The Annual Mark Twain Book Fair is Labor Day Weekend, August 30 – September 2. Daily from
9am to 5pm. Redding Community Center, Lonetown Road (Route 107) Redding
CT. Free parking, no admission fee, bargains abound, air-conditioned
comfort, handicapped accessible, refreshments sold.
The Mark Twain Library Book Fair is the oldest – and one of the largest –
in New England. The library was founded by Samuel Clemens, - a.k.a. Mark
Twain – in 1908. And the Book Fair is still one of the
library's principal fundraisers.
This fund raising concept goes back to the very beginning.
Coley Taylor described the
early days of the fair in 1985:
"Mark Twain donated a
large number of books from his own collection to the library. They were
housed in the seldom used old chapel facing the ancient but still used
Umpawaug Cemetery. A librarian was on hand Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons. Twain secured donations from many friends, including Andrew
Carnegie, and publishers. At a meeting to promote the library on October
7, 1908, he read a statement that he had composed for the occasion.
There
was a woman's group that met fairly often to sew clean strips of rags
of all colors and fabrics for making braided rugs to sell at an annual
fair for the library building fund. We children went to the meetings
too; there were no baby-sitters then; we could roll the long strips into
balls. It was my job to turn the ice-cream freezer for the cake-and-ice
cream binge later.
The annual fair was held in August to attract
the summer people, who would leave for their homes by Labor Day. There
were not many in Redding but the lake resorts near Danbury and a noted
summer colony in nearby Ridgefield provided the necessary crowds,
together with local residents. All kinds of things were sold at the
fair: cakes, pies, jellies, pickles, canned fruits in glass jars,
salads, the rag rugs, and second hand furniture, which was grabbed up as
antiques. A long picnic table under a tent was loaded with food,
provided luncheon for the guests- at a price, of course."
http://www.marktwainlibrary.org/8support-folder/book-fair.htm
Tuesday, August 27
The Mark Twain Book Fair
Sunday, April 21
Mark Twain Dies in Redding, April 21st, 1910
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835 and died in Redding, Connecticut on April 21, 1910.
His legacy stills lives, his popularity continues to grow, his writings are still being published and his quotes still ring true... I'd say it was an exaggeration too.
The Last Day at Stormfield
By Bliss Carman, Collier's Weekly
At Redding, Connecticut,
The April sunrise pours
Over the hardwood ridges
Softening and greening now
In the first magic of Spring.
The wild cherry-trees are in bloom,
The bloodroot is white underfoot,
The serene early light flows on,
Touching with glory the world,
And flooding the large upper room
Where a sick man sleeps.
Slowly he opens his eyes,
After long weariness, smiles,
And stretches arms overhead,
While those about him take heart.
With his awakening strength,
(Morning and spring in the air,
The strong clean scents of earth,
The call of the golden shaft,
Ringing across the hills)
He takes up his heartening book,
Opens the volume and reads,
A page of old rugged Carlyle,
The dour philosopher
Who looked askance upon life,
Lurid, ironical, grim,
Yet sound at the core.
But weariness returns;
He lays the book aside
With his glasses upon the bed,
And gladly sleeps. Sleep,
Blessed abundant sleep,
Is all that he needs.
And when the close of day
Reddens upon the hills
And washes the room with rose,
In the twilight hush
The Summoner comes to him
Ever so gently, unseen,
Touches him on the shoulder;
And with the departing sun
Our great funning friend is gone.
How he has made us laugh!
A whole generation of men
Smiled in the joy of his wit.
But who knows whether he was not
Like those deep jesters of old
Who dwelt at the courts of Kings,
Arthur's, Pendragon's, Lear's,
Plying the wise fool's trade,
Making men merry at will,
Hiding their deeper thoughts
Under a motley array,--
Keen-eyed, serious men,
Watching the sorry world,
The gaudy pageant of life,
With pity and wisdom and love?
Fearless, extravagant, wild,
His caustic merciless mirth
Was leveled at pompous shams.
Doubt not behind that mask
There dwelt the soul of a man,
Resolute, sorrowing, sage,
As sure a champion of good
As ever rode forth to fray.
Haply--who knows?--somewhere
In Avalon, Isle of Dreams,
In vast contentment at last,
With every grief done away,
While Chaucer and Shakespeare wait,
And Moliere hangs on his words,
And Cervantes not far off
Listens and smiles apart,
With that incomparable drawl
He is jesting with Dagonet now.
