May 18. 1895 Saturday – The S.S. New York arrived in New York at 9 a.m. with the Clemens family aboard. [N.Y. Times, May 18, 1895, p.6 “Incoming Steamships. To-day, (Saturday) May 18”; NB 34 TS 9; MTHHR 134]. Note: the latter source says the family “went immediately to Elmira,” but Sam wrote Frank Mayo on May 19 and gave a curtain speech on May 22; his first letter from Elmira was May 24 to J.B. Pond, and other extant letters do not give the exact date of arrival there. However, Paine’s edition of Mark Twain’s Notebook p.256 shows a facsimile page dated with this date, noon, and “Arrived at 9.”
The Chicago Inter Ocean ran an article with this dateline, on the Sunday, May 19 edition, front page:
MARK TWAIN RETURNS
While in Paris He Did Not Meet Paul Bourget.
New York, May 18. — Special Telegram. — Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, was a passenger on the New York, which arrived at the American line pier this morning. He came over with his family and will remain in this city only twenty-four hours before starting for his home in Hartford. Mr. Clemens was found among a mass of trunks, boxes, and baskets trying to identify his property.
“This wasn’t much of a trip,” he said. I have not done any work. I simply went over because my family wanted to come home, and I’ve brought ‘em.”
“Did you meet Paul Bourget in Paris?” was asked.
“I did not,” he replied, with a twinkle in his eye. “He was there, I believe, but we did not meet. We had nothing to say to each other, anyway. When I criticised his ‘Outre Mer’ I did so in print. The only way he could reply was with his pen. It would have been very unwise to have done that, so he hasn’t replied at all.”
“Is it true that you are the author of the personal reminiscences of Joan of Arc?” was asked. Mr. Clemens straightened up and cast a sharp glance at his questioner, and then fixed his eyes on space.
“I should have to carefully consider that question,” he replied. “I always make it a point to claim everything that is without an owner, whether it is tangible property or the mere subtle product of the mind. But I can’t answer that. It wouldn’t be fair.” [Note: not in Scharnhorst].
NEW YORK, May, 19 — Mark Twain chatted with a Globe reporter at the Everett house today about the possibility of a great reform in American common life. The humorist as a reformer may seem to be out of his role, but Mr. Clemens had put by the mask and spoke earnestly.
In the course of conversation he was asked if in his last trip to France, from which he has just returned, he had noticed an new habit or fad of the people that differed from those at home.
“I don’t recall anything startling just now,” he said. “I am not one of those travelers who seek in a foreign country for something they do not like. So many people, especially in writing about other countries, seem to view them as if from an eminence, and look down upon and decry what they do not like. It makes not the slightest difference to the people of the country; your opinion is of no value to them.
“I do not like to look for something whenever I go among foreign people that we can adopt at home with benefit to ourselves or advantage to America as a nation. In many years I think we are ahead of all, but I believe there may be good points found by careful observation of other people.
“In the last four years I have crossed the Atlantic 15 times. Every time I get back to New York I see things on every hand that I think are better than what I have just been accustomed to. They keep coming up there, there, there again and yonder, but every now and then I see something that isn’t so nice.
“Did it ever occur to you to notice how discourteous we are as a people in our cities? In common life I mean.
“Yesterday I was in one of these great stores where they sell about everything one wants and where there are a thousand clerks. I was waiting for my purchase when a woman walked up to the counter — an American woman all over (he repeated in a gallant tone, and shaking his head in his peculiar manner by way of emphasizing his admiration of her kind while he deprecated the weakness he was about to report).
“There stood the salesgirls behind the counter. With the air of one asking a favor the woman asked if she could see some article of apparel that goes about the waist.
“ ‘What’s y’r size?’ asked the salesgirl, brusquely.
“ ‘I don’t know,’ said the woman, mildly.
“ ‘Here, measure y’rself!’ and the girl snaked a measuring tape from under the counter and handed it to the customer.
“A purchase was made, and then, from the salesgirl, abruptly: ‘Payfe’t now or send it home?’
