Hi, all
I'm trying hard to find original sources for the following three Mark
Twain quotes. If anyone knows where in his work these words originally
appeared, can you let me know?
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother
me, it is the parts that I do understand."
-Mark Twain
"Sacred cows make the best hamburger."
-Mark Twain
"If there is a God, he is a malign thug."
-Mark Twain
Thank you!
Sara Bader
========================================================================Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 08:34:57 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hemingway and Twain
It's been years since I've read any Hemingway, but I think that passage
about American literature was spoken by a pompous characater in the novel,
and were not the words of the narrator or EH himself. You'd have to read
the rest of the novel to get a sense of whether EH was speaking through that
character. Some (incl. me) might argue that was the case. And some not.
This is not unlike Twain's use of the word "nigger" --putting it in the
speech of particular characters or situations to reveal their attitudes or
reflect their social status -- not his own. Unlike with EH, I don't think
anyone can reasonably construct a case that Twain was expressing his own
racial views through his various characaters.
But EH was not Mark Twain, and I don't see no p'ints about EH that make him
better'n Mark Twain.
Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX
========================================================================Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 10:16:17 -0400
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Sharon McCoy <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hemingway and Twain
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A thought occurs to me--
Unless I'm mistaken, we all seem to assume that Hemingway's speaker means
that the book should end after the Duke and the King sell Jim and Huck has
his crisis of conscience.
But what if the speaker means a different moment entirely?
This recent series of postings has made me notice something I've never paid
much attention to before, especially Hilton Obenzinger's discussion of the
context of the quotation. As Peter Salwen points out and Hilton emphasizes,
the speaker says that the book should "stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen
from the BOYS. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating" (my
emphasis).
When Jim is sold down the river, Huck is alone: there are no "boys." Is
this what you meant, Hilton, when you said the comment is "based on
inaccurately remembering the book"?
But what if, rather than an inaccuracy, the comment actually refers to a
different scene? For at the end, when Tom has been shot and is unconscious
or delirious and Huck is terrified and ineffectual, Jim is stolen from both
"boys" by the lynch mob.
Jim's life is saved only by economic considerations (his owner might make
them pay) and the serendipitous recovery of Tom Sawyer, who reveals all.
Perhaps this is the "cheating"? Many have been disturbed by Tom's
revelation that Jim has been freed in Miss Watson's will. I can imagine
both Hemingway and his speaker being more satisfied with Jim's lynching as
the more realistic and logical outcome of the novel.
What do you think?
Sharon McCoy
========================================================================Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 13:24:01 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Hilton Obenzinger <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Bamboozled
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"Bamboozled," although imperfect in some respects, is an astonishing
film. I've shown this film as part of a class on American humor and
satire. After readings on slave humor and minstrelsy, this film just
knocks out the students; it's devastating. It ties viewers into
knots -- there's so much sickness and yet the routines are so damn
entertaining! After all of this, we read Huckleberry Finn, and
there's no problem talking about the ways the novel parallels
minstrelsy and how it veers from it at the same time. Then Richard
Pryor stand-up comedy. Phew.
Hilton
========================================================================Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 15:09:16 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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From: Hilton Obenzinger <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hemingway and Twain
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I suppose that the very end of the story can be what the cheat
is. Most critics have interpreted Hemingway's remark as refering to
the entire "evasion" section. The "cheat" of the section after Jim
is recaptured would be even more baffling to me. I know many people
have quarreled with the evasion section, so I assume that Hemingway's
comment fits into that tradition.
Hilton
========================================================================Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 06:04:20 -0400
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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From: Sharon McCoy <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hemingway and Twain
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I think it might be seen as a "cheat" because everything seems to resolve so
neatly: Jim is freed, not only from his captors, but from slavery. Huck is
"freed" by Jim's revelation that pap is dead. And Huck's struggles with
social mores are "solved" by his resolution to "light out for the
territory." So all seems right with the world and all the issues raised by
the book seem resolved by a happy ending for all.
I'd argue that the ending is not really as resolved as it seems, but it does
seem to tie everything up in a neat little package, a resolution that feels
like cheating at first.
Sharon
========================================================================Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:34:22 EDT
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: David H Fears <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hemingway and Twain
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Dear Hilton (I wonder how anyone gets named after a hotel?)--I submit that
we may forgive Hemingway his point of view on other writers. He saw writing
as
competitive to a large degree, and did not truly realize his contribution,
much less others in perspective. Let's give the man his opinion--his
statement
in Green Hills of Africa neither put Huck Finn on the literary map or
changed the way we look at it.
Then too, we might always benefit from separating the man from his fiction.