[Copyright, 1910, by Collier's Weekly.]
Tuesday, August 28
Mark Twain Lego House and Lego Mark Twain
Thursday, August 23
Highlights from Our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference at Redding
My Top Ten Reasons Twain's time in Redding is of Importance...
1. The Mark Twain Library
To the best of my knowledge- The Mark Twain Library is the only library in the World that Mark Twain personally founded, funded and filled with books.
2. Clara's Wedding and Nina's Birthday
Clara Clemens was the only of Twain's daughter to wed and give birth. Both of these events took place at Stormfield in Redding. Clara wed on October 6th, 1909 and Nina was born on August 19th, 1910.
3. Albert Bigelow Paine and Twain's Biography
Paine was the one who let Twain know of a 75 acre farm for sale just over the hill from his own home in Redding in the Winter of 1906. Twain's secretary, Isabel Lyon, voiced her approval of the "country home" idea and in March of 1906 the purchase was made. Additional properties were purchased and under the watchful eyes of both Paine and Lyon, Stormfield was completed in June of 1908. Twain arrived soon after and would remain in Redding until his passing in April of 1910. In 1912 Bigelow Paine published Twain's biography (which was written in Redding) and in essence from 1906 until Paine's passing in 1937, he (along with Clara Clemens) pretty much controlled how the World viewed Twain as the literary executors of his pages and manuscripts.
-Twain's own entry in Stormfield's Guestbook
Samuel L. Clemens: "Yes, it is the most out of the world and peaceful and tranquil and in every way satisfactory home I have had experience of in my life."
Thursday, August 16
Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding
Our Third Speaker is:
Brent M. Colley
Historian
Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding
Our Second Speaker is:
James Nicoloro
Producer/Director
"What little I knew of Mark Twain came from a vague recollection of reading Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school. To a high school student like myself, the books seemed remote, the dialogue difficult. But no matter, Twain seemed to be part of my dna and there was nothing I could do about it. Who didn't known the name Mark Twain. At the turn into the 20th century he was one of the most famous people in the world. You could not overestimate his popularity. Time magazine recently called him our first super star. Author and critic, William Dean Howells, his literary confidant and friend of 40 years, gave him a more measured appraisal, calling him the Lincoln of our literature."
Morton and Luise Kaish Century Masters Video Profiles
Nicoloro Productions
Producer/Director
Nicoloro Productions
Research, pre-production: The Redding Mark Twain
Production: Art Deco New York with Barry Lewis
Producer/Director
Roger Wilco
Producer/Director 1998-2010, Walking Tour Series, New York Voices, Reel New York,Jonathan Pond Specials, Health Specials
Walking Tour Series with David Hartman and Historian Barry Lewis
A Walk Down 42nd Street (Emmy nominated)
A Walk Up Broadway, A Walk Through Harlem (Emmy nominated), A Walk Around Brooklyn (Emmy nominated), A Walk Through Greenwich Village
A Walk Through Central Park, A Walk Through Newark,A Walk Through Hoboken
A Walk Through Queens, A Walk Through the Bronx (Cine Golden Eagle)
Short Subjects
Designed for Pleasure (Asia Society), Asa Ames (American Folk Art Museum),Tibetan Art (Rubin Museum)
Take me out to the Ballgame (NYPL), Art of Empire (New York Historical Society, Chagall (Museum of Biblical Art)
Seduction of Light (American Folk Art Museum), Twixt Art and Nature (Bard Graduate Center), Protecting the Word (Morgan Library)
The Glass House of Phillip Johnson, Gehry’s IAC building, Dutch Water Colors, DNA barcode (New York Botanical Garden)
Producer/Director - Series, Producer/Director - Documentary
Producer - Live and live on tape, Producer – Fund Raising
Manager Broadcast Operations, Graphic Designer (print and video)
Photographer, Offline Editor - Avid, Final Cut/Final Cut X
Effects - Photoshop/After Effects, Line Producer, Camera
Tuesday, August 14
Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding
In the Lead-off Spot...
Steve Courtney
Publicist and Publications Editor
Mark Twain House & Museum Publicist and Publications Editor Steve Courtney won the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain’s Closest Friend (University of Georgia Press, 2008). His most recent book, published to acclaim in the fall of 2011, is ‘The Loveliest Home That Ever Was’: The Story of the Mark Twain House in Hartford (Dover), with a Foreword by Hal Holbrook and photographs by John Groo.
