfect of her sex, and I honor
your solicitation for her welfare. I am not only perfectly
willing to give you reference, but am only too glad
to have an opportunity to do so, which my natural

(05:02):
modesty would have prevented me from offering. Therefore, permit me
to give you the names of a few of my friends.
I will write them down. First is Lieutenant General John McCombe,
Alexander Badlam, General Lander, and Colonel W. H. L. Barnes.

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They will all lie for me, just as I would
for them under like circumstances. The prospective father in law
wrote letters of inquiry to several residents of San Francisco,
to whom Clemens referred him, and with one exception, the
letters denounced him bitterly, especially deriding his capacity for becoming

(05:51):
a good husband. Mark sat beside his fiancee when the
letters were read aloud by the old gentleman. There was
a dread for silence for a moment, and then Mark stammered, well,
that's pretty rough on a fellow anyhow. His betrothed came
to the rescue, however, and overturned the mass of testimony

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against him by saying, I'll risk you anyhow. So they
were married, the wedding occurring in the parlor of the
Langdon residence in Elmira. Mark had instructed his friends in
the newspaper office at Buffalo to select him a suite
of rooms in a first class boarding house in the city,
and to have a carriage at the depot to meet

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the bride and groom. He knew that they would comply
with his request and gave himself no more anxiety about it.
When the happy couple alighted from the train at the
Buffalo depot, they found a handsome carriage, a beautiful span
of horses, and a driver in livery. They were driven
to a handsome house on an aristocratic street, and as

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the door was opened, there were the parents of the
bride to wellcomed them home. The old folks had quietly
arrived by a special train. After Mark had gone through
the house and admired its elegant furnishings, he was informed
officially that he had been driven by his own coachman
in his own carriage to his own house. They say

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that the tears came to his wonderfully dark and piercing eyes,
and that all he could say was, well, this is
a first class swindle. For nearly a year, mister Clemmons
was editorially connected with the Buffalo Express. For this journal,
he wrote many excellent sketches, among them an unburlescable Thing,

(07:43):
a Memory, the Widow's Protest, Running for Governor, and others.
The Reverend J. Hyatt Smith relates an amusing anecdote of
Mark's life in Buffalo. When I was living in Buffalo,
says mister Smith, Mark Twain occupied a cottage across the street.
We did not see very much of him. But one morning,

(08:05):
as we were enjoying our cigars on the veranda after breakfast,
we saw Mark come to his door in his dressing
gown and slippers and look over at us. He stood
at his own door and smoked for a minute, as
if making up his mind. About something, and at last
opened his gate and came lounging across the street. There

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was an unoccupied rocking chair on the veranda, and when
my brother offered it to him, he dropped into it
with a sigh of relief. He smoked for a few
moments and said, nice morning, Yes, very pleasant. Shouldn't wonder
if we had rain by and by well we could

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stand a little. This is a nice house you have here, Yes,
we rather like it. How's your family quite well? And yours? Oh,
we're all comfortable. There was another impressive silence, and finally

(09:13):
Mark crossed his legs, blew a puff of smoke in
the air, and in his lazy drawl, remarked, I suppose
you're a little surprised to see me over here so early.
Fact is I haven't been so neighborly, perhaps as I

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ought to be. We must mend that state of things.
But this morning I came over because I thought you
might be interested in knowing that your roof is on fire.
It struck me that it would be a good idea

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if but at the mention of fire, the whole family
hurried upstairs. When we had put the fire out and
had returned to the veranda, mark wasn't there. Some years later,
when mister Clemmons was lecturing in Buffalo. After being introduced
to the audience, he spoke as follows, in his low,

(10:15):
drawling characteristic manner. I notice many changes since I was
a citizen of Buffalo fourteen or fifteen years ago. I
miss the faces of my old friends. They have gone
to the tomb, to the gallows, to the White House.

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Thus far the rest of us have escaped. But be
sure our own time is coming over us. With awful
certainty hangs one or the other of these fates. Therefore,
that we be secure against error, the wise among us

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will prepare for them all. This word of admonition may
be sufficient. Let us pass to cheerfuller things. I remember
one circumstance of bygone times with great vividness. I arrived

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here after dark on a February evening in eighteen seventy
with my wife and a large company of friends, when
I had been a husband twenty four hours. And they
put us to in a carriage and drove us up
and down and every which way through all the back

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streets in Buffalo, until at last I got shamed and
said I asked mister Slee to get me a cheap
boarding house, but I didn't mean he should stretch a
con to the going outside the state to find it.

(12:04):
The fact was there was a practical joke to the
fore which I didn't know anything about, and all this
fooling around was to give it time to mature. My
father in law, the late Jervis Langdon, whom many of
you will remember, had been clandestinely spending a fair fortune

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upon a house and furniture in Delaware Avenue for us,
and had kept his secrets so well that I was
the only person this side of the Niagara Falls that
hadn't found it out. We reached the house at last
about ten o'clock and were introduced to a Missus Johnson,

(12:51):
the ostensible landlady. I took a glance around, and then
my opinion of mister Slee's judgment as a provider of
cheap boarding houses for men who had to work for
their living dropped to zero. I told Missus Johnson there
had been an unfortunate mistake that mister Slee had evidently

(13:16):
supposed I had money, whereas I only had talent, and
so by her leave we would abide with her a week,
and then she could keep my trunk and we would
hunt another place. Then the battalion of ambushed friends and

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relatives burst in on us, out of closets and from
behind curtains. The property was delivered over to us, and
the joke revealed Such jokes as these are all too
scarce in a person's life. That house was so completely

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equipped in every detail, even two servants and a coachman,
that well, there was nothing to do but just sit
down and live in it. In the fall of eighteen
seventy mister Clemens resigned his position on the Buffalo Express
and took his residence in Hartford, Connecticut. He had received

(14:22):
several large sums of money as royalty on his Innocence Abroad,
and this, together with his wife's funds, were invested in
local corporations, mostly insurance companies. During the winter following he
wrote Roughing It, and early in eighteen seventy one the
book was published. The volume awakened fully as much interest

(14:43):
as Innocence Abroad. It is a humorous record of his
life in the mining regions, and is replete with adventure, tragedy,
and comedy. The writing of Roughing It was inspired according
to Mark's confession, by the stimulating use of tobacco luxury,
which he never denied himself, even in his days of poverty.

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In speaking upon this point, he once said, I began
smoking immoderately when I was eight years old. That is,
I began with one hundred cigars a month, and by
the time I was twenty, I had increased my allowance

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to two hundred a month. Before I was thirty, I
had increased it to three hundred a month. Once, when
I was fifteen, I ceased from smoking for three months,
but I do not remember whether the effect resulting was

(15:49):
good or evil. I repeated this experiment when I was
twenty two. Again I do not remember what the result was.
I repeated the experiment once more when I was thirty
four and ceased from smoking for a year and a half.

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My health did not improve, because it was not possible
to improve health that was already perfect. As I never
permitted myself to regret this abstinence, I experienced no inconvenience
from it. I wrote nothing but occasional magazine articles during pastime,

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and as I never wrote one except under strong impulse,
I observed no lapse of facility. But by and by,
I sat down with a contract behind me to write
a book of five or six hundred pages. The book

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called roughing it. And then I found myself seriously obstructed.
I was three weeks writing six chapters. Then I gave
up the fight, resumed my three hundred cigars, burned the
six chapters, and wrote the book in three months without difficulty.

(17:25):
End of chapter six read by John Greenman.