HARTFORD MANSION

To us our house was not unsentient matter--it had a heart & a soul & eyes to see us with, & approvals & solicitudes & deep sympathies; it was of us, & we were in its confidence, & lived in its grace & in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did
not light up & speak out its eloquent welcome--& we could not enter it unmoved.
- Letter to Joseph Twichell, quoted in Mark Twain: A Biography

...combination Mississippi River steamboat and cuckoo clock.
- quote attributed to Clemens by Friedrich Eckstein in Our Famous Guest, Dolmetsch

It wouldn't do to call it "mongrel" for that would be offensive to some. I guess we'll call it "eclectic"--the word describes everything that can't be otherwise described.
- interview "Mark Twain Encountered," New York Herald, Dec. 8, 1884

Photo of Hartford home, 1800s from
Dave Thomson collection

Hartford mansion as it looks today.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Bochynski.