In the past decade, Courtney has frequently written and spoken on Samuel Clemens’ friend Twichell and his role in literary and social history. He co-edited, with Peter Messent, The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell: A Chaplain's Story (University of Georgia Press, 2006). He founded and leads an annual eight-mile walk in the Hartford area commemorating similar autumn and spring walks Twichell and Clemens took.
Courtney is also a freelance editor and researcher, having worked in this capacity on a major new biography of William Gillette, the American stage portrayer of Sherlock Holmes; a work on the ethical basis of American political philosophy; a history of the Ensign Bickford corporation; and a major biography of inventor and industrialist Joseph Gerber.
He has been a journalist for 36 years, more than twenty of them at The Hartford Courant in Hartford, Connecticut. There he was a bureau chief, copy editor, book reviewer, interviewer and writer on scientific, historical and literary subjects, including an acclaimed series on the then-little-known work of Yale biologist Thomas Steitz, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Courtney was Deputy Editor of Northeast, the Courant's Sunday magazine, for five years, and served as President of Sunmag, the national organization of Sunday magazine editors.
Courtney received his Bachelor of Science degree in History from Charter Oak State College in 1997.
Monday, August 6
Mark Twain Event- Saturday, August 18th
Saturday, August 18th, starting at around 1:00 at The Mark Twain Library a wonderful free to the public Mark Twain Immersion.
- Steve Courtney from The Mark Twain House will talk about his book,
- James Nicoloro director/Producer will talk about and show his Film Trailer of his upcoming Documentary, "Mark Twain and Redding".
- Brent Colley Redding/Twain Historian will give another wonderful talk about Twain/Redding History,
- A Mark Twain Scholar from Elmira College will talk,
- Pitzer College President, Laura Twombley is coming all the way from California to give a talk about her book "Mark Twain's Other Woman" and
- Susan Boone Durkee will share her knowledge of Isabel Lyon.
Then after the Library event...in the evening, The Redding Road House will be having its Mark Twain Room in full Twainiac decoration...with a dinner and guest speaker Mark Twain himself, (famed Mark Twain interpreter Alan Kitty).
Space is limited to only 70 for the Road House dinner event so make your reservations now..contact: Jan Kardys, President Unicorn Writers Conference: jan.kardys@gmail.com
This event is a fundraiser for the Unicorn Writer Conference, a 501 non-profit
Monday, June 11
WPKN.org Radio Discussion- Twain & Keller
 | |
| Left to Right- Lisa Burghardt, Dolly Curtis, Brent M. Colley |
On Sunday, June 10th I traveled down to Bridgeport with the Easton Historical Society's Lisa Burghardt to discuss the Twain & Keller Exhibit (currently on display at Easton Public Library) with Dolly Curtis and Dave Schwartz of WPKN 89.6 FM.
We were scheduled for 30 minutes, but as it turned out, we ended up needing a little more time and stretched it to 45 minutes. The Twain & Keller topic has a knack for inducing extensive conversation. :)
We had a great time. Dave and Dolly are a lot of fun to work with and we look forward to future shows on WPKN 89.6 FM.
If you would like to listen to the show, you can do so here:
Twain & Keller > Easton and Redding, Connecticut's Special Connection on WPKN 89.5 FM
Thursday, May 31
Radio Discussion: Twain & Keller – Easton & Redding’s Special Connection on WPKN 89.5 FM 10pm Sunday, June 10th, 2012
The show will be produced by David Schwartz and hosted by Dolly Curtis with guests Brent M. Colley and Lisa Burghardt sharing more about these two world-renowned individuals who just happened to select Easton and Redding, Connecticut as their final residences.
Sunday, March 11
Mark Twain and Helen Keller
Mark Twain and Helen Keller’s Relationship
They first met in March 1895 at a luncheon held in Keller’s honor at West 34th Street in NYC. It was the home of Laurence Hutton, an editor and critic who was Twain’s friend and one of Helen’s early benefactors.
Henry Rogers was there with Twain and about a dozens others to welcome & wish Helen well during her stay in NYC where she had come to study speech at the School for the Deaf.
During the luncheon the two spent time together and Helen seemed to feel more at ease with Twain than with any of the other guests. Hutton later said: “He was peculiarly tender and lovely with her-even for Mr. Clemens- and she kissed him when he said good-bye.”
