Next stop* was Hartford, CT, and the Mark Twain House and Museum there. We're both life-long Mark Twain fans. Vicki taught Huckleberry Finn at Bexley High School in Columbus for five years, and we've inflicted our Twain interests on our book club and others in Missoula. There are several Twain sites and museums here and there--he got around a bit--but Hartford's is the main one, and the one where, from 1874 to 1891, he spent his happiest and most productive years. One can see the house only on tour...a general tour and a character tour, that is, a tour led by a Clemens family intimate, in character. Steadfastly in character. We chose the latter, mainly because it was the longer option. Were we to do it again, we'd opt for the shorter, general tour, which presumably would focus more on the Clemens family and the writer, and less (if any) on the intimate character. The house has a strict no fotos policy, understandably, but the superb Mark Twain House and Museum website has a great virtual tour and more information of all sorts than I could possibly list. If you're into literature, American literature, American history, humor, travel, writing, publishing, reading, civil liberties, and so much more...don't miss it.
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| En LEGO |
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| Among the best literary gift shoppes ever...and we've seen a few |
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I'll be sporting this shirt in due course; the back side is a
list of all the ports of call in his Following the Equator |
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Our guide, Mrs. Clemens' assistant, who was with the family from
the 1870s to the end; a decent performance, and came out of character
for questions at the end; unfortunately, too many of our tour
group just didn't get it... |
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Of course the present house went through a number of
changes after the Clemens sold it in the 1890s...six different
iterations...but it has been returned so far as possible to its
state when the Clemens resided there, and the furniture, etc.,
is at least true to the period if not authentic to the house |
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| Solarium! |
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| Me doing my thing |
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The museum has relatively few artifacts but in its displays
conveys much of Clemens' life and work |
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The house really is architecturally interesting...click to enlarge;
very Victorian, yet full of caprice; just what one might expect |
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The Paige Compositor type-setting contraption, investment in which
finally broke Clemens financially...but lead to the 1895-1896 world
tour, from which he paid back all his debts...about $12MM in today's
money |
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| Love his description of Following the Equator |
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| Always amused by his atheological musings |
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Penelope, note; Turner had the same practice of working on many
different projects at the same time; just FYI |
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| Twain and a world history timeline |
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| The gift shoppe was superb |
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| I think we spent more there than any other such shoppe we've visited |
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- “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” Not Twain. It appeared in Maurice Switzer’s Mrs. Goose, Her Book (1907), echoing older proverbs. Abraham Lincoln gets it too, equally wrongly.
- “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Not Twain. Charles Spurgeon used a version in 1859, and Jonathan Swift wrote an earlier form in 1710 (“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it”).
- “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Not Twain. The closest earlier versions are from humorist Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), and it was later popularized by others, including Will Rogers.
- “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” A paraphrase, not a misattribution. What Twain actually said in 1897 was closer to “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”
- “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” No solid Twain evidence. It is often traced to Harry Leon Wilson, though that attribution is also shaky.
- “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.” Not Twain. It appears in the 20th century, often credited to H. Jackson Brown Jr. or Sydney J. Harris.
- “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” No evidence Twain wrote it, and the true origin is unknown.
- “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times.” No evidence he said it, and the origin is unknown.
- “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Not found in his writings. It surfaces decades after his death, with no confirmed author.
- “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” No evidence it’s his, and the true source is unknown. [all from AI]
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*we skirted the NYC area, heading west of the Hudson, enjoying the beautiful Seven Lakes area; we've spent considerable time in the Big Apple before...