“ ‘I will pay for it here.’
“ ‘Cash — cash — cash!’ and that was all.
“Now, isn’t that the case, over and over again? Are we not all that way?
“Doesn’t a man do the same at a hotel? A stranger enters a hotel office. The clerk glances up, sees that it is not one of the regular patrons and goes on with his work. The man registers and asks — asks — if he can have such and such kind of a room. The clerk swings the register around, scratches a number opposite the guest’s name, and yells: ‘Front! Show the gentleman to X, 13.’
“There is the same discourtesy without a word. The man asked a question. The clerk said not a word except to summon a porter. It is not always what is said to us; it’s the way in which it is said, or the manner of the person that really offends us, and this when we have not been offensive in word or manner, but have been polite.
“There is none of us who relish such treatment as the woman received at the big store. Yet we are silent, or if we complain we do not complain in the right place, and so get little redress.
“Abroad people are not likely to be subjected to such treatment, and if they are they complain to the highest in authority and get better attention.
“Until this time I have latterly on my return from across the water up at the Players’ club, and I have always been impressed with the conversation of the men, who are telling each other of some trouble they had had during the day on the street car or elevated railroad lines. It seems to me an odd thing that there should be such difficulties so frequently, and I asked if the sufferers had made complaint. Yes, they had, but I found it was only to some one about the offender, not to the responsible head. That is wrong. If we want courteous treatment we have got to see to it that complains of abusive treatment are made to the proper people.”
“Do you hold, then, that discourtesy is to be reformed by complaint?”
“I do. Twenty-five years ago the general experience in this country was that if you addressed a railroad conductor you got an insolent or a gruff answer. At that time if you wanted to go from here to Hartford or to Boston, for instance, the chances were that you would have to stand up, and if you asked for a seat the conductor would either tell you disagreeable that there was none or he would not answer you at all.
“I have seen those cars with the aisles filled as those of your surface cars, and a request for a seat would be answered by abuse. One man — I ought not to have forgotten his name, but I do not just now recall it — stood for his rights. He demanded a seat, and insisted that one be given to him. They told him bluntly there were none. They matter was carried to the courts, and it was very promptly decided that a railroad company must give a man a seat or pay damages. Now you have not difficulty in getting a seat if you only insist gently but firmly on having one, even if the company has to put on an extra car. And all over the country now the railroad conductors usually answer you civilly.
May 23 Thursday – This is the probable day that the Clemens family continued on to Elmira. The May 26 to Rogers reveals they did not go directly to Quarry Farm.
May 26 Sunday – In Elmira Sam wrote to his brother Orion. This letter is not extant but was quoted in a June 17 to Samuel Moffett from Pamela Moffett.
We are all in good health, & Livy looks young & fresh & spry. I have very little time in which to select and prepare my readings, but I will make up by working double tides till I start west. We shall start about mid-summer. We sail for Australia from the Pacific Coast in August. Livy and Clara go with me around the world, but Susie refuses because she hates the sea, & Jean refuses because she can’t spare the time from school.
May 27 Monday – The Clemens family moved from Elmira to Quarry Farm [May 26 to Rogers].
May 30 Thursday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to Henry M. Alden of Harper & Brothers:
Sam also wrote a short paragraph to Robert Underwood Johnson of The Century.
I am in bed, & must stay there two or three weeks yet — gout in my starboard ancle, a boil as big as a turkey’s egg on my port thigh…Can’t write, these days [MTP].
June 3 Monday – At Quarry Farm, Dr. Theron Augustus Wales lanced Sam’s thigh carbuncle [June 4 to Rogers; MTHHR 165n1 identifies the doctor].