Helen had read some of his work and asked him to explain the origin of his pseudonym “Mark Twain”. After explaining its meaning to steamboat pilots he added that the name suited him because he “was sometimes light and on the surface, and sometimes-”
“Deep,” she interrupted, surprising him with her quickness and intelligence.
“His voice is truly wonderful,” she later recalled. “To my touch, it was deep & resonant…he spoke so deliberately that I could get almost every word with my fingers on his lips.”
“Mark Twain has his own way of thinking, saying and doing everything. I can feel the twinkle of his eye in his handshake. Even while he utters his cynical wisdom in an indescribably droll voice, he makes you feel that his heart is a tender Iliad of human sympathy.”
How she felt the “twinkle of his eye”
When Helen was talking with an intimate friend, her hand went to her friend's face to see, "the twist of the mouth." In this way she was able to get the meaning of those half sentences which people complete unconsciously from the tone of the voice or the twinkle of the eye.
To the astonishment of all the guests at this luncheon, Helen shook the hands of all the guest and thanked them by name as they left.
For whatever reason, Twain decided to quickly pat her on the head as he passed by, to his astonishment…she knew who did it!
He later said: “Perhaps someone else can explain this miracle, but I have never been able to do it. Could she feel the wrinkles in my hand through her hair?”
He found out how when she visited him at Redding in 1909: “I smelled you” was her honest reply.
Twain’s Letter to Mrs. Henry Rogers Asking $$$ to Support Keller’s Education (Twain himself was bankrupt at this time)
“For & in behalf of Helen Keller,
Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at Lawrence Hutton’s house when she was 14 years old. Last July, in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single condition. She was allowed only the same amount of time that is granted to other applicants, & this was shortened in her case by the fact that the question-papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored an average of 90, as against an average of 78 on the part of the other applicants.
It won’t do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages.
I beg you to lay siege to your husband & get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William Rockefeller & the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen’s case…[to] pile that Standard Oil Helen Keller College Fund as high as they please; they have my consent.”
The result of this letter was that Mr. Rogers personally took charge of Helen Keller’s fortunes, and out of his own means made it possible for her to continue her education and to achieve for herself the enduring fame which Mark Twain had foreseen.
Twain's Reaction to this News:
“It is superb! And I am beyond measure grateful to you both. I knew you would be interested in that wonderful girl, & that Mr. Rogers was already interested in her & touched by her; & I was sure that if nobody else helped her you two would; but you have gone far & away beyond the sum I expected—may your lines fall in pleasant places here, & Hereafter for it!
Ever sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.”
Examples of Public and Private Praise for Keller from Twain:
“…at sixteen years of age this miraculous creature, this wonder of all the ages, passes the Harvard University examination in Latin, German, French history, belles lettres, and such things, and does it brilliantly, too, not in a commonplace fashion. She doesn't know merely things, she is splendidly familiar with the meanings of them.
Has Miss Sullivan taught her by the methods of the American public school? No, oh, no; for then she would be deafer and dumber and blinder than she was before. It is a pity that we can't educate all the children in the asylums!”
-from a Mark Twain Speech
Below is a letter from Twain to Helen in 1903:
Riverdale - on - the Hudson
St. Patrick's Day, 1903
Dear Helen:
I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrance of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind. I suppose there is nothing like it in heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off. I often think of it with longing, and how they'll say, "there they come--sit down in front." I am practicing with a tin halo. You do the same. I was at Henry Roger's last night, and of course we talked of you. He is not at all well--you will not like to hear that; but like you and me, he is just as lovely as ever.
Every lovingly your friend (sic)
Mark
“Blindness is an exciting business, I tell you; if you don't believe it get up some dark night on the wrong side of your bed when the house is on fire and try to find the door.”
- Mark Twain quoted by Helen Keller, in her book Midstream
Keller Visits Twain in Redding:
Helen Keller visited Twain for three days in January of 1909. She was 28 years old and had recently released her second major work: “The World I Live In”
The copy Twain received was inscribed:
“Dear Mr. Clemens, come live in my world a little while/Helen Keller.”
In response, he had said that she must come to his world first, and to bring Annie (Sullivan) Macy & John Macy with her.
“I command you all three, to come and spend a few days with he in Stormfield.”
Of all the visitors to Stormfield none wrote a more vivid description of the place than Helen Keller.
