Mrs. Mark Twain: the Life of Olivia Langdon Clemens, 1845-1904 by Martin Naparsteck

Author:Martin Naparsteck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2013-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

Howells, Twichell, and other friends sometimes gently prodded Twain to be more careful with his investments, and finally even Livy would join the quiet chorus suggesting that he refrain from putting money into every invention or enterprise that interested him. They had some success, but it was far too late.19

On April 25, 1886, Twain made Fred J. Hall a partner in Webster & Co. to replace Charley, and at first he praised Hall’s business skills, but in the end he called him incompetent and blamed him for the company’s failure. There was always someone else to blame. Only Livy possessed enough influence with Mark to persuade him to not make more investments, but she was far to gentle in her admonitions. The good Victorian housewife did not interfere with a husband’s business decisions.

But Livy was not completely without fault in contributing to the family’s financial decline. While she hesitated to interfere in Mark’s business decisions, she was very aware of monetary setback after monetary setback. Still she did not do much more than express caution for personal spending and seldom exercised fiscal restraint. The mahogany room of the Hartford house, so-called because much of the furniture in the room was made from that wood, was used to store and wrap Christmas presents every year. Livy was adept at wrapping presents, but the task still tired her because of her general and permanent frailty. And there were so many presents, for relatives, friends, neighbors, the needy. Livy wrote lists of names and the presents each was to be given. Then wrapped them, later helped deliver them. Each year the list grew longer. When the family finances reached the point that the extensiveness of the gift giving needed to be greatly curtailed, Mark told Clara, “I am glad, for one reason, that financial losses have struck us! Your mother will have to give up that infernal Christmas-suicide.”20

Beginning in June 1891, because of losses from the Paige typesetting machine, the Webster publishing company, and Twain’s generally bad investments, the family decided to move to Europe, where they could live more cheaply than in their Hartford mansion. They could have moved to a less expensive home in a less expensive city in the United States, but that would mean a downgrading of their lifestyle, something neither Livy nor Mark was willing to endure. Decades later, to help justify his memory, Twain would also say one of the reasons for moving to Europe was to seek treatment for Livy.21 They stayed in Europe for nine years.

Livy never seemed to fully comprehend the extent of and damage done by her husband’s investments. After nearly a decade of serious loses, she wrote to him from Hartford while he was in New York on business, on December 17, 1893:

Youth my darling … seems as if perhaps you were beginning to see your way through financially. How is Webster & Co. situated now? Are they working out of debt? … You should have been here today to see Clara imitate you telling them stories and eating at the same time, it was just as funny as it could be.

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