Small & Maynard Scheme – Oesophogus:“It is a joke & you are an ignoramous!” Juggernaut Club – Double Barrelled – Christian Science Humbug – West Indies Cruise
Charleston Fair Resembled a Funeral – Tarrytown Bargain – Defense of Funston Clara’s Escape – Pallbearer for Stockton – Hannibal Revisited – LL.D.
Piloting & Christening – York Harbor & “The Pines” – Huck on Stage – Livy’s Crisis Barred from the Sickroom – Omaha & Denver Ban Huck – Invalid Car to Riverdale Birthday Bash: “I cannot make a good mouth” – Reed’s Last Speech
Help Stoddard – Princeton Inauguration – Jean’s Pneumonia – “Heaven? Or Hell?”
1902 – Sam recorded he was paid $11,270.05 plus $17,730.00 this year by the American Publishing Co. He estimated the Co. cleared $21,000 [NB 46 TS 17].
NOTE: In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote several undated notes to the “invalid” Livy, of which 18 survive. The MTP dates these only as 1902-1903. However, Wecter puts them as “impossible to date with precision, but apparently belong to the late winter and early spring of 1903” [LLMT 341]. Two of these have been dated here as after March, 1903, and Aug. 13, 1903. For these reasons they are all placed in 1903, those not yet exactly dated labeled only by the MTP numbers. See 1903 and the above specific entries.
Twain wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “The Jungle Discusses Man” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi, 169-73]. Note: title assigned by the MTP.
Ca. 1902, Sam wrote “How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson,” a story of which very little is known. It was also titled “Feud Story and the Girl Who was Ostensibly a Man” [Camfield’s bibliog.]. Note: it was first published by the Missouri Review in Mar. 1987. Some have speculated the story may have been inspired by troubled thoughts over Susy Clemens’ lesbian relationship with Louise Brownell.
Twain wrote a 500-word story fragment in either 1897 or 1902, which the MTP included in Hannibal, Huck & Tom, and titled “Doughface,” is based on ch. 53 of LM [Rasmussen 116].
Sometime in 1902 Twain also wrote a story, “The Bee,” which was not published in his lifetime. It was partly published What Is Man? And Other Stories (1917) [Camfield’s bibliog.].
Paine puts the year as 1902 and also offers the title, “The Victims,” for Sam’s allegory involving microbes. Lecky writes, “Mark Twain here approaches a demonic or even a Satanic point of view. A master and a maker who has so ordered things that each creature must live by murdering a fellow creature can be regarded as an evil deity…” [Fables of Man 133-40].
Sam wrote “Aguinaldo,” a MS of 62 pages and a TS of 21 pages, not published until 1992 in Zwick’s MT’s Weapons of Satire, etc. [AMT-1: 707].
Sam also wrote “Huck,” a one-page MS, probably written this year [AMT-1: 707].
Sam wrote to William H. Chiles in Lexington, Mo. (only the envelope survives) [MTP:Cohasco Inc. catalog, 1979, Item 40].
Sometime before June in 1902, Sam also wrote to George Sands Goodwin:
“I suppose I ought to take an interest in this subject, but really I don’t.
“I would have answered sooner, but I have been bedridden eight days with gout. Truly yours, / S.L. Clemens” [MTP: published in June 1902 issue of The Critic, p. 540]. Note: the said journal added this snarky comment below Sam’s note:
The letter Mr. Clemens has written lets in considerable light on that distinguished author’s attitude of mind towards the critics. It is likely to occasion more than mild surprise from the generous commendations of two generations of reviewers takes “no interest” in the discussion of a topic which concerns them so closely. In connection with such an expressed avowal of indifference on the part of the veteran author of “Innocents Abroad” it does not seem out of place to ask this question — would Mark Twain’s literary ventures have attained the same measure of success if, in the budding period of his career as a writer, the critics to whom his books were sent for review had dismissed each with the remark in chorus, “We ought to take an interest in this subject, but we don’t.”
Also in 1902 or 1903 Sam cabled Theodore Stanton in Paris: “Best compliments to dramatists and hope the detectives will shed glory on a cruelly slandered profession. / Mark Twain” [MTP].
Sometime during 1902 Sam wrote to Henry W. Lucy. This letter ran in the Nov. 15, 1902 issue of Harper’s Weekly (see entry for the letter to the editor Sam enclosed).
My dear Lucy,—The enclosed is a feeler flung forward in the interests of our Obituary as planned by us at Mr. Bryce’s dinner that night [Mar. 21, 1900].
I mean to spend all the net profits stored up to now in advertising the letter. You see the little game? When attention is fixed on this ballon d’essai [trial balloon] we will rip in with a prospectus of the Obituary Co. (Lim.) offering ordinary shares to the public at a premium, keeping founders’ shares for ourselves [MTP]. Note: “Amended Obituaries” was the article Sam sent both to Lloyd’s Weekly and Harper’s.
For the P.S. designated by the MTP as 1902 to Muriel Pears, see Feb. 14-June 21 entry.
Sam also wrote to Daniel Frohman:
My nephew, Jervis Langdon, who along with some others and myself is backing Robt. Hope-Jones in the building of his altogether unique and magnificent organs, writes me that you are considering erecting in your theatre the finest instrument the factory has yet turned out.
I hope you will do so. I know something about what Hope-Jones means when he promises the greatest organ in America, and that he and our factory can produce something the like of which you never heard [MTP].
