August 18, 2025 • 31 mins
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)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is chapter ten of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch by William M. Clemens. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Chapter ten, Mark Twain at Home,
read by John Greenman. When in eighteen sixty eight Samuel L.
(00:20):
Clemens visited the city of Hartford, Connecticut, to arrange for
the publication of his first book, Innocence Abroad, he was
captivated by the old town and its beautiful suburbs. Later,
in eighteen seventy one, when he determined upon leaving Buffalo
and taking up his residence in an eastern city, it
was not strange that he should select Hartford as the
(00:43):
site for his permanent home. In a corner of the
Nook Farm on Farmington Avenue, about a mile and a
quarter for business center of the city, he built a large,
unique house of brick and stone. The building was of
the Queen anne and style of architecture, which just at
that time was the most popular as well as the
(01:06):
most aristocratic mode of residence in vogue. There were gables
and arches and quaint windows, and in many of these
boxes of flowers were placed. The house was built in
the center of a parklike grove of old trees and
the hand of a Scotch landscape artist, soon molded hedges,
flower beds and a well kept lawn. To day it
(01:29):
stands a home of homes. A porte cochere covered with
vines extends from the entrance under which the carriages drive.
The exterior of the house has the air of a
luxurious old English home. From the day that Mark Twain
and his young wife took up their abode in their
Hartford home, money was expended with lavish hands, and the
(01:51):
result has been a rich, charming, artistic and homelike interior.
One is ushered into an immense square hall, the floor
of which is in marble tiles of peculiar pattern. A
winding staircase, very wide and massive of heavily carved English
oak extends above. Opposite the front door are double doors
(02:14):
leading into the library. Near these doors in the hall
stands upon a marble pedestal the bust of mister Clemmons,
executed by young Carl Gerhardt. There are also paintings on
the carved oaken walls of the hall and a heavily
carved table. To the right are double doors leading into
the large drawing room all the doors and windows are
(02:38):
draped at the top by handsome lambrikins. The doors and
woodwork are of dark polished wood covered with stencil designs
in metallic paint, so that at a short distance they
look as if inlaid with mother of pearl. The drawing
room is furnished with light colored satin furniture. Leading from
this apartment is the dining room, which is fin in
(03:00):
heavy carved woods of the most elaborate workmanship, high carved
dado old tapestry portier a massive buffet covered with cut
glass and silverware. An odd idea is a window directly
over the fireplace. It is of one solid piece of
plate glass, surrounded by a frame of dark blue glass,
(03:22):
and inside that like the mat of a picture opal glass.
As one looks out at the beautiful landscape, he can
hardly realize at first that it is nature's handiwork, thus
framed in instead of a painting actually hanging upon the wall.
The flu of the fireplace extends each side of this
(03:42):
picturesque window. Connected with the dining room is the library,
which is the general living room. It has large double
doors leading into the front hall opposite the entrance. It
is a sunny, cheerful room with a huge, heavily carved fireplace,
which Miss Clemmens brought from Europe, where it had once
(04:02):
held place in an ancient castle. It seems to have
brought with it to this American home some of the dignity, pomp,
and splendor of which it once formed an important part.
The room looks as if it belonged to a baronial castle,
but in winter it is less somber, and a blazing
fire of logs burns behind the brass fender, bringing into
(04:26):
greater prominence the motto cut in brass above the fire.
The ornament of a house is the friends that frequent it.
On either side are low bookshelves built against the wall.
They form a part of the massive chimney piece and
look like wings of a great bat. The floor is
covered with rugs, and luxurious seats are fitted into the windows.
(04:49):
A large carved table stands in the center, covered with
magazines and papers. The whole house has rather the appearance
of an old castle, with the carvings grotesque and ponderous,
instead of the old mahogany of colonial days. A wide,
oaken staircase leads to the apartments above the most conspicuous
(05:11):
of which is a large room fitted up most comfortably
with cozy nooks filled in with cushioned seats. Beyond is
a room in which a large rocking horse and scattered
toys make one acquainted with the reason mister Clement ceased
writing in this attractive apartment and moved still further upstairs
to a corner of the billiard room. Each suite of
(05:34):
apartments has its separate bathroom. One guest chamber is furnished
in pink silk. Even the bedstead is of pink silk,
tufted all over with tiny satin buttons. The study or
work room of the humorist is the billiard room upon
the upper floor, the windows of which look out upon
(05:56):
the broad acres of beautiful landscape. In the distancence is
heard the ripple of park river. In the corner of
the room is his writing table, covered usually with books, manuscripts, letters,
and other literary litter. And in the middle of the
room stands the billiard table. Mister Clemens is an expert
(06:17):
billiard player, and when he tires of writing at his
little desk in the corner, he rises and makes some
scientific strokes with the queue. A resident of Hartford says
that he called upon Mark once in the billiard room,
when the fire in the grate threw some sparks out
upon the floor. These caught some loose paper, and the
(06:37):
room for a moment promised to break out in flames.
