December 25, 1909 Saturday

December 25 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam sent the same reply (telegram) to Annie Moffett Webster at 55 W 10th St N.Y. [MTP]

Paine writes of Christmas day:

It was on Christmas Day that they went with Jean on her last journey. Katie Leary, her baby nurse, had dressed her in the dainty gown which she had worn for Clara’s wedding, and they had pinned on it a pretty buckle which her father had brought her from Bermuda, and which she had not seen. No Greek statue was ever more classically beautiful than she was, lying there in the great living-room, which in its brief history had seen so much of the round of life.

They were to start with Jean at about six o’clock, and a little before that time Clemens (he was unable to make the journey) asked me what had been her favorite music. I said that she seemed always to care most for the Schubert Impromptu. Then he said:

“Play it when they get ready to leave with her, and add the Intermezzo for Susy and the Largo for Mrs. Clemens. When I hear the music I shall know that they are starting. Tell them to set lanterns at the door, so I can look down and see them go.”

So I sat at the organ and began playing as they lifted and bore her away. A soft, heavy snow was falling, and the gloom of those shortest days was closing in. There was not the least wind or noise, the whole world was muffled. The lanterns at the door threw their light out on the thickly falling flakes. I remained at the organ; but the little group at the door saw him come to the window above—the light on his white hair as he stood mournfully gazing down, watching Jean going away from him for the last time. I played steadily on as he had instructed, the Impromptu, the Intermezzo from “Cavalleria,” and Handel’s Largo. When I had finished I went up and found him.

“Poor little Jean,” he said; “but for her it is so good to go.”

In his own story of it he wrote:

From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come back any more. The cousin she had played with when they were babies together—he and her beloved old Katie—Were conducting her to her distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother’s side once more, in the company of Susy and Langdon.

He did not come down to dinner, and when I went up afterward I found him curiously agitated. He said:

“For one who does not believe in spirits I have had a most peculiar experience. I went into the bathroom just now and closed the door. You know how warm it always is in there, and there are no draughts. All at once I felt a cold current of air about me. I thought the door must be open; but it was closed. I said, ‘Jean, is this you trying to let me know you have found the others?’ Then the cold air was gone.”

I saw that the incident had made a very great impression upon him; but I don’t remember that he ever mentioned it afterward [MTB 1549-51].

Sam’s new guestbook:

Sam wrote in the next page of his new guestbook:

On Christmas Eve at half-past 7 in the morning
Jean Clemens passed from this life.
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Christmas Day — She lies in her coffin at the other end
Of this room, beautiful in death.
(horizontal line]
Night. At 6 p.m, the hearse & carriages
Moved toward the station. Jervis & Katy will take
Jean to Elmira, where her mother, and Susy, and
Langdon lie buried. A snow-storm was raging.
Clara is in Germany,

The New York Times, Dec. 26, p.1, dateline Dec. 25, reported on Sam’s condition:

MARK TWAIN BEARS UP WELL.

Body of His Daughter, Accompanied by Household Servants, Taken to Elmira.

REDDING, Conn., Dec, 25.—Mark Twain has borne up well under the bereavement which came to him yesterday in the death of his daughter, Miss Jean Clemens. Today he was fully composed and gave final directions for the removal for the body to Elmira, N. Y.

The coffin was taken from Stormfield this evening in time to be placed on the 7 o’clock train for New York. Several of the household servants accompanied it with a few of the most intimate friends of Miss Jean Clemens and of Mr. Clemens.

A great many messages of sympathy from friends in all parts of the country were received today by Mr. Clemens.

More telegrams and letters of condolence:

[MTP].

Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.

Dr. Shobal Vail Clevenger (1843-1920), sent Clemens an inscribed copy of his new book, Fun in a Doctor’s Life, Being the Adventures of an American Don Quixote in Helping to Make the World a Better Place (1909): “To Sam L. Clemens / from his old townsman / of St. Louis in the 50’s / S.V. Clevenger / Park Ridge, Ill / Christmas 1909” [Gribben 147]. Note: in the late 1850s, when Sam was a pilot on the Mississippi, Clevenger would have been a teenager, eight years younger than Sam, who was often in St. Louis while a pilot.