The Mark Twain House
My travels following the Princeton hockey team took me to the Nutmeg State last weekend, to see a pair of games at the University of Connecticut. Since I had a hole in my schedule on Saturday afternoon, I took a short ride into Hartford to see the Mark Twain House and, since it was right next door, the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.
Twain had the house built in the 1870s. It is a grand, spacious Victorian mansion, but he didn't build it with funds earned from his popular novels, as he hadn't written any of them yet. When I asked the tour guide how he could afford such a place, he bluntly told me that Twain (Sam Clemens his real name, of course) "married well." His wife Olivia was the daughter of the richest man in Elmira, New York, but the couple moved to Hartford to be near his publishing company. He was also pleased to be able to live next door to Stowe, who was one of the heroes of those sympathetic to abolitionist causes.
Twain would live in the house for 17 years and write his greatest works there, at a desk in the third-floor billiards room (the desk and table are still there--many of the furnishings had to be hunted down and reacquired, as financial disaster prompted Twain to sell off many of his furnishings). His three daughters lived there as well, but two of them, along with his wife, predeceased him, so there are melancholy aspects to the home as well. But touring through the house you do get the whimsical sense of the man.
Out back of the house is a large visitor's center built about five years ago. It is home to a pair of galleries, a theater that shows a short film by Ken Burns, and a gift shop (I bought a copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is much smaller, and the tour took only about twenty minutes. She, of course, wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was an incendiary piece of literature that served as one of the instigators for the Civil War, as it stoked abolitionist fervor. Stowe was an old woman when she lived in the house, and it is still has that aura of grandma's house. She wrote many other novels, of which I was not aware, but is known only for the one, and since I have never read it, I bought a copy of it in the gift shop.
As for the hockey games, they were two ties, 0-0 and 1-1, so there certainly wasn't much scoring. The Princeton club is playing excellent defense and controlled much of the action, but just couldn't get the puck into the net, though they were hitting posts and had many great chances. This weekend they play a home set against conference rivals Yale and Brown, which are must wins if they hope to get home ice during the playoffs.
Twain had the house built in the 1870s. It is a grand, spacious Victorian mansion, but he didn't build it with funds earned from his popular novels, as he hadn't written any of them yet. When I asked the tour guide how he could afford such a place, he bluntly told me that Twain (Sam Clemens his real name, of course) "married well." His wife Olivia was the daughter of the richest man in Elmira, New York, but the couple moved to Hartford to be near his publishing company. He was also pleased to be able to live next door to Stowe, who was one of the heroes of those sympathetic to abolitionist causes.
Twain would live in the house for 17 years and write his greatest works there, at a desk in the third-floor billiards room (the desk and table are still there--many of the furnishings had to be hunted down and reacquired, as financial disaster prompted Twain to sell off many of his furnishings). His three daughters lived there as well, but two of them, along with his wife, predeceased him, so there are melancholy aspects to the home as well. But touring through the house you do get the whimsical sense of the man.
Out back of the house is a large visitor's center built about five years ago. It is home to a pair of galleries, a theater that shows a short film by Ken Burns, and a gift shop (I bought a copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is much smaller, and the tour took only about twenty minutes. She, of course, wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was an incendiary piece of literature that served as one of the instigators for the Civil War, as it stoked abolitionist fervor. Stowe was an old woman when she lived in the house, and it is still has that aura of grandma's house. She wrote many other novels, of which I was not aware, but is known only for the one, and since I have never read it, I bought a copy of it in the gift shop.
As for the hockey games, they were two ties, 0-0 and 1-1, so there certainly wasn't much scoring. The Princeton club is playing excellent defense and controlled much of the action, but just couldn't get the puck into the net, though they were hitting posts and had many great chances. This weekend they play a home set against conference rivals Yale and Brown, which are must wins if they hope to get home ice during the playoffs.
I've spent the last couple of weeks going through each and every one of your blog entries (as you can see I'm up to January '08). I have to tell you it's been an enjoyable journey, porn stars and all! Our cultural tastes are just about the same -- though since I've been married for 15 years I have less time to hang around the cinema and to read and to go to hockey games. But for instance, I've been to the Mark Twain House twice, and when I saw your entry about this, the commonality resonates. Even though I'm positive that "God" exists and you apparently don't, I believe we are kindred spirits. Good work.
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