8? November 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (Paraphrase: Watterson 1910, 372, and two others, UCCL 12054)
Just after the successful production of his oneⒶemendation play, “The Gilded Age,”Ⓐemendation and the famous hit made byⒶemendation the late comedian, John T.Ⓐemendation Raymond, in itsⒶemendation leading rôle, I received a letter from him1explanatory note in which he told me he had made in Col.Ⓐemendation Mulberry Sellers a close study of a certain mutual kinsmanⒶemendation and thought he had drawn him to the life, “butⒶemendation for the love ofⒶemendation GodⒶemendation” he said, “don’t whisper it,Ⓐemendation for he would never understand,Ⓐemendation or forgive me,Ⓐemendation if he did not thrash me on sight.”2explanatory note
This letter is dated on the evidence of other November correspondence between Watterson, Clemens, and Jane Clemens. Its allusion to “a certain mutual kinsman” indicates that it was probably a reply to the now lost letter from Watterson (described by Clemens in his letter to Parish of 10 November) in which he claimed kinship with the Clemens family through James J. Lampton, the prototype of Colonel Sellers. Lampton was one of Jane Clemens’s first cousins: her father, Benjamin Lampton, was the brother of Lewis Lampton, James’s father. James’s mother was the sister of Watterson’s maternal grandmother, Mary Morrison ( L5 , 372–73 n. 1, 412–13 n. 4).
Clemens explained his use of the name “Mulberry” in his preface to The American Claimant (SLC 1892, vii):
The Colonel Mulberry Sellers here reintroduced to the public is the same person who appeared as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of the tale entitled “The Gilded Age,” years ago, and as Beriah Sellers in the subsequent editions of the same book, and finally as Mulberry Sellers in the drama played afterward by John T. Raymond.
The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty deeps of uncharted space and preferred his request—backed by threat of a libel suit—then went his way appeased, and came no more. In the play Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another member of the race, and Mulberry was substituted in the hope that the objectors would be tired by that time and let it pass unchallenged. So far it has occupied the field in peace; therefore we chance it again, feeling reasonably safe, this time, under shelter of the statute of limitations.
Mark Twain.
Hartford, 1891
Although nothing is known about the “member of the race” who objected to “Beriah,” the history of the objection to “Eschol” is fully documented. In the late 1890s Clemens recalled that Warner named the original character “Eschol” after “a farmer in a cheap & humble way” whom he had met ten years earlier “in a remote corner of the West.” But while the book was still in press, “a college-bred gentleman of courtly manners & ducal upholstery arrived in Hartford in a sultry state of mind & with a libel suit in his eye, & his name was Eschol Sellers!” (SLC 1897–98, 23–24). This Sellers, a member of a wealthy Philadelphia family, happened to be an acquaintance of Warner’s, through a mutual friend. While the book was still in press, this friend saw an agent’s prospectus, and alerted Sellers to the use of his name. Sellers, believing himself to be the namesake of the character, wrote Warner to protest, threatening a lawsuit. (Six letters between Sellers and Warner, all written in January 1874, survive at PPAmP.) Bliss thereupon agreed to substitute “Beriah” for “Eschol” in the plates. An inaccurate newspaper account circulated in 1875 claimed that it was Clemens who had met the Philadelphia Sellers “in the East somewhere, and from the peculiarities of the man was induced to appropriate his name” (“Colonel Mulberry Sellers,” Boston Advertiser, 21 Apr 75, 2, reprinting the Evansville [Wis.] Courier of unknown date). For further discussion, see Lampton 1989, 50–54.
References
- Watterson, Henry. “Mark Twain—An Intimate Memory.” American Magazine 70 (July): 372–75. 1910
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- Watterson, Henry. Address in “Public Meeting Held in Carnegie Hall, New York, November 30, 1910, in Memory of Mark Twain”. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 1 (November): 24–29. 1911
- Watterson, Henry. “Marse Henry”: An Autobiography. 2 vols. New York: George H. Doran Company. 1919
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 6: 1874–1875. Edited by Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 2002
- Watterson, Henry. “Memories of Mark Twain.” Master Mason, August, 610–14. 1927
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 5: 1872–1873. Edited by Lin Salamo and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1997
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). The American Claimant. New York: Charles L. Webster and Co. 1892
- American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pa.
- Lampton, Lucius Mario. “Hero in a Fool’s Paradise: Twain’s Cousin James J. Lampton and Colonel Sellers.” Mark Twain Journal 27 (Fall): 1–56. 1989
No copy-text. The text derives from three paraphrases that Watterson made of Clemens’s letter:
P1, an article in American Magazine, is deemed more reliable overall, since it reflects Watterson’s earliest recollection of Clemens’s words. Nevertheless, one reading in P3 (his autobiography)—“God” instead of “Heaven”—has been preferred, since it seems plausible that in the later publication he did not feel constrained to temper Clemens’s language. P2 (Watterson’s speech at Clemens’s memorial service in November 1910) does not contain the reading “God,” but did serve as the source for the autobiography, and therefore included the first printing of several rejected substantive readings. All variants are reported below.
L6 , 273–274; Watterson 1922, 84–85; 1927, 610.