Summer – Sometime during the summer of 1908, Clemens drafted his Constitution for the Angelfish. It follows:
THE AQUARIUM
Issued By THE ADMIRAL
INNOCENCE AT HOME REDDING, CONN. SUMMER-TIME 1908
Qualifications for Membership
Sincerity, good disposition, intelligence, & school-girl age.
Secrets of the Order
Members of the Aquarium are forbidden to divulge its affairs to any but their parents & guardians.
This is the only copy of these Rules & Regulations. They must be read to each Member when opportunity shall permit, but they must not be printed or otherwise copied.
I have built this house largely, indeed almost chiefly, for the comfort & accommodation ofthe Aquarium. Its members will always be welcome under its roof.
N.B. Note
The Name
Its Aquarium name is “Innocents at Home,” & it is not misnamed, for I know the Fishes well, and am aware that they can furnish the innocence necessary to make the name good.
Private Headquarters
The Billiard Room is the Aquarium’s Private Headquarters. Members may exclude non- members from that room at any time they choose, & for as long as they choose. They may stop a game whenever they please & put the players out. The power to exercise these privileges is lodged not only in the Members as a whole, but may be used by a single Fish if she shall desire to do so.
Neither the Admiral nor the Officers and Servants of the Aquarium are immune from this rule.
The Fish-Market
This is the Loggia, which projects from the Western end of the house. It is open to the scenery & the breezes, by grace of its high & wide arches, & forasmuch as its piers support a second-story wing, it is sheltered from sun and rain. It is large, & cleanly tiled, & is the Aquarium’s play-&-exercise quarters when the weather is not of a sort to invite the children to the wood, & hills.
This is one of the piers & will contain a vase of flowers at times, & at other times an Angel- Fish who has been tried & found guilty of conduct unbecoming her high estate. The Court may sentence her to remain in the Niche of Repentance for a period of not less than two minutes nor more than ten. While under sentence she must live on bread & water.
The Niche
The Criminal Court
This is the spacious room which opens upon the Fish-Market. Here accused Members will be tried for conduct unbecoming an Angel-Fish. The Admiral will sit as Judge, & the prosecution & defence will be conducted by the Official Legal Staff of the Aquarium.
All prisoners shall be granted trial by jury.
None may sit upon the jury except Members.
The jury shall consist of not fewer than one Member nor more than three.
Any Member refusing to sit upon the jury shall be fined. The Judge alone may name the fine, & he alone may collect it.
Non-Members cannot act as witnesses.
Conspiracies
The right to conspire is restricted to Membership. Conspiracies cannot be concocted in the house; nor anywhere upon the estate except in the gorge below the Aquarium Cataract in the daytime, nor anywhere at night except in the privacy of the Pergola at the foot of the grounds below the northern front of the house.
Members desiring to conspire must give notice to the Admiral & tell him what it is about.
Except when the proposed conspiracy is against the Admiral himself; in that case notice must be given to the Official Legal Staff.
Persons intruding upon a lawfully arranged conspiracy with a view to obstructing it, will be tried in the Criminal Court.
The only important decoration of the Billiard Room is the framed photographs of the Membership. Portraits of non-members are not permitted there.
The official Badge of the Order is a small angel-fish pin. It bears the splendid colors of that beautiful inhabitant of the West India waters, exactly imitated in enamels. Members wear it upon the left breast, usually. The Admiral is obliged to furnish this pin to every Member without charge, & he is also obliged to replace lost ones on the same terms. Members need only give him notice.
Members are created by appointment. By the Admiral.
None above school-girl age is admitted.
But, once a Member, always a Member—for life.
Margaret Ellington [sic] Frohman, a choice & valued Member, is beyond school-girl age, but with opportunity by the Admiral will be able to explain her case & justify it.
Portraits
The Badge
Membership
M.A.
Members of the Aquarium are entitled to put M.A. after their names.
Non-members can be admitted only by pass, signed by the Admiral. They are not privileged to take part in the proceedings.
Attempts to bribe the Court or Jury, by either members or non-members, will be subjected to such punishment as the Judge in his discretion prescribe.
Bribery
Dress
At all trials the Judge, the Mother Superior, the Chatelaine & Staff must appear in their official robes.
Spectators must wear evening dress.
Members must wear their badge and their head-ribbon.
Proceedings cannot begin until the Chatelaine shall have made proclamation that the Court is now open & ready for business.
Ceremonial
Order of Appointment
There are 12 Members, & the names of the same are here set down in the order of their appointment, with the ages which they had reached at the time of appointment.
- Dorothy Butes, 14, England. (honorary)
- Frances Nunnally, 16, Georgia.
- Dorothy Quick, 10 & 10 months, New Jersey.
- Margaret Blackmer, 12, New York.
- Irene Gerken, 12, New York.
- Helen Allen, 13, Bermuda.
- Hellen Martin, 13, Canada.
- Jean Spurr, 13, New Jersey.
- Dorothy Sturgis, 16, Massachusetts.
- Margaret Illington, New York.
- Dorothy Harvey, 13, New Jersey.
- Louise Paine, 13, Connecticut
- Marjorie Breckenridge, 15
Honorary Members
Members who fail to write the Admiral during an unbroken period of 3 months do not cease to be Members, but are retired from the Active list & banished to the roll of Honorary Members with reproaches!
Conspicuously charming unmarried ladies above school-girl age may be appointed to this degree. But the members in occupation must at no time exceed 6.
The Board
Admiral of the Aquarium S.L. Clemens
Mother Superior Miss Clara Clemens
Legal Staff, Dan Frohman
The Admiral is a Member, but gets no salary; the others are paid, but not Members.
The foregoing Constitution, Rules & other particulars are respectfully submitted to the Aquarium, for approval or dissent, by S.L. Clemens Admiral
[MTAq 191-5].