Sam wrote his boil turned out to be a carbuncle, which “furnished” him “a week of admirable pain.” The carbuncle had been lanced and he’d “squelched three others in their infancy,” and was “discouraging another.” He also had one on the back of his right hand. (Note: carbuncles are staph infections which can spread to other parts of the body; they are normally larger than boils.) He didn’t expect to get out of bed for three or four more days, and bemoaned the time lost. Instead of preparing and familiarizing himself with three readings, one would be the most he might do. At this point he wanted to drastically abbreviate the U.S. leg of the tour:
Sam’s business troubles were not yet over, as reflected in this piece in the NY Times, June 4, 1895 p.15 “Business Troubles”: An execution has been received by the Sheriff against Samuel L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”) and Frederick T. Hall [sic] as partners in the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., for $5,046 in favor of Thomas Russell & Son, for binding books and on notes of the firm. [Note: Sam was served with a subpoena on this matter on June 25; see entry].
June 11 Tuesday – In Elmira at Quarry Farm, Sam wrote to nephew Samuel Moffett. He’d heard from J.B. Pond that San Francisco was out for the tour:
I am thoroughly disappointed. I wanted to talk half a dozen times in San Francisco, & I expected to have a good time & stay ten days & see everybody I ever knew; but Pond says the town empties itself before the first week in August, & I must not go there earlier than October — which puts my visit off till October of next year, of course. If I could have foreseen that I was not to go to Frisco I would have started around the world the other way, of course, & saved myself one crossing of the Atlantic & one crossing of our continent. I could have saved a world of time & travel.
He added that they would be taking “one of the northern routes,” in hopes the weather would be cooler, since Livy’s “health fails under heat.” Sydney would be the first port in Australia [MTP].
Sam also wrote to James B. Pond, arguing that if he had to have a circular the main feature of it should be that he was on his way to Australia and from there around the globe on a reading and talking tour for the next year.
I like the approximated itinery first rate. It is lake, all the way from Cleveland to Duluth. I wouldn’t switch aside to Milwaukie for $200,000.
Look very sharp, Pond, & arrange the railway trips according to Mrs. Clemens’s strength — so far, you seem to be watching out for that.
Sam added that if he must have 30,000 circulars to “tackle Bliss if you want to. He’ll decline, I think.”
He also wanted the casting of “that white-linen full-length Twain,” of Pond’s, probably left over from the Cable tour. He enclosed a list of seven program-talks he would give in one-night stands, and when he talked twice he would use two different programs. Number three was “Selection not yet selected,” which he called “the most important in the list,” for he’d put a new selection in it every night and in that way “build & practice a SECOND program.” The list: “My First Theft,” “The Jumping Frog,” The ex-Slave’s Story,” “Jim Baker & the Blue-jays,” “The Historical Old Ram,” and “My Last Theft” [MTP]. Note: Fatout writes of the expanded variety of Sam’s readings:
In his notebooks are at least one hundred titles of possible readings, most of them from Huckleberry Finn, Roughing It, and The Innocents Abroad, some from A Tramp Abroad, and several from Joan of Arc. On the tour he used about forty selections. The most frequent numbers were the watermelon story, the German language, grandfather’s old ram, the stabbed man, the Nevada duel, the Mexican plug, punch-brothers-punch-with-care, the whistling stammerer, the christening story, the golden arm, encounter with an interviewer, and a poem about the Ornithorhyncus he composed on shipboard. Others, less often read, were about his first meeting with Artemus Ward, Aunty Cord, Baker’s blue jays, acting as courier, the jumping frog, King Sollermun, the incorporated company of mean men, the two raft bullies, Buck Fanshaw’s funeral, and so forth [On Lecture Circuit 242].
Sam’s thigh carbuncle dispelled a core and left “a corresponding raw cavity” in his leg; he felt it would “heal fast, now” [June 19 to Pond].
June 25 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to George Washington Cable, who had written (not extant) praising the JA installment in Harper’s Monthly.
You make me feel ever so proud & pleased. I wrote the story from love, & one particularly likes to have one’s pets praised.
Yes sir! I liked you in spite of your religion; & I always said to myself that a man that could be good & kindly with that kind of a load on him was entitled to homage — & I paid it. And I have always said, & still maintain, that as a railroad-comrade you were perfect. …We always had good times in the cars, & never minded the length of the trips — & my, but they were sockdolagers for length! [MTP].