Twain was playing billiards at the time, says the man,
and he did not stop his game. He immediately rung
for the servants and lazily told them that they had
better extinguish the fire. And with that he leaned over
the table and made a stroke with his billiard cue,
(06:58):
which would have done honor to the world champion. Twain
never gets excited. The study is a long room with
sloping sides formed by the roof. There are three balconies adjacent,
two large ones on either side, and one at the end.
One may step out into these through regular doors. His
(07:19):
mode of work in this study is systematic. He makes
it an invariable rule to perform a certain amount of
literary work every day, and his working hours are made
continuous by his not taking any midday meal. He is
merciless toward his own productions, and has often destroyed an
entire day's labor as soon as it was written. He
(07:40):
found by experience that the final result was more satisfactory
by taking this course than by trying to remodel what
he considered a faulty manuscript. In this way he has
destroyed hundreds of pages of manuscript, and from one of
his larger books he called out no less than five
hundred pages. Since his advent in the city of Hartford,
(08:03):
Mark Twain has won for himself the name of Prince
of Entertainers. Seated in his richly furnished library, to whose
beauty and artistic completeness half the lands of Europe have contributed.
He will tell an anecdote or discuss a literary or
social question with a calm directness, an earnestness, revealing to
(08:25):
you an entire new side of his character that has
nothing in common with that which he is wont to
display to the public who thronged to his lectures. Even
his drollest stories. He relates with this same earnest impressiveness,
and with a face as serious as a sexton's. His
brilliancy has a certain delightful quality which is almost too
(08:48):
evanescent to be imprisoned in any one phrase. You have
no oppressive consciousness that you are expected to laugh, you
rather feel as if the talker had unexpectedly taken you
into his confidence, and you feel your heart going out
toward him in return. He is a reader of the
finest discriminating faculty, high dramatic power, and remarkable sympathetic interpretation,
(09:14):
and his reading of Browning, whom he greatly admires, is
a rare entertainment. He is a leading member of the
Monday Evening Club of Hartford, the Author's Club, the Century Club,
the Actors Club of New York, and other social and
literary organizations. During the summer months, mister Clemens and his
(09:35):
family sojourn at Quarry Farm near Elmira, New York, at
the home of mister T. W. Crane, whose wife is
a sister of Missus Clemens. Here among the historic hills
of the Chemung Valley, the humorist works with the same
systematic rule as in the study of his Hartford house.
A friend who visited mister Clemens in his summer retreat
(09:57):
writes as follows a summer the house has been built
for mister Clemmens within the Crane grounds, on a high
peak which stands six hundred feet above the valley that
lies spread out before it. The house is built almost
entirely of glass, and is modeled exactly on the plan
(10:17):
of a Mississippi steamboat's pilot house. Here, shut off from
all outside communication, mister Clemens does the hard work of
the year, or rather the confining and engrossing work of writing,
which demands continuous application day after day. The lofty work
(10:38):
room is some distance from the house. He goes to
it every morning about half past eight, and stays there
until called to dinner by the blowing of a horn
about five o'clock. He takes no lunch or noon meal
of any sort, and works without eating. While the rules
are imperative not to disturb him during this working period,
(11:03):
his only recreation is his cigar. Another correspondent wrote as follows.
To keep away the large number of visitors and sightseers
who come to view the sanctum, Twain posted upon his
door the following notice step softly, keep away, do not
disturb the remains. In spite of this characteristic warning, we
(11:28):
open the door and enter. The floor is bare. There
is a table in the center of the room covered
with books, newspapers, manuscripts, and all the paraphernalia of authorship.
Over the fireplace is a shelf on which rests a
few books and a couple of boxes of choice cigars.
(11:49):
An intimate acquaintance writing of mister Clemens and the tobacco habit,
says he is an inveterate smoker, and smokes constantly while
at is work, and indeed all the time from half
past eight in the morning to half past ten at night,
stopping only when at his meals. A cigar lasts him
about forty minutes. Now that he has reduced to an
(12:13):
exact science the act of reducing the weed to ashes,
so he smokes from fifteen to twenty cigars every day.
Some time ago he was persuaded to stop the practice,
and actually went a year and more without tobacco, But
he found himself unable to carry along important work which
(12:34):
he undertook, and it was not until he resumed smoking
that he could do it. Since then, his faith in
his cigar has not wavered. Like other American smokers, mister
Clemens is unceasing in his search for the really satisfactory
cigar at a really satisfactory price, and first and last
(12:56):
has gathered a good deal of experience in the pursuit
It is related that, having entertained a party of gentlemen
one winter evening in Hartford, he gave to each just
before they left the house one of a new sort
of cigar that he was trying to believe was the
object of his search. He made each guest lighted before starting.
(13:19):
The next morning, he found all that he had given
away lying on the snow beside the pathway across his lawn.
Each smoker had been polite enough to smoke until he
got out of the house, but every one, on gaining
his liberty, had yielded to the instinct of self preservation
and tossed the cigar away, forgetting that it would be
(13:41):
found there by daylight. The testimony of the next morning
was overwhelming, and the verdict against the new brand was accepted.
