Twain, Mark (1835-1910)

Clemens and Aldrich began their "episolatory acquaintance" with "a very savage letter which Mark Twain had written to Mr. Aldrich, not as a comrade and fellow worker, but to the unscrupulous and unreliable editor of 'Every Saturday.'" Aldrich had taken some "rhymes" from another periodical (where they were credited to Mark Twain), printed them in "Every Saturday" and criticized them as being poor imitations of Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee." Twain corrected the error and demanded a printed correction, which Alrich fulfilled (127).

After a year of "belligerent correspondence" between the two men, Aldrich and Clemens first met. Aldrich brought his new friend to his home for dinner. Mrs. Aldrich recounts her displeasure at her husband's dinner invitation to a seemingly intoxicated man; after an icy evening which included several attempts by Mr. Aldrich to warm up his wife's demeanor, the guest excused himself. After a bout of hysterics prompted by her husband's questions as to why she was so rude to their guest, Mrs. Aldrich found out that Mark Twain had been their intended dinner guest and that the behavior she mistook for intoxication was really his mannerisms and speech patterns. Twain did not learn of her mistake for several years (127-132).

Mark Twain worked with Bret Harte on the "Golden Era," where he became famous for his columns. "The 'Golden Era' was said to be the cradle and grave of many a high hope of budding genius" (139).

The Aldriches were invited to visit the Clemenses in Hartford, Conn. Other guests included Mr. Howells and Mr. Osgood (143). Of their first dinner during their visit, Mrs. Aldrich writes: "Never again can there be such talk as scintillated about the table that night," where Alrich, Howells, Clemens, and Charles Dudley Warner were gathered (at the Warner's home)(145). When they returned to the Clemens' house that evening, the group stayed up practically all night talking and laughing (146). The first morning they arrived, Twain reprimanded the Aldriches for walking too heavily and upsetting and worsening his wife's headache. The Aldriches moved around on tiptoe and found out later, at breakfast, that Twain had played a practical joke on them (147-148).

Mrs. Aldrich also writes of Mrs. Clemens' deep religious belief, and how "doctrines and creeds" would later become distant to the pair. She also recounts how the two met, and how Clemens had fallen for his wife after seeing a miniature of her in her brother's (Charles Langdon) room on the steamship Quaker City, in 1867 (149). He would meet her after the cruise, when he was invited to dine with the Langdon family in New York, at the St. Nicholas Hotel (151). After this meeting, he was invited to visit with the family whenever he was in New York; Clemens had many speaking engagements in New York and was able to visit quite often (154-155). When the Aldriches visited the Clemens's in Hartford, they had been married four years (156). Mrs. Aldrich recalls that Mrs. Clemens used to refer to her husband as "Youth! O, Youth!" (160).

According to Mrs. Aldrich, 1867 was also Clemens' first year of literary success and recognition on the East Coast, with "The Jumping Frog" seeing publication in several periodicals. While waiting in the shipping office of the Quaker City, Clemens overheard a clerk list his name with pride when asked what "notables" were on the ship (149-150).

Mrs. Aldrich provides a description of Clemens in these early days: "Mr. Clemens was at this time thirty-one or two years old; a sparely built man of medium height; a finely shaped, classical head, covered with thick, shaggy red-colored hair; a mustache of the same tawny hue; eyes which glimmered, keen and twinkling, under overhanging, bushy eyebrows, each hair of which ruffled itself, taking part with unwarrantable intrusion in Mr. Clemens's moods, were they grave or gay. Once, in my remembrance, so belligerant and fierce was their aspect, that his listener, who had the temerity to differ with the views he was expressing, begged the privilege of brushing the eyebrows down, that she might have courage to continue the argument" (150).

Mrs. Aldrich claims that Clemens's coarseness of manner was developed after his years on the Mississippi and in California: "With that sharp schooling he had become too well acquainted with the coarser types of human nature." She continues: "He was born with a marvellous gift of phrase, and his one-time friends could not resist the temptation of developing his profanity to an incomparable perfection. He said to a friend who remonstrated with him on the habit, 'In certain trying circumstances, desparate circumstances, urgent circumstances, profanity furnished a relief denied even to prayer'" (150-151).

Clemens, Aldrich, Curtis, and Howells were among the speakers at the "Authors' Reading" done by the friends of Longfellow for the Longfellow Memorial Fund (256). Twain spoke first and announced the title of his talk as "English as She is Taught" (257-258).