David H Fears
========================================================================Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:30:37 -0400
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Bob Gill <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: TWAIN-L Digest - 10 Sep 2006 to 17 Sep 2006 (#2006-5)
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In "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger" there's a scene where 44 appears in the
guise of a singer (I don't have access to my book at the moment, but I think
he may be a minstrel singer, specifically) strumming a banjo, and strongly
affects the narrator with a rendition of "Buffalo gal, won't you come out
tonight" or something similar. This might be the kind of thing you're
looking for.
Bob G.
========================================================================Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:36:50 -0400
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: John Davis <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: Chowan University
Subject: Re: TWAIN-L Digest - 10 Sep 2006 to 17 Sep 2006 (#2006-5)
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You are right about music in _No. 44_. "A Horse's Tale" includes a fair
amount of
music toward its end, such as "Reveille," "Assembly," "Taps," "Boots and
Saddles,"
"To the Standard," as well as "Soldier Boy's Bugle Call" (Soldier Boy is the
horse
narrator). What is interesting that Twain places the music staffs for the
songs within
the story. I'm not sure of his purpose, but it is an arresting narrative
experiment.
John H. Davis, Ph.D.
English Division
Chowan University
Murfreesboro, NC
========================================================================Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:27:54 -0400
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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From: Steve Courtney <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Mark Twain and music
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The discussion of Twain & music reminded me of the following letter (from
the electronic edition of Mark Twain's letters, Copyright 2003 the Mark
Twain Project) in which Clemens tries to compose music vicariously.
It's to the musically inclined Rev. Edwin Pond Parker of South
Congregational Church in Hartford, the church the Clemenses reputedly
attended when Twichell was not preaching because the music was better. South
Church had a choir, while Asylum Hill carried on the traditional
Congregationalist practice of congregational singing. Parker, Twichell and
the Rev. Nathaniel Burton collaborated on a hymnal, but it was really
Parker's work, Twichell always maintained.
The poem Clemens wanted to set to music is a section of Tennyson's long poem
"The Princess." I've set the words down under the letter.
To Edwin Pond Parker
22? December 1880 -- Hartford, Conn.
Dear Dr. Parker --
I wish you would compose a certain piece of music. I have imagined it
all the morning -- that is, imagined I was listening to it -- but of course
it was all blended sounds, & not articulated, not organized. Theme: "The
Splendor falls on Castle walls, & snowy summits old in story."
I imagined a quartette of male voices (without accompaniment) singing,
down to "Blow, bugle, blow" (then a few notes from a bugle behind the
singers, or behind the scenes;) "Set the wild echoes flying!" (Bugle notes
repeated.) Then "answer, echoes" (the bugle notes softly imitated by a
concealed flute at the other end of the house, or in another room.) And so
on: "O hark, O hear! (flute) How thin & far (flute) from cliff & scar
(flute) the horns of Elfland fairly blowing!" (flute.)
Well it does look the very nation on paper, but it sounds well when it
is fading & receding in my mind's ear Horatio.
May be the song has already been set to music -- then it has been poorly
done & nobody sings it; so I wish you'd do it over again & do it right.
Won't you?
Truly yours,
S. L. Clemens
The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying. dying, dying.
O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
Steve Courtney
Terryville, CT
========================================================================Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:54:45 +0200
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Niek Langeweg (werk)" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Twain Readings
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy Wuster" <[log in to unmask]>
> I was wondering what people would suggest as the most important 10-15
> books
> on Mark Twain to read as part of a background on Twain.
I was wondering if your question has been answered off list. I am very
interested in the answers you received.
Would you share the information?
Thanks,
Niek Langeweg
========================================================================Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:10:10 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Hal Bush <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: top 100 works about Mark Twain
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
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I noticed nobody responded to that question. I believe it has come up
before, so check the archives.
I seem to recall at one point there was an article that listed the top 100
works about Mark Twain--it included reference, biography, special topics,
primary works, and so on. Does any LIST-member recall where that article
appeared? Maybe we could link it to the FORUM site and/or the proposed FAQ.
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Saint Louis University
========================================================================Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:57:23 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Two book reviewers needed
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The Mark Twain Forum needs reviewers for the following books:
_Printer's Devil: Mark Twain and the American Publishing Revolution_. By
Bruce Michelson. University of California Press, 2006, hardcover, xiii +
299 pages. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-520-24759-8.
The publisher's web page for this book is:
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10562.html
and
_Fetching the Old Southwest: Humorous Writing from Longstreet to Twain_. By
James H. Justus. University of Missouri Press, 2004, hardcover, xiii + 591
pages. $54.95. ISBN 0-8262-1544-0.