Some years ago, in making a phrenological examination of Mark Twain,
Professor Beale of Cincinnati made report as follows. Wit humor
(14:03):
are very familiar words, and yet from the difficulty in
defining them, or from not distinguishing the particular mental mechanism
upon which they depend, the relative merits of many authors
are often but vaguely understood. Wit is primarily an intellectual
(14:24):
perception of incongruity or unexpected relations. But the idea that
anything thus apprehended is ludicrous is suggested by the effective
faculty of mirthfulness in the same manner that the understanding
may perceive a dangerous object and thus arouse the emotion
(14:46):
of fear. The relation between the intellectual faculties and the
feelings is reciprocal, so that the sentiment of the ludicrous,
when strong, may prompt the to create imaginary senses or
associated ideas adapted to gratify it, or become active as
(15:09):
the result of real perceptions. Talent for wit then depends
upon certain intellectual activities combined with the sentiment of mirth.
But humor introduces another element, namely secretiveness. This propensity not
(15:29):
only creates the desire to conceal one's own thoughts, but
gives almost equal pleasure in penetrating the disguises of others.
It enables a joker to keep a straight face while
telling a story, and the secretiveness of the listener is
gratified by detecting the absurdity in the narrative beneath the
(15:53):
assumed gravity of the speaker, that is, to the amusing
incongruity of the events in the story is added the
further incongruity between the character of the story and the
serious countenance of the narrator. The English and Italians are
more humorous than witty, the reverse of which is true
(16:16):
of the French. Mark Twain is excellent in wit, but
super excellent in humor. Secretiveness is very marked in the
diameter of his head just above the ears, and is
indicated also by the width of his nostrils, the nearly
closed eyes, compressed lips, slow guarded manner of speech, et cetera.
(16:43):
His nose is of the apprehensive type in its great
length and somewhat hooked point, but it is not thick
enough above the nostrils to indicate taste for commerce. This
apprehensive or cautiousness nasal organ so prominent in Dante, Calvin
(17:04):
and other men celebrated for earnestness and gravity, might seem
an anomaly in this case, but for the explanation that
cautiousness and secretiveness are essential ingredients in genuine humor. On
this principle we can account for the temperament of our
great humorist, which is not the laughing, fat, rotund vital,
(17:28):
but rather the spare, angular, mental or mental motive, which
is favorable to hard sense, logic, general intelligence, and insight
into human nature. His intellect is well balanced, having a
strong foundation of perceptive faculties which gather details with the
(17:49):
fidelity of a camera. He has also a large upper forehead,
giving philosophical power ability to generalize, reason, plan, and see
a long way ahead. The middle centers, or memory of events, criticism,
and comparison, are also well developed. His eyes are rather
(18:12):
deeply set, and his language is subordinate to his thought.
The hollow temples indicate but little music and mirthfulness at
the upper corners of the forehead is by no means remarkable.
Ideality or love of beauty is only fair. The head
(18:32):
measures twenty two and a half inches, which is half
an inch less than the average intellectual giant. But the
fiber of the whole man is fine, close and strong,
and the cerebral combination is of a very available sort.
He has very ardent affections, strong love of approbation, sense
(18:55):
of justice, firmness, kindness, and ability to read character with
small self esteem. Love of gain or inclination to the supernatural,
knowledge of the world, and interest in humanity are his
leading traits and altogether, he is a phenomenal man of
(19:17):
whom Americans may well be proud. Being extremely domestic in
his tastes, Mark Twain is fond of his home life
and of his beautiful children. His eldest daughter, Susy, was
born in eighteen seventy two. Clara Langhorne was born in
eighteen seventy four, and Jeanne in eighteen eighty. Another child,
(19:41):
a son, died in infancy. Missus Clemens is described as gentle,
quiet and motherly, ten years younger than her husband. Mister
Clemens is reported to have said that when his mother died,
there would be no one left in the family to
appreciate his jokes. It is said Missus Clemens is particularly
(20:01):
slow in these matters. She dresses very plainly, wearing her
dark hair smoothly brushed from the parting in the center,
with no crimps or attempt at dressing. She appears still
more sedate by usually wearing eye glasses. She is, however,
noted for her goodness and for being a fond mother.
(20:22):
For many years, the near neighbors of the family have
been the families of mister Charles Dudley Warner, mister George Warner,
reverend mister Twitchell, and Missus Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is
said that once, when mister Clemmens, at the solicitation of
his wife, called on Missus Stowe, he was so absent
minded as to put on neither collar nor necktie on
(20:46):
Missus Clemmons. Remonstrating on his return, he said he would
make it all right, and accordingly sent a collar and
tie of his over to Missus Stow in a box.
