Scribblin' for a Livin' by Thomas J. Reigstad

Author:Thomas J. Reigstad
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781616145927
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2013-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

On July 18 and 25, under the heading “Personal,” the Buffalo Express published notes written by J. N. Larned, based on information sent by Twain, that Langdon was improving and that a full recovery was expected. But the grim vigil in the Langdon mansion continued. The house was kept quiet; blinds were shut. Twain described the pervasive heart-wrenching atmosphere to Mary Fairbanks: “The gloom in the hearts of the household finds its type in the somberness of hall & chamber.”51 For days and weeks, emotions swung back and forth between hope and despair. Twain, Olivia, and her sister, Susan Crane, sat in shifts at Langdon’s bedside. The family had decided to dispense with nurses since medicine was no longer a factor. Twain took his turns in the middle of the day and from midnight to four in the morning. Olivia and Susan split the remaining, longer shifts. Each caregiver waved a palm leaf back and forth over Langdon’s bed to provide him relief from the scorching summer heat. Years later, Twain would recall how slowly time passed during his early-morning shifts and how much he grew to despise the torturous predawn “lamentings” of the same bird who chirped every morning outside Langdon’s window.52

On August 5, Twain wrote Elisha Bliss that Langdon’s condition was “utterly hopeless,” that the family was “shrouded in gloom, awaiting the end.”53 Twenty-four hours later, around five o’clock in the afternoon, it was over. Jervis Langdon, Mark Twain’s defender, benefactor, friend, and surrogate father, was dead at sixty-one, leaving an estate reportedly close to one million dollars. Twain wrote and sent a tribute to the Express, which incorporated the tribute into a eulogy published on August 8. Writing to Bliss five days later, Twain referred to the Langdon mansion as a “house of mourning.”54 He described Olivia as so grief stricken that she was “nearly broken down.”

Twain could not know that unimaginable sorrow, illness, and heartache would follow them back to Buffalo.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.