Nothing escaped her senses, from the “tang in the air of cedar and pine” as she made her approach to the smell of “burning fireplace logs, orange tea and toast with strawberry jam” which were served shortly after her arrival.
That which she could not see was “spelled” into her hands by her teacher, Annie Sullivan Macy, a.k.a. “The Miracle Worker” as Twain called her.
It was not generally known that Keller had a great sense of humor, but it was one of the things Twain liked best about her.
When he showed her to her room on the first night at Stormfield, he told her that if she needed anything, she would find an ample supply of cigars and bourbon in the bathroom.
When he gave her a tour of the billiards room, he offered to teach her the game. She took the bait and innocently replied, “Oh Mr. Clemens, it takes sight to play billiards.” Not the way his friends played, he answered. “The blind couldn’t play worse.”
More Examples of Keller’s Sense of Humor
When she met Dr. Furness, the Shakespearean scholar, he warned her not to let the college professors tell her too many assumed facts about the life of Shakespeare; all we know, he said, is that Shakespeare was baptized, married, and died.
"Well," she replied, "he seems to have done all the essential things."
Once a friend, who was learning the manual alphabet, kept making "g," which is like the hand of a sign-post, for "h," which is made with two fingers extended.
Finally Miss Keller told him to "fire both barrels."
Back to the Visit to Twain’s Stormfield
The highlight of Helen’s visit came on the final evening when Twain read to her his short story: Eve’s Diary.
He sat in a big armchair by the fire while Helen followed the story with an ecstatic expression on her face. At the very last line: “Wherever she was, there was Eden.” (Twain’s tribute to his wife Livy) Helen became tearful.
In her journal, Twain’s secretary wrote: “She quivered with delight, and he was shaken with emotion & could hardly find his voice again. It was a marvel to behold.”
In the Guestbook of Stormfield she wrote:
“I have been in Eden three days and I saw a King. I knew he
was a King the minute I touched him though I had never touched a
King before.”
~ A Daughter of Eve. Helen Keller Jan. 11
Twain understood her meaning so completely that he wrote beside it:
“The point of what Helen says above, lies in this: that I read the ‘Diary of Eve’ all through, to her last night; in it Eve frequently mentions things she saw for the first time but instantly knew what they were & named them- though she had never seen them before.”
In Keller’s ‘The Story of My Life’, she recalls the joy of learning the names of things after she acquired the gift of language: “…the more I handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous & confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the World.”
As a way of thanking Annie Sullivan Macy for helping to bring Helen’s imagination to life, Twain handed her a small souvenir before she left Stormfield.
It was a postcard on which he wrote:
“To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy with warm regard & with limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a *miracle-worker.”
*It would take 50 years for the term “miracle-worker” to catch on, via the Broadway show about Annie by playwright William Gibson.
Twain was amazed that Helen had been able to transform everything around her into a reality only she could imagine.
“A well put together unreality is pretty hard to beat,” was his response to a friend who remarked that Helen’s “concept of things…must lack reality.”
In Huckleberry Finn- written long before he met Helen – Twain wrote:
“it’s lovely to live on a raft…nothing to hear nor nothing to see.”
Twain and Keller had a Lot in Common:
1. Mark Twain was a pre-mature baby with little hope of surviving, let alone succeeding.
Helen Keller lost her vision and hearing at 19 months and had little hope for success.
Both “survived” and became successful Authors, Public Speakers and Celebrities.
2. Over the course of her life Helen came to accept religious and political beliefs quite different from those of her family and friends.
In 1906, Twain pondered what future audiences (100 years later) would say about his unpublished comments on religious bigotry and social hypocrisy…
He noted that “The 2006 edition (of his Autobiography) will make a stir when it comes out.”
Example:
“In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
- Autobiography of Mark Twain
3. They both dealt with people who wished to take advantage of them.
"As she had her entire life, the luminous Helen inspired intrigues and power struggles, as her acquaintances and advisers fought with one another to gain possession of her."
The same can be said for Twain who endured a painful “power struggle” between his daughters and business associates in the final year of his life.
4. They were both well traveled but both chose Fairfield County as their final homes.
During her lifetime, Helen Keller lived in many different places—Tuscumbia, Alabama; Cambridge and Wrentham, Massachusetts; Forest Hills, New York, but perhaps her favorite residence was her last, the house in Easton, Connecticut she called "Arcan Ridge."