Miss Susy has always been Dark's favorite child. She inherits
much of her father's brightness. She kept a diary at
one time in which she noted the occurrences in the family, and,
(21:09):
among other things, the sayings of her parents. On one page,
she wrote that father sometimes used stronger words when mother
wasn't by, and he thought we didn't hear. Missus Clemens
found the diary and showed it to her husband, probably
thinking the particular page worth his notice. After this, Clemens
(21:31):
did and said several things that were intended to attract
the child's attention, and found them duly noted afterward. But
one day the following entry occurred. I don't think i'll
put down anything more about father, for I think he
does things to have me notice him, and I believe
he reads This Diary of the Clemens Children, a correspondent
(21:53):
of a Chicago newspaper, tells of their adventures with their
father while on a visit to that city. As follows,
we came in last night, said Mark, pulling at the
left side of his mustache. Missus Clemmons is not very well.
Neither am I. I have been amusing the children. I
(22:18):
have taken them to a panorama. I understand there are
three others near here. I will take them there too.
I want to satiate them with battles. It may amuse them.
Three little girls, composed of three red gowns, three red parasols,
(22:43):
and six blue stockings, stood on the steps and laughed.
Run up and tell mamma what a jolly time you've had,
and I'll think of something else to amuse you. When
the three little girls had disappeared, mister Clemens's side, did
(23:04):
you ever try to amuse three little girls at the
same time, he asked, after a pause. It requires genius.
I wonder whether they would like to bathe in the lake,
He continued with sudden animation, hardly pausing five minutes between
(23:27):
each word, it might amuse them. Are you on your
vacation trip, mister Clemens. No, I have just returned from
a visit to my mother in Keacook, Iowa. We came
(23:48):
from Buffalo to Duluth by a lake steamer, and then
from Saint Paul down the river to Keacok. Neither in
this country, nor in any other, have I seen such
interesting scenery as that. Along the upper Mississippi one finds
(24:12):
all that the Hudson affords, bluffs, wooded highlands, and a
great deal. In addition, between Saint Paul and the mouth
of the Illinois River there are over four hundred islands
strung out in every possible shape. A river without islands
(24:37):
is like a woman without hair. She may be good
and pure, but one doesn't fall in love with her
very often. Did you ever fall in love with a
bald headed woman? The reporter admitted that he had drawn
(24:58):
the line there. I never did, either, continued mister Clemmons meditatively.
At least I think I never did. There is no
place for loafing more satisfactory than the pilot house of
a Mississippi steam boat. It amuses the children to see
(25:22):
the pilot monkey with the wheel. Traveling by boat is
the best way to travel, unless one can stay at home.
On a lake or river boat, one is as thoroughly
cut off from letters and papers and the tax collector
as though he were amid sea. Moreover, one doesn't have
(25:46):
the discomforts of seafaring. It is very unpleasant to look
at sea sick people, at least so my friends said
the last time I crossed. It might amuse the children, though,
suggested the reporter. I hadn't thought of that, replied mister Clemens.
(26:09):
But perhaps it might. The late seems rather rough to day.
I wonder whether one could get a boat, a little
boat that would bob considerably. Yes, it might amuse the children.
(26:30):
But it's such a sacrifice, you are not apparent, replied
the humorist. It is strange, continued mister Clemens, in a
momentary forgetfulness of the children. How little has been written
about the upper Mississippi. The river below Saint Louis has
(26:53):
been described time and again, and it is the least
interesting part. One can sit in the pilot house for
a few hours and watch the low shores, the ungainly trees,
and the democratic buzzards, and then one might as well
(27:17):
go to bed. One has seen everything there is to
see along the Upper Mississippi. Every hour brings something new.
There are crowds of odd islands, buffs, prairies, hills, woods
(27:42):
and villages. Everything one could desire to amuse the children.
A few people ever think of going there. However, Dickens, Corbett,
mother Trollope, and the other discriminating english people who wrote
(28:04):
up the country before eighteen forty two had hardly any
idea that such a stretch of river scenery existed. Their
successors have followed in their footsteps, and as we form
our opinions of our country from what other people say
(28:28):
of us, of course we ignore the finest part of
the Mississippi. At this moment, the three little girls in
the three red gowns and six blue stockings appeared, and
mister Clemmons assumed the shape of an amusement bureau. An
instance of his home life is the following anecdote. Having
(28:53):
been asked to contribute to a newspaper issued at the
fair in aid of the abused children in Boston, he wrote,
why should I want a society for the prevention of
cruelty to children to prosper when I have a baby
(29:13):
downstairs that kept me awake several hours last night, with
no pretext for it but to make trouble. This occurs
every night, and it embitters me because I see how
needless it was to put in the other burglar alarm,
(29:38):
a costly and complicated contrivance which cannot be depended upon
because it's always getting out of order, whereas although the
baby is always getting out of order too, it can
nevertheless be depended upon. Yes, I am bitter against your society,
(30:05):
for I think the idea of it is all wrong.
But if you will start a society for the prevention
of cruelty to fathers, I will write you a whole book.
At a heart for dinner party one day, the subject
of eternal life and future punishment came up for a
(30:27):
lengthy discussion in which Mark Twain, who was present, took part.
A lady near him turned suddenly toward him and exclaimed,
why do you not say anything? I want your opinion,
mister Clemmons replied gravely, madam, you must excuse me. I
(30:49):
am silent of necessity. I have friends in both places.