Note: Robert Hope Jones (1859-1914) is considered the inventor of the theater organ; he aimed at imitating orchestra instruments with a pipe organ. He committed suicide in Rochester, N.Y. after merging his company with Wurlitzer in 1914. The extent of Sam’s “backing” is unknown.
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person, evidently the organizer of an event with speeches: “If you have to put me in a printed program, please let me follow the others. If I am not in a printed program I shall prefer to get up after the man that needs the most correcting…” [MTP: Goodspeed’s catalogs, No. 373, Item 47].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person, enclosing two photographs of Riverdale-on-the-Hudson:
“These represent our present temporary home at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson: a part of the house in one picture, & a part of the grounds in the other, with glimpse of the river through the trees” [MTP: Goodspeed’s catalogs, No. 369, Item 55].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person, evidently including books: “THESE BOOKS /if taken in moderation, are warranted to cure dog-bite and freckles, and keep the morals from coagulating. / None genuine without this label on the shelf: / Mark Twain” [MTP].
Encyclopedia Britannica, New American Supplement, XXVI, p.195-6 included a largely biographical article, “Clemens, Samuel Langhorne,” concluding with a critical estimate: “Few humorists in the history of literature have drawn more closely to the popular heart, or played more subtly and powerfully upon the sense of the ludicrous inherent in human nature. Yet the finer sentiments of pathos and sympathy are no less awakened by the magic influence at Mr. Clemens’s command. There is, inwrought in his most convulsing extravaganzas, always a touch of intensely human experience, to which the most indifferent sensibilities are compelled to respond, and, while scorning to point a moral in the conventional manner, Mark Twain unconsciously reaches the depth of life and character in his philosophic laughter and the evident feeling he betrays” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Second Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1978 p. 172].
The Brittannica also included an article by John Nichol, p.718-35, “American Literature” which called Twain the worst of Artemus Ward’s imitators. Fred Lewis Pattee provided comment as well in the supplement [Tenney 37].
William T. Stead’s, The Americanization of the World; Or, The Trend of the Twentieth Century was published, originally as the Annual issue of The Review of Reviews. On p.105 “Mark Twain at Home,” photograph by Theo C. Marccan; p.110 describes Twain’s popularity and the good done by his humor [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 188].
Chauncey M. Depew’s book The “Man in the Street”: Stories from the New York Times was published by J.S. Ogilvie, N.Y. Tenney: “This book of several hundred anecdotes contains several on MT. Their origins cannot be traced, but Senator Depew knew MT” [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.8]. Tenney’s original volume gives anecdote numbers 1, 87, 203, 208, 263, 344, 419, 492, and 596 about Twain [36].
Brander Matthews’ book, Aspects of Fiction, and Other Ventures in Criticism, p.54-6, focused on Mark Twain. Tenney: “Franklin, Lincoln, Canning, and Disraeli were taken less seriously than they deserved, and the same fate has befallen MT. Praises parts of TS, HF, PW, and MT’s storytelling and mastery of English prose in the highest terms. He is uneven, to be sure, and has written some poor things, but it is chiefly because of his humor that he is not ranked at his true value” [37].
Authors of our Day in Their Homes, by Francis W. Halsey (1902) includes description of Twain’s home at Riverdale-on-Hudson, Elmira, Quarry Farm, Buffalo, and Hartford [MTJ Bibliographic Issue Number Four 42:1 (Spring 2004) p.8].
American Literature, a textbook, included a section on Mark Twain, p.469-72. Tenney: “Sees MT as essentially a humorist and decries his supposed vulgarity, though praising his clear vision and ‘clean-cut, effective expression.’ TS and HF are ‘astonishingly clever studies of the American bad boy,’ and LM is his ‘best autobiographical narrative’” [36].
Study of Prose Fiction by Perry Bliss included the following on p. 338-9: Tenney: “‘American fiction-writers who have won a secure place in the world’s literature.’ One might also consider ‘Bret Harte…Mark Twain, Howells, Aldrich, Stockton, James, Cable, Crawford, and many another living writer of admirable craftsmanship and honorable rank. But I suppose that there are few critics who would deliberately select among these later men a fourth to be placed in equality of universal recognition with that great trio who more than a century ago were in the fullness of their power’” [37].
Paine writes of a few “investments” of Sam’s during 1902: He put another “usual sum” about this time in a patent cash register which was acknowledged to be “a promise rather than a performance,” and remains so to this day.
He capitalized a patent spiral hat- pin, warranted to hold the hat on in any weather, and he had a number of the pins handsomely made to present to visitors of the sex naturally requiring that sort of adornment and protection. It was a pretty ingenious device and apparently effective enough, though it failed to secure his invested thousands.
He invested a lesser sum in shares of the Booklover’s Library, which was going to revolutionize the reading world, and which at least paid a few dividends. Even the old Tennessee land will-o’-the-wisp— long since repudiated and forgotten—when it appeared again in the form of a possible equity in some overlooked fragment, kindled a gentle interest, and was added to his list of ventures [MTB 1151-2]. Note: the investment in the American Cashier Co. through Charles Fairchild began in 1901; see Dec. 26, 30, 1901 entries.
S.G. Bayne inscribed a copy of his book, On a Jaunting-Car through Donegal and Connemara (NY; 1902) to Mark Twain “with the compliments of a new recruit in the hope that some day he may visit Ireland…”; Sam signed “S.L. Clemens, 1902” inside the cover [MTP].