The publisher's web page for this book is:
http://www.umsystem.edu/upress/fall2004/justus.htm
Reviews are due within two months of your receipt of a book--around the
first of December. The deadline is particularly important. If you are
inclined to procrastinate, or will have difficulty meeting the deadline,
please do not offer to write a review.
If you're interested in receiving either of these books for review, please
contact me via email.
Thanks,
Barbara Schmidt
Book Review Editor, Mark Twain Forum
[log in to unmask]
========================================================================Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:52:38 EDT
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: David H Fears <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Mark Twain and music
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On the MT music front:
In my research for Mark Twain Day-By-Day, the annotated day-chronology (now
approaching 300 pages and midway into 1870), I have come across two items on
Sam and music that might interest.
First in Samuel Charles Webster's 1947 book, Mark Twain, Business Man, Annie
Moffett Webster, Sam's niece who lived until 1950, wrote a chapter in her
own words, "As His Niece Remembers Him." SC Webster was Annie's son.
Annie wrote this about her uncle:
When I think of Uncle Sam during those early years it is always as a singer.
He would sit at the piano and play and sing by the hour, the same song over
and over: --
There was an old horse
And his name was Jerusalem.
He went to Jerusalem,
He came from Jerusalem.
Ain't I glad I'm out of the wilderness! Oh! Bang!
He seems to have been flattered by my appreciation of this effort because he
began to call me "Old Horse." It was "Old Horse, get me that book" or "Old
Horse, run up to my room for a paper."
As I grew a little older it must have struck me that to be called "Old
Horse" even by Uncle Sam was not suitable. My cousin Jenny Clemens, Uncle
Orion's
daughter, who was visiting us, had also been insulted by our uncle. He had
taken to calling her "Trundle-bed Trash," a current term for the extra
children
who had to sleep in little trundle beds....
Another of Uncle Sam's songs which seems to have struck me as a classic to
be remembered was: --
Samuel Clemens! the gray dawn is breaking,
The howl of the housemaid is heard in the hall;
The cow from the back gate her exit is making,--
What, Sam Clemens? Slumbering still?
---
The other music item comes from 1869. Here is my entry from my WIP:
March 25th Thursday Sam wrote in Livy's copy of Autocrat
of the Breakfast-Table, Midnight March 25, 1869 I wish 'Even Me' to be sung
at my funeral.
The song was a hymn composed by William B. Bradbury in 1862. Sam claimed it
his favorite in a March 31st letter to Livy's sister.[1c, p184n9]
(The sister was the adopted Susan Crane.)
David H Fears
========================================================================Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 09:10:43 -0400
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Steve Courtney <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Poem of 1892
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I have a question about a poem or short piece Clemens apparently wrote and
sent to Twichell in 1892. Twichell refers to it in a letter of Nov. 3, 1892,
as "In Memoriam," but of course it is not the poem of that name that Clemens
wrote after Susy's death in 1896. In telling Clemens how moving he found it
to be, Twichell refers to the family group of Livy, the girls and "the
beloved Shadow in the midst."
Jane Lampton Clemens had died in 1890, so I was wondering whether Clemens
was writing about that loss -- though Twichell's placing of the "Shadow" in
the family group makes me wonder whether Clemens is harkening back to
Langdon's death. June 2, 1892, after all, was the twenty-year anniversary of
that sad event.
Is anyone familiar with this work?
Steve Courtney
Terryville, CT
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 08:48:41 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Michael MacBride <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: A correction to an old comment.
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Dear Forum,
I dug around in my email but couldn't find the original email. A few months
ago I remember there being a discussion about Thoreau or Emerson and I
mistakenly made a comment about Twain paying for a cabin for one of them. I
remember not being sure who it was and probably should have held my tongue
until I had a source to support my comment. In either case, I came across
the source while researching a completely unrelated matter (isn't it weird
how things come full circle some times?). It was not Thoreau or Emerson,
but Mr. Whitman.
"Twain contributed funds to help buy a horse and buggy for Whitman in 1885
and to pay for his cottage in Camden in 1888, saying, supposedly, 'What we
want to do is to make that splendid old soul comfortable.'" Source:
http://www.salwen.com/mtwhtman.html
I'm pretty sure the original place I read this was in Gribben's *
Reconstruction*, but since I don't own a copy (nor does the nearest library,
I have to Inter-library Loan it every time I want it) I offer this source as
a possibility. Perhaps it will help whoever was looking for a Twainian link
to transcendentalists? And, to the person who called me out on not having a
source to support my claim, I do apologize and have learned that lesson. :)
Michael
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:11:09 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Hal Bush <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Twain and the transcendentalists
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
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And recall that MT met RWE personally on at least 3 occasions. Most
famously, Emerson was present for and one of the 3 lofty targets of Twain's
burlesque at the Whittier Birthday celebration in 1877.