End of Chapter ten, read by John A. Greeman
This is chapter ten of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch by William M. Clemens. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Chapter ten, Mark Twain at Home,
read by John Greenman. When in eighteen sixty eight Samuel L.
(00:20):
Clemens visited the city of Hartford, Connecticut, to arrange for
the publication of his first book, Innocence Abroad, he was
captivated by the old town and its beautiful suburbs. Later,
in eighteen seventy one, when he determined upon leaving Buffalo
and taking up his residence in an eastern city, it
was not strange that he should select Hartford as the
(00:43):
site for his permanent home. In a corner of the
Nook Farm on Farmington Avenue, about a mile and a
quarter for business center of the city, he built a large,
unique house of brick and stone. The building was of
the Queen anne and style of architecture, which just at
that time was the most popular as well as the
(01:06):
most aristocratic mode of residence in vogue. There were gables
and arches and quaint windows, and in many of these
boxes of flowers were placed. The house was built in
the center of a parklike grove of old trees and
the hand of a Scotch landscape artist, soon molded hedges,
flower beds and a well kept lawn. To day it
(01:29):
stands a home of homes. A porte cochere covered with
vines extends from the entrance under which the carriages drive.
The exterior of the house has the air of a
luxurious old English home. From the day that Mark Twain
and his young wife took up their abode in their
Hartford home, money was expended with lavish hands, and the
(01:51):
result has been a rich, charming, artistic and homelike interior.
One is ushered into an immense square hall, the floor
of which is in marble tiles of peculiar pattern. A
winding staircase, very wide and massive of heavily carved English
oak extends above. Opposite the front door are double doors
(02:14):
leading into the library. Near these doors in the hall
stands upon a marble pedestal the bust of mister Clemmons,
executed by young Carl Gerhardt. There are also paintings on
the carved oaken walls of the hall and a heavily
carved table. To the right are double doors leading into
the large drawing room all the doors and windows are
(02:38):
draped at the top by handsome lambrikins. The doors and
woodwork are of dark polished wood covered with stencil designs
in metallic paint, so that at a short distance they
look as if inlaid with mother of pearl. The drawing
room is furnished with light colored satin furniture. Leading from
this apartment is the dining room, which is fin in
(03:00):
heavy carved woods of the most elaborate workmanship, high carved
dado old tapestry portier a massive buffet covered with cut
glass and silverware. An odd idea is a window directly
over the fireplace. It is of one solid piece of
plate glass, surrounded by a frame of dark blue glass,
(03:22):
and inside that like the mat of a picture opal glass.
As one looks out at the beautiful landscape, he can
hardly realize at first that it is nature's handiwork, thus
framed in instead of a painting actually hanging upon the wall.
The flu of the fireplace extends each side of this
(03:42):
picturesque window. Connected with the dining room is the library,
which is the general living room. It has large double
doors leading into the front hall opposite the entrance. It
is a sunny, cheerful room with a huge, heavily carved fireplace,
which Miss Clemmens brought from Europe, where it had once
(04:02):
held place in an ancient castle. It seems to have
brought with it to this American home some of the dignity, pomp,
and splendor of which it once formed an important part.
The room looks as if it belonged to a baronial castle,
but in winter it is less somber, and a blazing
fire of logs burns behind the brass fender, bringing into
(04:26):
greater prominence the motto cut in brass above the fire.
The ornament of a house is the friends that frequent it.
On either side are low bookshelves built against the wall.
They form a part of the massive chimney piece and
look like wings of a great bat. The floor is
covered with rugs, and luxurious seats are fitted into the windows.
(04:49):
A large carved table stands in the center, covered with
magazines and papers. The whole house has rather the appearance
of an old castle, with the carvings grotesque and ponderous,
instead of the old mahogany of colonial days. A wide,
oaken staircase leads to the apartments above the most conspicuous
(05:11):
of which is a large room fitted up most comfortably
with cozy nooks filled in with cushioned seats. Beyond is
a room in which a large rocking horse and scattered
toys make one acquainted with the reason mister Clement ceased
writing in this attractive apartment and moved still further upstairs
to a corner of the billiard room. Each suite of
(05:34):
apartments has its separate bathroom. One guest chamber is furnished
in pink silk. Even the bedstead is of pink silk,
tufted all over with tiny satin buttons. The study or
work room of the humorist is the billiard room upon
the upper floor, the windows of which look out upon
(05:56):
the broad acres of beautiful landscape. In the distancence is
heard the ripple of park river. In the corner of
the room is his writing table, covered usually with books, manuscripts, letters,
and other literary litter. And in the middle of the
room stands the billiard table. Mister Clemens is an expert
(06:17):
billiard player, and when he tires of writing at his
little desk in the corner, he rises and makes some
scientific strokes with the queue. A resident of Hartford says
that he called upon Mark once in the billiard room,
when the fire in the grate threw some sparks out
upon the floor. These caught some loose paper, and the
(06:37):
room for a moment promised to break out in flames.
