16 - My Mark Twain by William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells (1837-1920) forged a deep friendship with Mark Twain beginning in 1869, when Twain entered The Atlantic Monthlys Boston office to express his gratitude for Howells positive review of *Innocents Abroad*. As Howells later assumed the role of editor, The Atlantic Monthly became a pivotal platform for many of Twains works, including his acclaimed non-fiction piece, *Life on the Mississippi*. In *My Mark Twain*, Howells shares a captivating literary memoir filled with remarkable anecdotes, including their encounters with former President Ulysses Grant, who was then crafting his own classic autobiography—a project Twain would support through a groundbreaking publishing deal. Howells also beautifully captures the warmth of Twains family life during his numerous visits to the Twain residences in Hartford and Stormfield. (Summary by Dennis Sayers).

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter sixteen of My Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording.
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My Mark Twain by William Dean Howells, Chapter sixteen. Clemens

(00:26):
was oftenest at my house in Cambridge, but he was
also sometimes at my house in Belmont. When, after a
year in Europe we went to live in Boston, he
was more rarely with us. We could never be long
together without something out of the common happening, And one

(00:47):
day something far out of the common happened, which fortunately
refused the nature of absolute tragedy, while remaining rather the
saddest sort of comedy. We were looking out of my
library window on that view of the Charles which I
was so proud of sharing with all but my next

(01:09):
door neighbor, doctor Holmes, when another friend who was with
us called out with curiously impersonal interest, Oh see that
woman getting into the water. This would have excited curiosity
and alarmed anxiety far less lively than ours, and Clemens

(01:33):
and I rushed downstairs and out through my basement and
back gate. At the same time a coachman came out
of a stable next door and grappled by the shoulders
a woman who was somewhat deliberately getting down the steps
to the water over the face of the embankment. Before
we could reach them, he had pulled her up to

(01:56):
the driveway and stood holding her there while she crazily
grieved at her rescue. As soon as he saw us,
he went back into a stable and left us with
the poor wild creature on our hands. She was not
very young and not very pretty, and we could not

(02:16):
have flattered ourselves with the notion of anything romantic in
her suicidal mania. But we could take her on the
broad human level, and on this we proposed to escort
her up Beacon Street till we could give her into
the keeping of one of those kindly policemen whom our

(02:36):
neighborhood knew. Naturally, there were no policemen known to us
or unknown the whole way to the public garden. We
had to circumvent our charge in her present design of
drowning herself, and walk her past the streets crossing Beacon
to the river. At these points it needed considerable to

(03:01):
overcome her wish, and some active maneuvering in both of
us to enforce our arguments. Nobody else appeared to be interested.
And though we did not court publicity in the performance
of the duty so strangely laid upon us, still it
was rather disappointing to be so entirely ignored. There are

(03:25):
some four or five crossings to the river between three
o two Beacon Street and the public Garden, and the
suggestions at our command were pretty well exhausted by the
time we reached it. Still, the expected policeman was nowhere
in sight. But a brilliant thought occurred to Clemens. He

(03:47):
asked me where the nearest police station was, and when
I told him, he started off at his highest speed,
leaving me in sole charge of our hapless ward. All
my powers of suasion were now taxed to the utmost,
and I began attracting attention as a short stout gentleman

(04:10):
in early middle life, endeavoring to distrain a respectable female
of her personal liberty when his accomplice had abandoned him
to his wicked design. After a much longer time than
I thought I should have taken to get a policeman
from the station, Clemens reappeared in easy conversation with an officer,

(04:34):
who had probably realized that he was in the company
of Mark Twain and was in no hurry to end
the interview. He took possession of our captive, and we
saw her no more. I now wonder that, with our
joint instinct for failure, we ever got rid of her.

(04:56):
But I am sure we did, and few things in
life have given me greater relief. When we got back
to my house, we found the friend we had left
there quite unruffled and not much concerned to know the
facts of our adventure. My impression is that he had
been taking a nap on my lounge. He appeared refreshed

(05:20):
and even gay. But if I am inexact in these details,
he is alive to refute me. And of Chapter sixteen
read by Dennis Ayres in Modesto, California, for LibriVox, Winter
two thousand and six.