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Saint Louis University
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 08:33:12 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Laura Trombley <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: An inquiry regarding a student's request
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
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Dear Forum,
I have a student who is very interested in writing about the literary images
(or stereotypes) Jews in Gilded Age literature. I can immediately think of
Rosedale in House of Mirth and would appreciate your thoughts regarding
additional characters in other novels.
Best,
Laura Trombley
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:10:33 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Twain and the transcendentalists
Twain also met some real live Transcendentalists when he attended a meeting
of the Radical Club where evolution and transmigration of the soul were
discussed. After the meeting Twain commented that he must have inherited an
old well-used soul. His comments are quoted at length in Mrs John T
Sargent's SKETCHES AND REMINISCENCES OF THE RADICAL CLUB (Boston, 1880).
Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:40:54 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Hilton Obenzinger <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An inquiry regarding a student's request
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
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Oh, yes, of course: don't forget Twain's "Concerning the Jews."
HO
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:57:03 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An inquiry regarding a student's request
Volume III (1876-1900) of Lyle Wright's "American Fiction" would be a place
to start looking. Tedious to do, but just sitting down and scanning the
titles and the brief notes under most of his entries might uncover some
untrodden ground. Since Wright lists every book of fiction (both novels and
short stories) by an American author of this period, you'd have great
coverage, but the weakness is that Wright doesn't provide very good notes
for anyone seeking themes, characters, or motifs, although he's so-so when
it comes to genres. Still, with Wright in one hand and a mouse pointed at
google in the other, you'd be ready to rumble. Maybe point that mouse at
vivisimo since they have very useful "clustered" search results perfectly
suited to this kind of enquiry
Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:34:44 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Hilton Obenzinger <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An inquiry regarding a student's request
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Try "Innocents Abroad," "Captain Stormfield," Melville's "Clarel,"
plus other Holy Land travel books, almost all of which describe
Jews. And, of course, your student should read "Three Vassar Girls
in the Holy Land" (I forget the author but she wrote a series of
"Three Vassar Girls in . . . "). One of the three girls is secretly
a Jew -- but they like her, and, after all, she doesn't smell too
bad. This book is a compendium of stereotypes of the time -- while
trying to be enlightened. It's a laugh riot. If you read the whole
series, you will probably get a wonderful survey of all sorts of
stereotypes.
I know that someone has written a survey of the image of Jews in
American literature -- I don't have the bibliographic information
handy -- and that book will give many examples. Also read Shelley
Fisher Fishkin's "Markt Twain and the Jews" in Arizona Quarterly 61.1
Spring 2005.
Hilton Obenzinger
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:57:34 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Lecky on Twain?
On page 203 of MARK TWAIN, Archibald Henderson says William Lecky pronounced
Mark Twain's accounts of slavery in HF and LonM as the truest ever written.
This is not surprising since Twain had read Lecky's views on slavery and
they had met, but does anyone happen to know what Henderson's (pre-1910)
source for this might be?
Of course, Lecky's influence on Twain and Twain's comments on Lecky have
been widely quoted and written about, but I'm looking for the source of
Lecky's published comments on Twain. Unless I've overlooked something, a
search of Henderson's appendix did not help, nothing in Tom Tenney's
REFERENCE GUIDE, no reviews of Twain's books by Lecky in Lou Budd's book, no
clues in Gribben's long notes on Lecky in MT's LIBRARY, nothing in
Baetzhold, Salomon, Blair, or others I've checked who've written on the
Twain-Lecky connection. I then cast a wider net into the indexes of various
volumes of letters, biographies, etc., and I'm beginning to bog down. The
prospect of having to read at least two of the books Lecky published between
1885 and 1910 is making my pointy little head hurt.
Any clues will be gratefully received, and anyone with the answer will
proably find themselves drinking hard liquor on my dime if they attend the
next Elmira Conference or ever visit Austin.
Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:04:38 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Hal Bush <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Lecky on Twain?
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
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Merely for the chance of drinking free hard liquor:
Isn't it possible that Henderson and Lecky met, or corresponded?
Dr. Harold K. Bush, Jr., Associate Professor
Saint Louis University
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:24:06 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Lecky on Twain?