Twain was playing billiards at the time, says the man,
and he did not stop his game. He immediately rung
for the servants and lazily told them that they had
better extinguish the fire. And with that he leaned over
the table and made a stroke with his billiard cue,
(06:58):
which would have done honor to the world champion. Twain
never gets excited. The study is a long room with
sloping sides formed by the roof. There are three balconies adjacent,
two large ones on either side, and one at the end.
One may step out into these through regular doors. His
(07:19):
mode of work in this study is systematic. He makes
it an invariable rule to perform a certain amount of
literary work every day, and his working hours are made
continuous by his not taking any midday meal. He is
merciless toward his own productions, and has often destroyed an
entire day's labor as soon as it was written. He
(07:40):
found by experience that the final result was more satisfactory
by taking this course than by trying to remodel what
he considered a faulty manuscript. In this way he has
destroyed hundreds of pages of manuscript, and from one of
his larger books he called out no less than five
hundred pages. Since his advent in the city of Hartford,
(08:03):
Mark Twain has won for himself the name of Prince
of Entertainers. Seated in his richly furnished library, to whose
beauty and artistic completeness half the lands of Europe have contributed.
He will tell an anecdote or discuss a literary or
social question with a calm directness, an earnestness, revealing to
(08:25):
you an entire new side of his character that has
nothing in common with that which he is wont to
display to the public who thronged to his lectures. Even
his drollest stories. He relates with this same earnest impressiveness,
and with a face as serious as a sexton's. His
brilliancy has a certain delightful quality which is almost too
(08:48):
evanescent to be imprisoned in any one phrase. You have
no oppressive consciousness that you are expected to laugh, you
rather feel as if the talker had unexpectedly taken you
into his confidence, and you feel your heart going out
toward him in return. He is a reader of the
finest discriminating faculty, high dramatic power, and remarkable sympathetic interpretation,
(09:14):
and his reading of Browning, whom he greatly admires, is
a rare entertainment. He is a leading member of the
Monday Evening Club of Hartford, the Author's Club, the Century Club,
the Actors Club of New York, and other social and
literary organizations. During the summer months, mister Clemens and his
(09:35):
family sojourn at Quarry Farm near Elmira, New York, at
the home of mister T. W. Crane, whose wife is
a sister of Missus Clemens. Here among the historic hills
of the Chemung Valley, the humorist works with the same
systematic rule as in the study of his Hartford house.
A friend who visited mister Clemens in his summer retreat
(09:57):
writes as follows a summer the house has been built
for mister Clemmens within the Crane grounds, on a high
peak which stands six hundred feet above the valley that
lies spread out before it. The house is built almost
entirely of glass, and is modeled exactly on the plan
(10:17):
of a Mississippi steamboat's pilot house. Here, shut off from
all outside communication, mister Clemens does the hard work of
the year, or rather the confining and engrossing work of writing,
which demands continuous application day after day. The lofty work
(10:38):
room is some distance from the house. He goes to
it every morning about half past eight, and stays there
until called to dinner by the blowing of a horn
about five o'clock. He takes no lunch or noon meal
of any sort, and works without eating. While the rules
are imperative not to disturb him during this working period,
(11:03):
his only recreation is his cigar. Another correspondent wrote as follows.
To keep away the large number of visitors and sightseers
who come to view the sanctum, Twain posted upon his
door the following notice step softly, keep away, do not
disturb the remains. In spite of this characteristic warning, we
(11:28):
open the door and enter. The floor is bare. There
is a table in the center of the room covered
with books, newspapers, manuscripts, and all the paraphernalia of authorship.
Over the fireplace is a shelf on which rests a
few books and a couple of boxes of choice cigars.
(11:49):
An intimate acquaintance writing of mister Clemens and the tobacco habit,
says he is an inveterate smoker, and smokes constantly while
at is work, and indeed all the time from half
past eight in the morning to half past ten at night,
stopping only when at his meals. A cigar lasts him
about forty minutes. Now that he has reduced to an
(12:13):
exact science the act of reducing the weed to ashes,
so he smokes from fifteen to twenty cigars every day.
Some time ago he was persuaded to stop the practice,
and actually went a year and more without tobacco, But
he found himself unable to carry along important work which
(12:34):
he undertook, and it was not until he resumed smoking
that he could do it. Since then, his faith in
his cigar has not wavered. Like other American smokers, mister
Clemens is unceasing in his search for the really satisfactory
cigar at a really satisfactory price, and first and last
(12:56):
has gathered a good deal of experience in the pursuit
It is related that, having entertained a party of gentlemen
one winter evening in Hartford, he gave to each just
before they left the house one of a new sort
of cigar that he was trying to believe was the
object of his search. He made each guest lighted before starting.
(13:19):
The next morning, he found all that he had given
away lying on the snow beside the pathway across his lawn.
Each smoker had been polite enough to smoke until he
got out of the house, but every one, on gaining
his liberty, had yielded to the instinct of self preservation
and tossed the cigar away, forgetting that it would be
(13:41):
found there by daylight. The testimony of the next morning
was overwhelming, and the verdict against the new brand was accepted.