The same can be said about Samuel L. Clemens. He too lived in many places, and yet fell in love with the beauty of his final residence… Redding, Connecticut.
“I was never in this beautiful region until yesterday evening. Miss Lyon and the architect built and furnished the house without any help or advice from me, and the result is entirely to my satisfaction.”
“It is charmingly quiet here. The house stands alone, with nothing in sight but woodsy hills and rolling country.”
-Samuel L. Clemens letter to Dorothy Quick dated June 19, 1908
5. Both died of heart disease.
Helen Keller lived at 163 Redding Road in Easton, Connecticut. She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968 at the age of 87. The cause of her death was arteriosclerosis heart disease (Twain died of Heart troubles too. His were tied to his life long smoking habit).
Twain died in the twilight hours of April 21, 1910, at the age of 74.
6. Since their deaths, their names have lived on…
“She will live on, one of the few, the immortal names not born to die. Her spirit will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told of the woman who showed the world there are no boundaries to courage and faith.”
Eulogy by Senator J. Lister Hill of Alabama
To celebrate the 176th anniversary of Twain's birth Google painted its logo using its patented "Doodle" to render the world of Twain's Tom Sawyer, who famously cajoled friends to whitewash a fence for him.
Mark Twain and Helen Keller's Relationship will be showcased at Easton, Connecticut's Public Library starting May 1st, 2012.
Wednesday, March 7
A Mark Twain Tourism Trail in Connecticut? Why Not?!
Last week I came across a new website launched by the Connecticut Office of Tourism called My Connecticut Story.
The homepage said-
"TELL US WHERE YOUR PASSION LIES. WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE CONNECTICUT PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EXPERIENCES YOU LOVE MOST."
And I thought- "What a Great Opportunity to Promote the Twain Tourism Trail."
My entry is available by following the link below:
My Connecticut Story
The contest runs until May 25, 2012 so VOTE OFTEN!
Thank you!
Friday, March 2
Map of Twain's Connecticut
I have updated the Google Map I created several years ago to include all the towns and cities in Connecticut connected to Mark Twain:
Mark Twain's Connecticut
Monday, February 13
Life Lessons from Mark Twain
"... life does not consist mainly -- or even largely -- of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one's head." -Mark Twain
The lesson: There are two lessons that can be learned from this quote.
One: Be mindful that each one of us awakens each morning and faces an internal battle with our thoughts, feelings and personal desires. Take that into consideration when interacting with other people and realize that their position on a topic or reaction to your opinion is based solely on their perceptions.
Two: Give yourself a break. A lot of what's floating around up there has nothing to do with reality. Focus on the positives, ignore the negatives and if you really want something- stop dreaming about it, set some goals and go get it.
Thursday, February 9
Mark Twain and Helen Keller Exhibit
"The two most interesting characters of the nineteenth century are Helen Keller and Napoleon Bonaparte."
- Mark Twain, New York Sun, April 10, 1903
Easton Public Library in Easton, Connecticut will be hosting our Mark Twain and Helen Keller Exhibit in April and May of this year.
More info soon.
Tuesday, February 7
Mark Twain on Habits
"You can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you."
- 70th birthday speech, 1905
And here's proof of that- Mark Twain's bedside table in Hartford, CT...
Anyone else would have likely blown themselves up.
Wednesday, December 21
The Story of Mark Twain's "Christmas Elephant"
Albert Bigelow Paine
Mark Twain: A Biography
Mark Twain’s second present came at Christmas-time. About ten days earlier, a letter came from Robert J. Collier, saying that he had bought a baby elephant which he intended to present to Mark Twain as a Christmas gift. He added that it would be sent as soon as he could get a car for it, and the loan of a keeper from Barnum & Bailey’s headquarters at Bridgeport.
The news created a disturbance in Stormfield. One could not refuse, discourteously and abruptly, a costly present like that; but it seemed a disaster to accept it. An elephant would require a roomy and warm place, also a variety of attention which Stormfield was not prepared to supply. The telephone was set going and certain timid excuses were offered by the secretary. There was no good place to put an elephant in Stormfield, but Mr. Collier said, quite confidently:
“Oh, put him in the garage.”
“But there’s no heat in the garage.”
“Well, put him in the loggia, then. That’s closed in, isn’t it, for the winter? Plenty of sunlight—just the place for a young elephant.”
