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Last night at 9:20, I entered Mrs. Clemens room to say the usual goodnight-and she was dead-tho’ no one knew it. She had been cheerfully talking, a moment before. She was sitting up in bed—she had not lain down for months—and Katie and the nurse were supporting her. They supposed she had fainted, and they where holding the oxygen pipe to her mouth, expecting to revive her. I bent over her and looked in her face, and I think I spoke—I was surprised and troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood, and our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day!—Mark Twain, Letter to W.D. Howells, 1904
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With Olivia in Elmira, NY, 1903
Courtesy of The Mark Twain House, Hartford |
Letter to Friends After Olivia’s Death, Florence, Italy, June, 1904
Courtesy of The Mark Twain House, Hartford |
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Western Union Telegraph Notifying Family and Friends of Olivia’s Passing, June, 1904
Courtesy of The Mark Twain House, Hartford |
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An hour ago, the best heart that ever beat for me and mine went silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands. We are now trying to make plans—we: We who have never made a plan before, nor ever needed to. If she could speak to us she would make it all simple and easy with a word, and our perplexities would vanish away. If she had known she was near to death she would have told us where to go and what to do: but she was not suspecting, neither were we. She was all our riches and she is gone: she was our breath, she was our life, and now we are nothing.—Mark Twain, Letter to R. W. Gilder, 1904
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In Dublin, New Hampshire, 1906
Courtesy of The Mark Twain House, Hartford |
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