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January 9 Tuesday – Sam began a series of Autobiographical Dictations (hereinafter referred to as A.D.) for Albert Bigelow Paine. Paine brought Miss Josephine Hobby, a part- time stenographer, employed by Century Magazine for many years (she would be fired in Sept. 1908 by Isabel Lyon). Miss Hobby had also worked for Charles Dudley Warner and Mary Mapes Dodge [MTB 1266]. The dictations continued with fair regularity throughout 1906 and 7, thereafter intermittently. The last recorded dictation was on Dec. 29, 1909 [MTHHR 607n1]. Note: MTHHR 607n1 uses Jan. 6, 1906 as the beginning date, which was Paine’s first visit to Clemens’ N.Y.C. home; Miss Hobby had not yet been hired and it’s unlikely any dictation was made on that day. See also AMT 1: 250-254 in which Sam dictated first a summary of the difficulties of his autobiography, and then waded into a discussion of Big Bonanza days in Nevada, including segments on Joe Goodman.

Paine writes of this day and the images which stayed in his mind long after:

On Tuesday, January 9, 1906, I was on hand with a capable stenographer—Miss Josephine Hobby, who had successively, and successfully, held secretarial positions with Charles Dudley Warner and Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, and was therefore peculiarly qualified for the work in hand.

Clemens, meantime, had been revolving our plans and adding some features of his own. He proposed to double the value and interest of our employment by letting his dictations continue the form of those earlier autobiographical chapters, begun with Redpath in 1885, and continued later in Vienna and at the Villa Quarto. He said he did not think he could follow a definite chronological program; that he would like to wander about, picking up this point and that, as memory or fancy prompted, without any particular biographical order. It was his purpose, he declared, that his dictations should not be published until he had been dead a hundred years or more—a prospect which seemed to give him an especial gratification.

I ought to state that he was in bed when we arrived, and that he remained there during almost all of these earlier dictations, clad in a handsome silk dressing-gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against great snowy pillows. He loved this loose luxury and ease, and found it conducive to thought. On the little table beside him, where lay his cigars, papers, pipes, and various knickknacks, shone a reading-lamp, making more brilliant the rich coloring of his complexion and the gleam of his shining hair. There was daylight, too, but it was north light, and the winter days were dull. Also the walls of the room were a deep, unreflecting red, and his eyes were getting old. The outlines of that vast bed blending into the luxuriant background, the whole focusing to the striking central figure, remain in my mind to-day—a picture of classic value.

He dictated that morning some matters connected with the history of the Comstock mine; then he drifted back to his childhood, returning again to the more modern period, and closed, I think, with some comments on current affairs. It was absorbingly interesting; his quaint, unhurried fashion of speech, the unconscious movement of his hands, the play of his features as his fancies and phrases passed in mental review and were accepted or waved aside. We were watching one of the great literary creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. We constituted about the most select audience in the world enjoying what was, likely enough, its most remarkable entertainment. When he turned at last and inquired the time we were all amazed that two hours and more had slipped away.

“And how much I have enjoyed it!” he said. “It is the ideal plan for this kind of work. Narrative writing is always disappointing. The moment you pick up a pen you begin to lose the spontaneity of the personal relation, which contains the very essence of interest. With shorthand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table— always a most inspiring place. I expect to dictate all the rest of my life, if you good people are willing to come and listen to it.”

The dictations thus begun continued steadily from week to week, and always with increasing charm. We never knew what he was going to talk about, and it was seldom that he knew until the moment of beginning; then he went drifting among episodes, incidents, and periods in his irresponsible fashion; the fashion of table-conversation, as he said, the methodless method of the human mind. It was always delightful, and always amusing, tragic, or instructive, and it was likely to be one of these at one instant, and another the next. I felt myself the most fortunate biographer in the world, as undoubtedly I was, though not just in the way that I first imagined [MTB 1266-8].

Note on Autobiographical Dictations. The print-volumes released by MTP (Vol. 1 was published in 2010; others forthcoming) undoubtedly will impact study in this area. A full exposition of each day’s dictations is beyond the scope of this work, and should be referenced there. What may be useful as a summary beyond this work is the notation developed by Kiskis in “Dead Man Talking: Mark Twain’s Autobiographical Dictation” which begins on Feb. 1, 1906 and separates each dictation session into three main subjects: Family, Career, and Human Race. Other primary materials, such as Isabel Lyon’s journal/daily reminders, also inform this work.

The New York Times, p.16, “Plans to Help the Blind,” announced that Mark Twain would preside at the first public meeting of the NY State Assoc. for Promoting Interests of the Blind on Mar. 29. Joseph H. Choate and Helen Keller would speak.

Isabel Lyon’s journal:

Mr. Paine came this morning at 11 with his stenographer—and for an hour Mr. Clemens talked. I’ve kept notes of the talk—but I didn’t keep notes of his wonderful rising color and his brilliant eyes as he warmed to the subject of the Big Bonanza Mine and its fall to nothing. He told all about Joe Goodman too.

Afterward Mr. Paine and I had a little chat in the study over the autobiographical drawer. It had always been his dream, ambition, to write Mr. Clemens’s biography, but never came close to the prospect of it until Mr. Clemens said to Mr. David Munro that Paine’s book on Thomas Nast was “damn good” and Munro told Paine. Then his courage flowed. It’s the greatest treat in the world to sit in the brown easy chair and watch that master of mine talk. He was magical this morning [MTP TS 7-8; also Gribben 523 in part].

Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote from Boston that they were sailing for Egypt on Saturday [MTP].

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.