“But we play cards in the loggia. We use it for a sort of sun-parlor.”
“But that wouldn’t matter. He’s a kindly, playful little thing. He’ll be just like a kitten. I’ll send the man up to look over the place and tell you just how to take care of him, and I’ll send up several bales of hay in advance. It isn’t a large elephant, you know: just a little one— a regular plaything.”
There was nothing further to be done; only to wait and dread until the Christmas present’s arrival.
A few days before Christmas ten bales of hay arrived and several bushels of carrots. This store of provender aroused no enthusiasm at Stormfield. It would seem there was no escape now.
On Christmas morning Mr. Lounsbury telephoned up that there was a man at the station who said he was an elephant-trainer from Barnum & Bailey’s, sent by Mr. Collier to look at the elephant’s quarters and get him settled when he should arrive. Orders were given to bring the man over. The day of doom was at hand.
But Lounsbury’s detective instinct came once more into play. He had seen a good many elephant-trainers at Bridgeport, and he thought this one had a doubtful look.
“Where is the elephant?” he asked, as they drove along.
“He will arrive at noon.”
“Where are you going to put him?”
“In the loggia.”
“How big is he?”
“About the size of a cow.”
“How long have you been with Barnum and Bailey?”
“Six years.”
“Then you must know some friends of mine” (naming two that had no existence until that moment).
“Oh yes, indeed. I know them well.”
Lounsbury didn’t say any more just then, but he had a feeling that perhaps the dread at Stormfield had grown unnecessarily large. Something told him that this man seemed rather more like a butler, or a valet, than an elephant-trainer. They drove to Stormfield, and the trainer looked over the place. It would do perfectly, he said. He gave a few instructions as to the care of this new household feature, and was driven back to the station to bring it.
Lounsbury came back by and by, bringing the elephant but not the trainer. It didn’t need a trainer. It was a beautiful specimen, with soft, smooth coat and handsome trappings, perfectly quiet, well-behaved and small— suited to the loggia, as Collier had said—for it was only two feet long and beautifully made of cloth and cotton—one of the fairest toy elephants ever seen anywhere.
It was a good joke, such as Mark Twain loved—a carefully prepared, harmless bit of foolery. He wrote Robert Collier, threatening him with all sorts of revenge, declaring that the elephant was devastating Stormfield.
“To send an elephant in a trance, under pretense that it was dead or stuffed!” he said. “The animal came to life, as you knew it would, and began to observe Christmas, and we now have no furniture left and no servants and no visitors, no friends, no photographs, no burglars— nothing but the elephant. Be kind, be merciful, be generous; take him away and send us what is left of the earthquake.”
Collier wrote that he thought it unkind of him to look a gift-elephant in the trunk. And with such chaffing and gaiety the year came to an end.
Wednesday, November 30
Happy Birthday Mark Twain
November 30th, 2011 is Sam Clemens' (aka Mark Twain) birthday. For fun I looked up the last person to write him on his birthday using the Mark Twain Project website.
The answer is...
Margery Hamilton Clinton
Margery (a.k.a. "the plumber") visited Clemens at Stormfield at least three times -- in July 1908, October 1908 and February 1909.
"The plumber is coming Feb. 23d; a girl you would greatly like. She isn't a M.A. [angel-fish], but is not without good qualities, nevertheless. She is official plumber of Stormfield, by her own request, but doesn't know how to plumb. Name, Margery Clinton (Cooley, p. 249)."
Margery Hamilton Clinton was the daughter of renown New York architect Charles William Clinton and his wife Emily de Silver Gorsuch.
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So who did Twain write to on his birthday from Stormfield?
1909:
Nobody
1908:
Elizabeth Wallace, Frederick A. Duneka, Jean Clemens, H. P.
Wood, F. N. Otremba
Thursday, March 24
Teaching Twain- How to end the N-Word Controversy
Since Alan Gribben's edited version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn became a topic of interest and debate, many Twain scholars have been asked to explain and/or defend why the "N-word" exists in Huckleberry Finn. Unfortunately, no matter how well we articulate our answers, to some our reasoning is wrong. They say: "But what if it opens up the book to more young people?" and of that opinion there are many that nod in agreement.
But the truth is, even if by changing a couple words you opened up the book to millions of new readers... the whole point of the book involves the "N-word" as a hate word, the racism fueling this hatred and how it eventually dawns on Huck that this type of behavior and hatred is wrong. So by removing the "N-word" you lose the impact of the hatred that Twain is not only pointing out but calling out in 1885.
