Read Online Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Twain
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Clemens exclusively during the summer and possibly longer. On 13 March Lyon commented in her journal, “Mr. Clemens finds her entirely to his liking & he says ‘it is a case of established competency’ which is saying a great deal—for she is a good audience, is sympathetic & very appreciative.” 69 By 8 April Hobby had transcribed her notes through the end of the 28 March 1906 dictation.
Despite the risk of somehow losing TS1, a unique copy (there was no carbon copy at this point), Clemens allowed Clara to carry away and read about five hundred pages, through the end of the 16 March dictation. He also lent Twichell three days’ dictation, probably those for 23, 26, and 27 March. On 8 April, Lyon recorded that “M r. Twichell is here—M rs. , too—& M r. T. thinks the auto. MS. is absorbingly interesting.” He presumably returned the three dictations at that time. The same day Clemens took the entire 28 March dictation (Orion’s misadventure with Dr. Meredith’s “old-maid sisters”) up to lunch with Howells at the Hotel Regent. Howells returned the pages by the next day’s mail:
I want to see every word of the 578 pages before this, which is one of the humanest and richest pages in the history of man. If you have gone this gate [
i.e
., gait] all through you have already gone farther than any autobiographer ever went before. You are nakeder than Adam and Eve put together, and truer than sin. But—but—but you really
mustn’t
let Orion have got into the bed. I know he did, but—
Lyon noted that Clara had written “enthusiastically about it too,” but her letter has not been found. Clemens replied to her in Atlantic City, two days before she was supposed to return the pages to him:
I am so glad, you dear ashcat! so glad the auto interests you; I was so afraid it wouldn’t. I couldn’t guess as to how it might read, for I have purposely refrained from reading a line of it myself, lest I should find myself disappointed & throw up the job. I wanted it to gather
age
before I should look at it, so that it would read to me as it would to a stranger—then I could judge it intelligently. However, as Twichell wanted to experiment with it I took the last 3 days instalments & corrected them—& in this way I found out that I was doing well enough for an apprentice who was an unpractised learner in the art of dictating to a stenographer. Twichell’s verdict is, that the interest doesn’t flag. That’s all I want. I only want to interest the reader, he can go elsewhere for profit & instruction. 70
On 11 April Clemens took a break from his dictating routine, and did not resume until 21 May, after he, Jean, and Lyon were settled for the summer in the isolated Upton House near the village of Dublin, New Hampshire. Clemens arrived there on 15 May; Paine and Hobby arrived a few days later and found quarters nearby. Paine reported, “We began in his bedroom, as before, but the feeling there was depressing.” He described the view from the verandah of the Upton House as “one of the most beautiful landscape visions on the planet,” and reported that Clemens soon saw the opportunity it presented: “I think we’ll do our dictating out here hereafter. It ought to be an inspiring place.” Lyon occasionally recorded Clemens’s (and her own) impatience with the “old-maidish whims” and slowness of the “Hobby horse,” but for the most part the morning sessions seem to have been remarkably amicable. 71 Lyon described one of them in her journal:
There was a long—a 3 hour dictation this morning, when M r. Clemens used letters as a subject. . . . It was beautiful to hear the laughter from the porch; the King’s rich laugh, the biographer’s falsetto delight & the stenographer’s chirping gurgle —it made a lovely song. I stole out to sit on a wicker thing in the hall & watch & listen. The King in white—the biographer in soft grey & the stenographer in dark blue, with a kitten in her lap. 72
In late May
Despite the risk of somehow losing TS1, a unique copy (there was no carbon copy at this point), Clemens allowed Clara to carry away and read about five hundred pages, through the end of the 16 March dictation. He also lent Twichell three days’ dictation, probably those for 23, 26, and 27 March. On 8 April, Lyon recorded that “M r. Twichell is here—M rs. , too—& M r. T. thinks the auto. MS. is absorbingly interesting.” He presumably returned the three dictations at that time. The same day Clemens took the entire 28 March dictation (Orion’s misadventure with Dr. Meredith’s “old-maid sisters”) up to lunch with Howells at the Hotel Regent. Howells returned the pages by the next day’s mail:
I want to see every word of the 578 pages before this, which is one of the humanest and richest pages in the history of man. If you have gone this gate [
i.e
., gait] all through you have already gone farther than any autobiographer ever went before. You are nakeder than Adam and Eve put together, and truer than sin. But—but—but you really
mustn’t
let Orion have got into the bed. I know he did, but—
Lyon noted that Clara had written “enthusiastically about it too,” but her letter has not been found. Clemens replied to her in Atlantic City, two days before she was supposed to return the pages to him:
I am so glad, you dear ashcat! so glad the auto interests you; I was so afraid it wouldn’t. I couldn’t guess as to how it might read, for I have purposely refrained from reading a line of it myself, lest I should find myself disappointed & throw up the job. I wanted it to gather
age
before I should look at it, so that it would read to me as it would to a stranger—then I could judge it intelligently. However, as Twichell wanted to experiment with it I took the last 3 days instalments & corrected them—& in this way I found out that I was doing well enough for an apprentice who was an unpractised learner in the art of dictating to a stenographer. Twichell’s verdict is, that the interest doesn’t flag. That’s all I want. I only want to interest the reader, he can go elsewhere for profit & instruction. 70
On 11 April Clemens took a break from his dictating routine, and did not resume until 21 May, after he, Jean, and Lyon were settled for the summer in the isolated Upton House near the village of Dublin, New Hampshire. Clemens arrived there on 15 May; Paine and Hobby arrived a few days later and found quarters nearby. Paine reported, “We began in his bedroom, as before, but the feeling there was depressing.” He described the view from the verandah of the Upton House as “one of the most beautiful landscape visions on the planet,” and reported that Clemens soon saw the opportunity it presented: “I think we’ll do our dictating out here hereafter. It ought to be an inspiring place.” Lyon occasionally recorded Clemens’s (and her own) impatience with the “old-maidish whims” and slowness of the “Hobby horse,” but for the most part the morning sessions seem to have been remarkably amicable. 71 Lyon described one of them in her journal:
There was a long—a 3 hour dictation this morning, when M r. Clemens used letters as a subject. . . . It was beautiful to hear the laughter from the porch; the King’s rich laugh, the biographer’s falsetto delight & the stenographer’s chirping gurgle —it made a lovely song. I stole out to sit on a wicker thing in the hall & watch & listen. The King in white—the biographer in soft grey & the stenographer in dark blue, with a kitten in her lap. 72
In late May
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