NEAT Part 2.2: Mark Twain House

What was it that made Mark Twain stand out as one of the greatest American authors of all time?

Was it his humor? His true-to-life characters? His twists of adventure?

Probably all the above—but there was one element more that became clear to me when I visited his Hartford, CT home last Saturday: a sense of the dramatic.

I wonder if he could even help it: the very year of his birth was etched into the world's calendars as a year when Haley's comet was blazing across out skies. He came in with the comet, and he left with it when it was next visible, 75 years later.

And do you know what happened the next time it came into view? If you said, 'Oh, perhaps the birth of another brilliant writer destined to carry on Twain's great legacy and channel his genius,' then you're probably wrong. But, in fact, it was the year I was born...the first year of several in which I could never go long without being told, “Oh, you're being so melodramatic,” by others or myself several times a week. (It's mostly myself now...) I didn't realize I had an excuse: “But, Mom, it's my DESTINY!” (Why do I think that wouldn't have worked??)

Our trip to Twain's home, on the other hand, began rather less theatrically, with a clump of oily tuna fish plonked into my palm. But wait—I'm the one telling this. Let's start at the beginning and give it some flair...

We left the Noah Webster house in a downpour of rain. I clutched baby Zoe to my chest and sprinted toward the car, Rose and Regina (likewise clutching Lucy) close in my wake. We were all teetering on edge of hilarity by the time we pulled out our “picnic”; there is something about the combination of three sisters, two babies, bucket loads of rain, and all your plans going rather askew that induces hysterical, contagious giggling.

Perhaps it was the giggling that made Regina drop the tuna. Luckily for her, I pulled out my super mommy powers (her words, folks) and caught the greasy blob milliseconds before it splattered on the shifter. The giggling, needless to say, did not subside. We were doubled over; Lucy dropped her apple; Rose reached for it and dumped the entire bowl of tuna all over...herself...the car...everything. And we thanked the Great Plotter for planning the torrential rain into our little story, because it was only jumping out into the showers that kept Rose from reeking the entire afternoon even if she was soaked...

Was that dramatic enough? If I were Sam Clemens I might have thrown in a few jumping frogs for flavor, but I just haven't quite got the hang of amphibians yet.

It was Tom Sawyer day at the Mark Twain Center, so we got to meet Tom and Becky (see pictures)—and Mr. Clemens himself...well, in Lego form. We couldn't stop laughing from the time we left the car until the time we made it to the house, because all the hallways in the Center were engraved with Mark Twain quotes:

“Always obey your parents when they are present.”


“When you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect.”


“Say you were a member of congress. And say you were an idiot...but I repeat myself.”


“When in doubt, tell the truth.”


“Good things arrive to them that wait...and don't die in the meantime.”


“Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

The house itself was...exquisite. It was a three-story Tudor-esque mansion, simply dripping signs of the wealth Clemens enjoyed for his time there (sadly he lost most of his fortune in, well, in the house, along with unlucky business investments and as a result of his own generosity): marble statues; walls stenciled in bronze (to look like gold), designed by none other than a young Louis Tiffany; an ornately carved four-poster bed (mostly antique); a glass conservatory where a jungle of trees and plants circled a central fountain.

But my favorite part? The obvious feeling that the Clemens family had really lived there...not just vacationed, or existed, as you feel visiting other mansions of the era. Suzy and Clara, the Clemens daughters, used to play jungle in the conservatory, crawling about the plants and demanding that their Papa play elephant. They popped the antique rosewood angels off the headboard to play with as dollies during the day, dressing them up as babies and giving them bubble baths in their tub. I felt such a strong sense of love and family and joy in that house—despite the elegance, despite the difficulties and sorrow that in fact surrounded the family.

For Sam Clemens had seen most of his own family die before him, when he was very young. The Clemens' oldest child, a boy, had died as an infant shortly after the family moved to Connecticut. Suzy died in that Hartford home, and the pain of it was the last straw in convincing the bereft (and broke) family to leave America and live, more cheaply, by traveling in Europe. Soon after, Libby, Sam's wife, died...and the baby Jeannie, too, died as a child. Though Sam lived to be 75, he was survived by only Clara of all his family.

It makes you wonder...how did Sam Clemens, the man surrounded by tragedy, become Mark Twain, one of the greatest humorists of recent times—or ever? Well, he realized that humor and sorrow go hand in hand. That sorrow helps highlight the humor, that humor helps alleviate the sorrow. Though it is sad for me to see the traces of cynicism that crops up from time to time in Twain's writing, it feels impressive after learning about the man that it was only a trace.

Seeing Sam Clemens' home has helped me to reconcile the two sides of the man, because now beside the tragic figure and the witty satirist, I can picture the Papa playing elephant with his girls, the dedicated writer bent over a little desk in the corner of his billiard room, the husband who always slept with the head at the foot of his ornate bed because, as he said, “if you had spent a fortune on a beautiful, antique headboard, wouldn't you want to look at it at night, too?”

(P.S. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the inside; the rules were understandably rigid, and cameras weren't allowed—just about the only thing we were even allowed to touch was the handrail of the staircase, which, the guide told us, was supposed to make anyone who touched it a better writer. We'll have to wait and see, I guess... ;)

N.B. There is an excellent biography of Sam Clemens, by Sid Flieschman: The Trouble Begins at 8; a Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West. Though it is aimed at older children or young adults, I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who loves Mark Twain even half as much as I do