What many do not realize is that: In many ways Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is autobiographical. Although the Missouri he grew up in was not a part of the Confederacy, it was a slave state and slavery was defended by all public institutions, including churches. Twain's own parents had several slaves and his relationship with the slaves and their children was very influential in his later writings. One of the slaves that influenced Twain's life was a middle aged slave known to him as "Uncle Dan'l" He'd later recall the "privileged nights" he, his cousins and the slave children all clustered at Dan'l's feet to hear him tell his thunderous stories.
"He has served me well, these many, many years... spiritually I have had his welcome company... and have staged him in books as his own name and as "Jim"... It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of... its fine qualities."
His childhood experiences would clearly leave a legacy of guilt that he would later lash out at in his speeches and literary works and attempt to lessen through charitable donations to African-American individuals and their causes. In his Notebook #35 he writes:
"In those slave-holding days the whole community was agreed as to one thing- the awful sacredness of slave property. It shows that that strange thing, the conscience - the unerring monitor - can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early and stick to it."
In Chapter 38 of Following the Equator, he provides us with an pointed example of what he wrote in Notebook #35:
"When I was ten years old I saw a man fling a lump of iron-ore at a slave-man in anger, for merely doing something awkwardly- as if that were a crime. It bounded from the man's skull, and the man fell and never spoke again. He was dead in an hour... Nobody in the village approved of that murder, but of course no one said much about it."
In that very same notebook, reprinted in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Univ. of California Press, 2003, he writes in reference to Huck Finn:
"A book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat."
Clearly, Twain's personal history paralleled Huckleberry Finn's and given the fact that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn took Twain 8 years to write, he used the words he used for a reason. To give that statement some weight, I'll add that between manuscript 1 and 2, he made more than 1,700 revisions. 88 percent of these revisions being: word changes, spelling, punctuation and adding emphasis. Twain was not using the "N-word" because he was racist, he was using it to make a point. Removing or altering the words Twain himself wrote is misguided, the fact that a Twain scholar is the one doing it is down right vexing but it is what it is.
So what is the solution? My solution is to put Adventure of Huckleberry Finn on hold for a while. Students don't understand it's meaning and most teachers don't have the time or interest to help them understand it, so I say we go in a new direction. What if we taught Mark Twain in our school systems instead? Mark Twain's life isn't a hard sell, and once you're hooked, you're hooked. Imagine if children *wanted* to read Mark Twain and as they read Mark Twain they understood and appreciated what he was saying in those texts. That is my solution to the "N-word Controversy," teach our children about Mark Twain and show them the unique life experiences he had that made him who he was and fueled the novels that he wrote.
To promote this concept, I have created an online PowerPoint preview to provide school administrators and their staff with a visual of how Twain's life could be presented in their classrooms.
Online presentations and videos are becoming very popular these days because they deliver information at budget friendly numbers that allow both schools and home schoolers to provide unique learning experiences to their students. Independent scholars are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of producing online resources and are profiting from the extensive reach and viral potential these resources hold.
In future articles I'll update you on the progress I make with the "Understanding Twain" effort.
Brent M. Colley is an independent Mark Twain Advocate who promotes Twain's life and legacy actively via this blog and his twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/BrentMColley
Saturday, July 25
Helpful Blog Links
It's been getting tough to find the "good stuff" so I've listed some helpful links below.
Twain's Time in Redding:
June 18th, 1908, the arrival
The Burglary at Stormfield, September 18, 1908
The Burglary... who were the Stormfield burglars?
Stormfield Burglar makes his confession
Our Neighbor Mark Twain by Coley Taylor
Mark Twain as I Knew Him. Recollections of an Angelfish
Who were the Angelfish?
The Billiard Room Addition
Funeral Expenses
The Tour de Twain... where to visit when you come to Redding
Stormfield:
The property known as Stormfield
Books and articles containing information on Stormfield
The Stormfield Guestbook
Sunderlands, the builders of Stormfield
Stormfield and Mark Twain Lane in 1915
Stormfield Rebuiding Crew, 1925 (post fire)
Mark Twain Library:
Concert in support of library for Redding
Letter asking lawyer, Charles Lark, to release $6,000 for library
Samuel L. Clemens Book Collection at the Mark Twain Library