June 26 Wednesday – At Quarry Farm, Sam was served with a subpoena brought by Thomas Russell & Son, printers and bookbinders, a creditor of Webster & Co. This was published on June 4 in the NY Times (see entry); the debt was $5,046. This was the subject of Sam’s PS finish for his letter to Rogers he began June 25:
P.S. This paper has just been served on me. Is it necessary that I obey it and appear in court in New York July 5? The doctor has just gone from here; he says I’ll be able to travel by that date. / SLC [MTHHR 157 and n3].
Note: from the source: Another subpoena (Now in CWB [Clifton Waller Barrett Library]) ordered Mrs. Clemens to appear on 19 July 1895 before the Honorable M.L. Stover, one of the justices on the Supreme Court of New York. Clemens’s eagerness to settle the matter resulted in an arrangement which was worked out before the case was taken to court.
July 1 Monday – At Quarry Farm
July 2 Tuesday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote on a series of three stones, a “Contract” with Julia J. Beecher (Mrs. Thomas K. Beecher). Stones 1-3:
If you prove right and I prove wrong
A million years from now,
In language plain and frank and strong
My error I’ll avow
To your dear mocking face.
If I prove right, by God his grace,
Full sorry I shall be,
For in that solitude no trace
There’ll be of you and me
Nor of our vanished race.
A million years, O patient stone,
You’ve waited for this message
Deliver it a million hence!
(Survivor pays expressage.)
Mark Twain [MTP].
Note: The text of this poem, with one line missing, was published in the July 31 N.Y. Tribune and the Aug. 3 issue of Critic, p.79. [Tenney, ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn 1978) 167-8]
The stone was picked up by Mrs. Beecher in the Susquehanna river bed near Wyalusing Pa near to the summer cottage of Charles Beecher. The stone is kidney shaped of a slatey formation and a reddish color and singularly was split into three slabs.
July 6 Saturday – In Elmira at Quarry Farm Sam finished his July 5 note to Robert Underwood Johnson of Century Magazine with a PS that he had no time to revise the bicycle piece as the carriage was starting for town that moment. Johnson would have to send him a proof, and best to send it to Quarry Farm before July 10 [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers, announcing that finally, “under bad and uncomfortable conditions” he would go to New York with Livy on Monday, July 8. The time was too short before they must leave for Cleveland; they couldn’t afford another delay. So they would take the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western railroad.
…leaving here at noon and arriving at Everett House 7.30; then return here next day at 1 p.m. This will give me 3 or 4 days to rest-up in, before leaving for Cleveland — and I shall need as many. I will read, here, to the Reformatory convicts Wed and Thurs. nights. Yrs sincerely / SLC [MTP].
July 8 Monday – At Quarry Farm Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers, again delayed on coming to New York.
A telephone message from town has stopped me just as I was about to put on my clothes for the first time in 44 days. Dr. Wales had just gone, not pleased about the New York journey, and outspokenly discontented because a professional nurse (mighty capable man), was going with me instead of Mrs. Clemens. After all the trouble the tribe of us had been at, to persuade her to remain here! She is not well, and I could not endure the idea of her making that big journey — no good preparation for the long trip Pacfic-ward. My uneasiness about her would have made the journey all the harder for me.
July 10 Wednesday – Sam left Elmira without Livy for New York to be examined by attorneys for Thomas Russell the next day. His earlier plans were to stay at the Everett House.
July 11 Thursday – Sam was examined by attorneys. The Boston Daily Globe sensationalized the session, running this article on p.6, July 12, 1895.
“MARK TWAIN” IS RUINED.
Failure of Publishing House in Which He Was a Partner Involved the Humorist’s Private Fortune.
NEW YORK, July 11 — “Mark Twain,” otherwise Samuel L. Clemens, the humorist, was examined in supplementary proceedings this afternoon at the office of Stern & Rushmore, his lawyers, at 40 Wall st.
