SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 49 (of 78)
American High Gothic (1874)
Chapter 49
American High Gothic (1874)
We moved into our house in Hartford, Connecticut, in the Nook Farm neighborhood, in 1874. We staid there until 1891. It was the happiest period of our lives. It is where our girls grew up. It is also where Susy died, five years after we had moved out of it and away from the area—out of the country, in fact.
Livy had helped design the fabulous and fantastic place, gently guiding the architect in forming the most fitting place for our family.
Our old home is only sixty miles northeast of here, but I have not been back for many years. Some other family is living in it now, and our old neighbors have either moved away or died—all but the Twichells, that is.
EDITOR’S NOTES: By “here,” Twain was referring to Stormfield, his estate in southwest Connecticut near Redding.
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In the following passage from chapter XL (40) of Roughing It about the “blind lead” (see chapter 28 of this book for the details), Twain basically described his future house in Hartford as well as his Quaker City/“Innocents Abroad” trip of the then-recent past, during which he visited all the places he (supposedly) had told Calvin Higbie he was planning to see:
When Cal Higbie and I were millionaires for a fleeting few days, our joy in our coming fortune did not allow us to sleep. . . .
No one can be so thoughtless as to suppose that we slept, that night. Higbie and I went to bed at midnight, but it was only to lie broad awake and think, dream, scheme. The floorless, tumble-down cabin was a palace, the ragged gray blankets silk, the furniture rosewood and mahogany.
“Cal, what kind of a house are you going to build?”
“I was thinking about that. Three-story and an attic.”
“But what kind?”
“Well, I don’t hardly know. Brick, I suppose.”
“Brick—bosh.”
“Why? What is your idea?”
“Brown stone front—French plate glass—billiard-room off the dining- room—statuary and paintings—shrubbery and two-acre grass plat—greenhouse—iron dog on the front stoop—gray horses—landau, and a coachman with a bug on his hat!”
“By George!”
A long pause.
“Cal, when are you going to Europe?”
“Well—I hadn’t thought of that. When are you?”
“In the Spring.”
“Going to be gone all summer?”
“All summer! I shall remain there three years.”
“No—but are you in earnest?”
“Indeed I am.”
“I will go along too.”
“Why of course you will.”
“What part of Europe shall you go to?”
“All parts. France, England, Germany—Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Syria, Greece, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Egypt—all over—everywhere.”
“I’m agreed.”
In other words, on moving into the Hartford house, it seemed to Twain that his wildest dreams had come true.
You can listen to this chapter here.
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.