W-e-e-e-e-e-e-ll, that's more a clue than a source, but a good possibility,
deserving of a beer if not the hard stuff. Henderson's text reads "Certain
passages in his books on the subject of slavery, as the historian Lecky has
declared, are the truest things that have ever been expressed on the subject
which vexed a continent and plunged a nation in bloody, fratricidal strife."
Henderson himself (not Lecky, as I'd implied --sorry) then goes on to cite
HF and LonM as having particularly vivid examples of what he's talking
about. I may be reading him wrong, but the way Henderson puts it seems to
indicate he assumes his readers will be familiar with Lecky's opinion, or at
least that it had been stated in public or in print.
I was initially confident the source was buried in H's appendix (an
excellent bibliography by 1910 standards), but Lecky's name does not appear
under any of those entries. Henderson had interviewed Twain at length while
preparing this book, and I've wondered if perhaps Twain showed H some letter
to T from Lecky (none in Machlis), or even if H perhaps discussed with Twain
his (T's) readings of Lecky and then later on garbled his (H's) notes of
that conversation.
Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX
========================================================================Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:05:26 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Paul Reuben <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An inquiry regarding a student's request
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You may want to suggest my selected bibliography on Jewish-American Studies
at
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/jews.html
A number of titles deal with the late 19th early 20th c. American fiction.
Best,
- - -
Paul P. Reuben
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/home.htm
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:05:26 -0700
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: Paul Reuben <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: An inquiry regarding a student's request
Mime-version: 1.0
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You may want to suggest my selected bibliography on Jewish-American Studies
at
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/jews.html
A number of titles deal with the late 19th early 20th c. American fiction.
Best,
- - -
Paul P. Reuben
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/home.htm
========================================================================Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:44:26 EDT
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: David H Fears <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: When & Where did Sam meet Thomas Nast?
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In my WIP, Mark Twain Day By Day, I have this entry, based upon Sam's
letter
10 years after they supposedly met. My question is, since the Quaker City
arrived in NY on November 19th at 10AM, and with Sam leaving for
Washington,
probably on a night train on the 21st (MTL vol 2,p109n2)--there is only a
two
day window they could have met, unless Nast was in Washington DC, where Sam
went to work for Senator Stewart briefly. If the following entry is
inaccurate,
and/or if you have a source for the date and place of their meeting, I'd
appreciate it.
November 19th or 20th Wednesday - After the Quaker City returned and
before
Sam left for Washington, he met Thomas Nast, famous illustrator and
cartoonist, who proposed a lecture tour with him drawing and Sam speaking:
Therefore I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November, 1867 -
ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.: That you should stand on the
platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience.
I
should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns - don't want to go
to
little ones) with you for company. [12 Nov 77 to Nast in MTL, 1:311]
In searching for this piece of information, I discovered that Albert Paine
had worked on a Nast biography prior to Twain's. From Paine:
It was more than three years before I saw him again. Meantime, a sort of
acquaintance had progressed. I had been engaged in writing the life of
Thomas
Nast, the cartoonist, and I had found among the material a number of
letters to
Nast from Mark Twain. I was naturally anxious to use those fine
characteristic letters, and I wrote him for his consent. He wished to see
the letters,
and the permission that followed was kindness itself. His admiration of
Nast
was very great. [MTbio]
Albert B. Paine, Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures (1981). This is
reprinted from a 1904 MacMillan edition.
I don't have this book, but perhaps the answer is in it. What do you have?
Albert B. Paine, Thomas Nast, His Period and His Pictures (1981).
David H Fears
========================================================================Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:57:17 -0500
Reply-To: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: When & Where did Sam meet Thomas Nast?
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David,
I suggest before you narrow down the meeting between Twain and
Nast to two days in 1867 based on Twain's memory ten years later
that you consider Twain's news story that appeared
in the _Territorial Enterprise_ on February 27, 1868 datelined
Washington, January 30, 1868. Twain writes:
"They treat us houseless strangers well in the East. Thomas Nast, the
clever artist of Harper's Weekly is exhibiting a collection of great
caricatures of national subjects in New York and wants me to do the
lecturing for his show. I would, if I hadn't so many irons in the fire. I
would like it right well for a change, but then changes are risky. I must
hunt around for a handsome Pacific coaster to take the berth - because I
suppose it is personal loveliness Nast is after."
(http://www.twainquotes.com/18680227t.html)
If you check the online Union Catalog of Letters to Clemens at:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/twcorr.html
you will see that Twain was back in New York in January of 1868
and could have met Nast then. If you rely strictly on Twain's
memory without other supporting evidence, you may get thrown
off track from time to time.
Barb