The action was taken on account of the failure, some months ago, of the publishing house of Charles L. Webster & Co, in which Mr Clemens was a partner.
Thos. Russell & Sons, printers, have an account against the publishing firm for printing their books. The claim, amounting to a little over $5000, was unsatisfied at the time of the failure.
They have secured an execution against Mr Clemens and Frederick J Hall, another partner in the publishing business, and as this execution was returned unsatisfied by the sheriff, an order was secured for the examination of Messrs Clemens and Hall in supplementary proceedings.
Bainbridge Colby, the assignee of the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co, said that Mr Clemens is a ruined man financially, and that he has been very much depressed over the necessity of submitting to the ordeal of a supplementary examination.
Mr. Colby said that Mr Clemens has, to the best of this ability, devoted himself to the work of seeing the creditors of the late publishing firm satisfied.
A dividend of 20 percent upon all claims was paid to the creditors last April, and all the creditors, with the exception of Russell & Sons, have been satisfied with the efforts of assignee Colby and Mr Clemens to settle the debts of the firm.
The largest debt of the publishing firm was to Mrs Clemens, who at different times advanced $70,000 in money to help along the business. After the failure this was a clear loss, as she made no claim against the firm.
July 12 Friday – Sam gave a reading to 700 boys at the House of Refuge, Randall’s Island, New York as a rehearsal for his tour to kick off in Cleveland on July 15 [Fatout, MT Speaking 662]. Note: The House of Refuge was a reformatory for incorrigible boys.
The New York Times, July 14, 1895 p.2 “Two More House of Refuge Rioters; Held for Seriously Injuring Keeper Parker with Baseball Bats,” reported on a riot at the school on this afternoon. Sam did not mention the riot afterward, but in a July 14 to Rogers he called his talk there a “comical defeat.” The N.Y. Sun of July 18 reported that “the performance took and the boys were in a roar…from the time they found…that it wasn’t against the rules to smile until the speaker sat down” [Fatout, Lecture Circuit 243-4].
According to Sam’s July 14 to Rogers, he was on the train the day before, July 13, meaning he would have spent this night in New York.
July 13 Saturday – Sam left New York on the train for Elmira. In his letter of July 14 to H.H. Rogers, he described seeing Charles E. Rushmore of Stern & Rushmore, attorneys, on the train.
…told him I didn’t want any annoyance at Cleveland;…but he said I could rest easy; said he was sure Wilder [Thomas Russell’s attorney] was now satisfied that I had no concealed property & would leave me alone in Cleveland.
And yet, after all, he was not certain. However, that is neither here nor there. Wilder can play that card, & I will take no risks with that man. Mr. Rushmore thinks he knows Wilder. It is a superstition. Cleveland is a good card, & Wilder is not a sentimentalist. I wish I had listened to [John] Stanchfield here when he wanted to vacate the order of the Court [July 14 to Rogers].
July 14 Sunday – At Quarry Farm, A few minutes before leaving for town, Sam also wrote to his sister Pamela Moffett.
I have not been able to write. I have been in bed ever since we arrived here May 25th, until four days ago [July 10] when I put on my clothes for the first time in 45 days to go to New York — barely capable of the exertion — to undergo the shame born of the mistake I made in establishing a publishing house. I can’t make any more financial mistakes; I’ve nothing left to make them with. If Webster had paid me my dividend on the Grant book when he paid himself & Mrs. Grant, I should have been spared the humiliations of these days. However I am still clean of dishonesty toward any man, and — but never mind, it would profit nothing to say it.
Livy & Clara have gone down in the valley to take the train toward the Pacific Coast, & I follow in five minutes. We leave Susy & Jean here at the farm. They will join us in London next year.
Note: Livy and Clara left first, but only for the depot, where Sam caught up with them. Sam’s indelible picture of the train pulling out from Elmira with Susy waving tearful good-byes on the platform was the last time they would see her alive [Sept. 24, 1896 to Howells; MTB 1002].