Mark Twain

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Mark Twain
Helen Keller
Easton
Redding
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Mark Twain Tourism Project

• The goal of this project is to raise awareness
  and make Connecticut a destination for Mark Twain
  tourism and research in the future.
• We feel that merging information about Twain with
  information about the "Friends of Twain" in the
  many towns and cities that have a Twain
  Connection is a great way to promote town pride
  and Connecticut tourism in the future.

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The Connections are all over the State!
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Twains ConnecticutTheres more to it than you
think.
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Fairfield County

• Redding, Connecticut- Twain arrived on June 18th,
  1908 and departed on April 21, 1910.
• Bridgeport Connecticut- P.T. Barnum was mayor of
  Bridgeport (born in Bethel).
• Westport, Connecticut- Edgar "Ned" Wakeman was
  born in Westport, Connecticut.
• Ridgefield, Connecticut- Cass Gilbert, Edward W.
  Kemble and Edward M. Knox
• Stamford, Connecticut- Edward Quintard, M.D.
• Easton, Connecticut- Helen Keller Ida M.
  Tarbell.

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Easton Redding

• I grew up in Redding, yet it was not until a
  recent discovery that I realized there was a
  connection between Redding and Easton outside of
  each town originally being a part of the Town of
  Fairfield and the Region 9 school district Joel
  Barlow High School. As I was digging through the
  Mark Twain Library archives last winter out
  popped a note about Samuel L. Clemens and his
  home written by Helen Keller in 1909.
• "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

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Twain Keller

• They first met in March 1895 at a luncheon held
  in Kellers honor at West 34th Street in NYC. It
  was the home of Laurence Hutton, an editor and
  critic who was Twains friend and one of Helens
  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.

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Keller Describes Twain

• 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 eyeWhen 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.

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Twain Keller

• Letter to Mrs. Henry RogersFor in behalf of
  Helen Keller, Mr. Rogers will remember our
  visit with that astonishing girl at Lawrence
  Huttons 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.

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Twain Keller

• Letter to Mrs. Henry Rogers, (Continued)It
  wont 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
  Helens caseto pile that Standard Oil Helen
  Keller College Fund as high as they please they
  have my consent.

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Twain Keller

• The result of this letter was that Mr. Rogers
  personally took charge of Helen Kellers
  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.
• The Reply 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 expectedmay your lines fall in
  pleasant places here, Hereafter for it!
• Ever sincerely yours, S. L. CLEMENS.

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Twain Keller

• 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.

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Helen Keller Visits in January 1909
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Twain Keller

• 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.

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Twain Keller

• 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 couldnt play
  worse.

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Kellers 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."

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Twain Keller

• The highlight of Helens visit came on the final
  evening when Twain read to her his short story
  Eves 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. (Twains tribute to his
  wife Livy) Helen became tearful.In her journal,
  his secretary wrote She quivered with delight,
  and he was shaken with emotion could hardly
  find his voice again. It was a marvel to behold.

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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
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Twain Keller

• 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 Kellers 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.

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Nothing to hear nor see

• 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 Helens concept of thingsmust lack
  reality.
• In Huckleberry Finn- written long before he met
  Helen Twain wrote
• its lovely to live on a raftnothing to hear
  nor nothing to see.

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Twain Keller

• Two of a Kind

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Two of a Kind

• 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.

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Two of a Kind

• Helen came to accept religious and political
  beliefs quite different from those of her family
  and friends.
• In 1906, Twain pondered what future audiences
  would say about his unpublished comments on
  religious bigotry and social hypocrisy
• The edition of 2006 will make a stir when it
  comes out.

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Two of a Kind

• "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.

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Two of a Kind

• During her lifetime, Helen Keller lived in many
  different placesTuscumbia, 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.

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Two of a Kind

• Helen died in her sleep on June 1, 1968 at the
  age of 87. The cause of her death was heart
  disease.
• In the twilight of April 21, 1910, at the age of
  74, Mark Twain sunk into unconsciousness from
  which he glided almost imperceptibly into death.
  The cause of his death was heart disease.

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Two of a Kind

• 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

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The reports of my death have been greatly
exaggerated
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Eastons Other Connection

• Ida Tarbell. Tarbells history of Standard Oil
  appeared in 1904 with an account of Twains
  friend, Henry Rogers, that cast him in a better
  light than Rockefeller. Twain pretended to be
  greatly disappointed.
• Henry H, the woman has been bought!
• The truth was that Twain had made arrangements
  for Tarbell to meet Rogers, who laid on the
  charm.

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Tarbell Visits Stormfield

• Ida Tarbell and Jeannette Gilder visited Twain at
  Stormfield to welcome him to the neighborhood.
• In her journal, Twains secretary wrote
• It was a pleasant company, and the King approves
  of those two fine old girls. They love the house
  with its mellow colorings, its mouthwatering
  colorings as Jeannette Gilder calls it.

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This presentation is over for now, I thank you
all for watching!! Someone please have a whiskey
a smoke for me.