Some years ago, in making a phrenological examination of Mark Twain,
Professor Beale of Cincinnati made report as follows. Wit humor
(14:03):
are very familiar words, and yet from the difficulty in
defining them, or from not distinguishing the particular mental mechanism
upon which they depend, the relative merits of many authors
are often but vaguely understood. Wit is primarily an intellectual
(14:24):
perception of incongruity or unexpected relations. But the idea that
anything thus apprehended is ludicrous is suggested by the effective
faculty of mirthfulness in the same manner that the understanding
may perceive a dangerous object and thus arouse the emotion
(14:46):
of fear. The relation between the intellectual faculties and the
feelings is reciprocal, so that the sentiment of the ludicrous,
when strong, may prompt the to create imaginary senses or
associated ideas adapted to gratify it, or become active as
(15:09):
the result of real perceptions. Talent for wit then depends
upon certain intellectual activities combined with the sentiment of mirth.
But humor introduces another element, namely secretiveness. This propensity not
(15:29):
only creates the desire to conceal one's own thoughts, but
gives almost equal pleasure in penetrating the disguises of others.
It enables a joker to keep a straight face while
telling a story, and the secretiveness of the listener is
gratified by detecting the absurdity in the narrative beneath the
(15:53):
assumed gravity of the speaker, that is, to the amusing
incongruity of the events in the story is added the
further incongruity between the character of the story and the
serious countenance of the narrator. The English and Italians are
more humorous than witty, the reverse of which is true
(16:16):
of the French. Mark Twain is excellent in wit, but
super excellent in humor. Secretiveness is very marked in the
diameter of his head just above the ears, and is
indicated also by the width of his nostrils, the nearly
closed eyes, compressed lips, slow guarded manner of speech, et cetera.
(16:43):
His nose is of the apprehensive type in its great
length and somewhat hooked point, but it is not thick
enough above the nostrils to indicate taste for commerce. This
apprehensive or cautiousness nasal organ so prominent in Dante, Calvin
(17:04):
and other men celebrated for earnestness and gravity, might seem
an anomaly in this case, but for the explanation that
cautiousness and secretiveness are essential ingredients in genuine humor. On
this principle we can account for the temperament of our
great humorist, which is not the laughing, fat, rotund vital,
(17:28):
but rather the spare, angular, mental or mental motive, which
is favorable to hard sense, logic, general intelligence, and insight
into human nature. His intellect is well balanced, having a
strong foundation of perceptive faculties which gather details with the
(17:49):
fidelity of a camera. He has also a large upper forehead,
giving philosophical power ability to generalize, reason, plan, and see
a long way ahead. The middle centers, or memory of events, criticism,
and comparison, are also well developed. His eyes are rather
(18:12):
deeply set, and his language is subordinate to his thought.
The hollow temples indicate but little music and mirthfulness at
the upper corners of the forehead is by no means remarkable.
Ideality or love of beauty is only fair. The head
(18:32):
measures twenty two and a half inches, which is half
an inch less than the average intellectual giant. But the
fiber of the whole man is fine, close and strong,
and the cerebral combination is of a very available sort.
He has very ardent affections, strong love of approbation, sense
(18:55):
of justice, firmness, kindness, and ability to read character with
small self esteem. Love of gain or inclination to the supernatural,
knowledge of the world, and interest in humanity are his
leading traits and altogether, he is a phenomenal man of
(19:17):
whom Americans may well be proud. Being extremely domestic in
his tastes, Mark Twain is fond of his home life
and of his beautiful children. His eldest daughter, Susy, was
born in eighteen seventy two. Clara Langhorne was born in
eighteen seventy four, and Jeanne in eighteen eighty. Another child,
(19:41):
a son, died in infancy. Missus Clemens is described as gentle,
quiet and motherly, ten years younger than her husband. Mister
Clemens is reported to have said that when his mother died,
there would be no one left in the family to
appreciate his jokes. It is said Missus Clemens is particularly
(20:01):
slow in these matters. She dresses very plainly, wearing her
dark hair smoothly brushed from the parting in the center,
with no crimps or attempt at dressing. She appears still
more sedate by usually wearing eye glasses. She is, however,
noted for her goodness and for being a fond mother.
(20:22):
For many years, the near neighbors of the family have
been the families of mister Charles Dudley Warner, mister George Warner,
reverend mister Twitchell, and Missus Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is
said that once, when mister Clemmens, at the solicitation of
his wife, called on Missus Stowe, he was so absent
minded as to put on neither collar nor necktie on
(20:46):
Missus Clemmons. Remonstrating on his return, he said he would
make it all right, and accordingly sent a collar and
tie of his over to Missus Stow in a box.
