3 December 1876 • New York, N.Y. (MS, correspondence card, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01391)
(SUPERSEDED)
Livy darling, I love you more than I can tell—on a card of this size, or any other.
Dined with those leddy-hets last night till 12, then went to bed. It was a delicious
dinner. I have but this moment got out of bed. Used no whisky or other liquor to sleep
on—was utterly tired out.1explanatory note
Osgood was in 2 hours ago. Am looking for Harte, now.2explanatory note
Mrs. T. B. Aldrich called—shall go presently & return it. With
vast love.
enclosure:
newspaper clipping simulated line-by-line, underlined by SLC:
There was certainly a touch of cynicism in
the advice he once gave Dr. Mackay, to the fol-
lowing effect: “From your position as a
journalist,” he said, “you will in all proba-
bility be very often bored by foolish people,
who
will send you books of verse, which they
will consider poetry, (ninety-nine persons out
of a hundred scarcely know the
difference,)
with a view of extorting your favorable opinion.
Never allow a day to pass without
acknowledging the receipt of the book, thank-
ing them for their courtesy, and saying that
‘you
anticipate much pleasure in the perusal.’ ”
He had acted upon this plan himself, he said,
for many years, and had found much comfort
and relief from it.
in left margin of clipping: Coincidence3explanatory note
in ink: Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn return address: st. james hotel. broadway and 26th street, new york. postmarked: new-york e dec 3 4 pm
Nothing is known of Clemens’s dinner with the unidentified “leddy-hets” (his daughter Clara’s pronunciation of “leatherheads”). He was staying at the St. James Hotel in New York (“Arrivals at the Hotels,” New York Times, 3 Dec 76, 2).
To confer about Ah Sin (see 20 Dec 76 to Perkinsclick to open link).
The clipping was an excerpt from the New York Times’s 3 December 1876 review of Forty Years’ Recollections of Life, Literature, and Public Affairs, a memoir by the Scottish poet and journalist Charles Mackay (1814–89) (“New Publications,” 10; Mackay 1877). The author of this advice was the English banker and poet Samuel Rogers (1763–1855). Clemens’s “Coincidence” indicates that it was his own strategy as well: for an example, see 19 Oct 76 to Unidentifiedclick to open link.
MicroML, reel 4.
See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.