Mark twain!

I read an article recently by a successful writer who warned that a lead should always lead somewhere or else your readers will be pissed off. I suppose that means I should explain the header sometime before completing this blog. Hmmm. I'll think about it.

Meanwhile, I must tell you about the Morgan Library. Like the Frick, the Morgan is converted living space. Morgan actually used the building as an office, library and sanctuary for playing solitaire (while playing hooky from the bank).

I love these types of museums. At the Morgan, not only did I have the opportunity to see some amazing original manuscripts, and a disjointed collection of masterpieces in other forms (painting, sculpture), but I was also able to walk around the library itself and imagine how it would be to have such a space of my very own -- complete with hidden staircases to reach the upper bookshelves. My pied-a-terre will definitely include a library like this.

Morgan was an avid, if sometimes indiscriminate, collector. He did manage to acquire the original Pudd'nhead Wilson manuscript directly from Samuel Clemens. Not surprising since the two men were friends. In fact, they were such good friends that Clemens (who declared bankruptcy at some point) offered to give Morgan investment advice.

I know all this because when I went to the Morgan, I stumbled into a tour of the Mark Twain exhibition which is currently on display. I learned all about Sam's liberal politics, his quarrel with religion, his (financially disastrous) interest in high tech, and his flirtation with parapsychology. Somewhere in the middle of the tour, the docent related the p.c. version of how Samuel selected the Mark Twain pen name. "Mark twain!" is what rivermen shouted when their boats reached a point where the river was 2 (twain) fathoms deep, at which point the boat had clear passage.

The other version of the pseudonym story has something to do with a bar where Clemens ran a tab. But that's too prosaic for posterity, I think.