Miss Susy has always been Dark's favorite child. She inherits
much of her father's brightness. She kept a diary at
one time in which she noted the occurrences in the family, and,
(21:09):
among other things, the sayings of her parents. On one page,
she wrote that father sometimes used stronger words when mother
wasn't by, and he thought we didn't hear. Missus Clemens
found the diary and showed it to her husband, probably
thinking the particular page worth his notice. After this, Clemens
(21:31):
did and said several things that were intended to attract
the child's attention, and found them duly noted afterward. But
one day the following entry occurred. I don't think i'll
put down anything more about father, for I think he
does things to have me notice him, and I believe
he reads This Diary of the Clemens Children, a correspondent
(21:53):
of a Chicago newspaper, tells of their adventures with their
father while on a visit to that city. As follows,
we came in last night, said Mark, pulling at the
left side of his mustache. Missus Clemmons is not very well.
Neither am I. I have been amusing the children. I
(22:18):
have taken them to a panorama. I understand there are
three others near here. I will take them there too.
I want to satiate them with battles. It may amuse them.
Three little girls, composed of three red gowns, three red parasols,
(22:43):
and six blue stockings, stood on the steps and laughed.
Run up and tell mamma what a jolly time you've had,
and I'll think of something else to amuse you. When
the three little girls had disappeared, mister Clemens's side, did
(23:04):
you ever try to amuse three little girls at the
same time, he asked, after a pause. It requires genius.
I wonder whether they would like to bathe in the lake,
He continued with sudden animation, hardly pausing five minutes between
(23:27):
each word, it might amuse them. Are you on your
vacation trip, mister Clemens. No, I have just returned from
a visit to my mother in Keacook, Iowa. We came
(23:48):
from Buffalo to Duluth by a lake steamer, and then
from Saint Paul down the river to Keacok. Neither in
this country, nor in any other, have I seen such
interesting scenery as that. Along the upper Mississippi one finds
(24:12):
all that the Hudson affords, bluffs, wooded highlands, and a
great deal. In addition, between Saint Paul and the mouth
of the Illinois River there are over four hundred islands
strung out in every possible shape. A river without islands
(24:37):
is like a woman without hair. She may be good
and pure, but one doesn't fall in love with her
very often. Did you ever fall in love with a
bald headed woman? The reporter admitted that he had drawn
(24:58):
the line there. I never did, either, continued mister Clemmons meditatively.
At least I think I never did. There is no
place for loafing more satisfactory than the pilot house of
a Mississippi steam boat. It amuses the children to see
(25:22):
the pilot monkey with the wheel. Traveling by boat is
the best way to travel, unless one can stay at home.
On a lake or river boat, one is as thoroughly
cut off from letters and papers and the tax collector
as though he were amid sea. Moreover, one doesn't have
(25:46):
the discomforts of seafaring. It is very unpleasant to look
at sea sick people, at least so my friends said
the last time I crossed. It might amuse the children, though,
suggested the reporter. I hadn't thought of that, replied mister Clemens.
(26:09):
But perhaps it might. The late seems rather rough to day.
I wonder whether one could get a boat, a little
boat that would bob considerably. Yes, it might amuse the children.
(26:30):
But it's such a sacrifice, you are not apparent, replied
the humorist. It is strange, continued mister Clemens, in a
momentary forgetfulness of the children. How little has been written
about the upper Mississippi. The river below Saint Louis has
(26:53):
been described time and again, and it is the least
interesting part. One can sit in the pilot house for
a few hours and watch the low shores, the ungainly trees,
and the democratic buzzards, and then one might as well
(27:17):
go to bed. One has seen everything there is to
see along the Upper Mississippi. Every hour brings something new.
There are crowds of odd islands, buffs, prairies, hills, woods
(27:42):
and villages. Everything one could desire to amuse the children.
A few people ever think of going there. However, Dickens, Corbett,
mother Trollope, and the other discriminating english people who wrote
(28:04):
up the country before eighteen forty two had hardly any
idea that such a stretch of river scenery existed. Their
successors have followed in their footsteps, and as we form
our opinions of our country from what other people say
(28:28):
of us, of course we ignore the finest part of
the Mississippi. At this moment, the three little girls in
the three red gowns and six blue stockings appeared, and
mister Clemmons assumed the shape of an amusement bureau. An
instance of his home life is the following anecdote. Having
(28:53):
been asked to contribute to a newspaper issued at the
fair in aid of the abused children in Boston, he wrote,
why should I want a society for the prevention of
cruelty to children to prosper when I have a baby
(29:13):
downstairs that kept me awake several hours last night, with
no pretext for it but to make trouble. This occurs
every night, and it embitters me because I see how
needless it was to put in the other burglar alarm,
(29:38):
a costly and complicated contrivance which cannot be depended upon
because it's always getting out of order, whereas although the
baby is always getting out of order too, it can
nevertheless be depended upon. Yes, I am bitter against your society,
(30:05):
for I think the idea of it is all wrong.
But if you will start a society for the prevention
of cruelty to fathers, I will write you a whole book.
At a heart for dinner party one day, the subject
of eternal life and future punishment came up for a
(30:27):
lengthy discussion in which Mark Twain, who was present, took part.
A lady near him turned suddenly toward him and exclaimed,
why do you not say anything? I want your opinion,
mister Clemmons replied gravely, madam, you must excuse me. I
(30:49):
am silent of necessity. I have friends in both places.
End of Chapter ten, read by John A. Greeman
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