No letters written between 31 March and 19 April 1872 have been found. Mary Mason Fairbanks wrote to Olivia soon after her return to Cleveland, fondly recalling the three children she had enjoyed seeing in Elmira: newborn Susy; her brother, Langdon; and their cousin Julie, Charles and Ida Langdon’s daughter, then just four months old.
Cleveland April 1st/72
My Dear Livy
I have had you and your little kittens in my mind all the morning, and the impulse has just seized me, to sit down before I take up my sewing, and tell you two or three of my thoughts. First and foremost I have an unconquerable yearning to hold your babies, and cuddle them. That however seems out of question—I am glad I have seen you and them. Mollie and I talk of you all. She seems infatuated with the children, and has given Allie a most minute and graphic account of the three. How I do wish it was the fashion to travel in balloons—or better still that I was one of the ‘genii’ of Arabian days—I’d have you all spread around here before you knew anything about it. It is such a pleasant, funny dream to me—this quartette of yours. I think of something each day, which I would have said—or some question I would have asked—But sometime when you are strong and the children clamor to come to Cleveland, then we will say all that must remain unsaid till then. I suppose it would be counted barbarism to suggest that a trip might benefit you, leaving the babies to grow larger. I tried to say that to you. I wish your physician & nurse would prescribe it.
Another suggestion I wanted to make, or rather a request—that you send your “Youth” to recuperate a few days, and get him out of your way. It seemed to me that he was just ready to have ague, and wanted the tonic of open air. The spring is coming to us now freighted with freshness—Willie Gaylord says nothing so rejuvenates him as a day and a night at “Fair Banks”—If Samuel Clemens will come now, anytime, I will engage Will to play Billiards with him, and give him the range of the fifteen acres—If he gets blue we’ll read to him from “Roughing it.”
Tell him I want to talk with him when he is making a plan for his new book. I read two or three elegant extracts yesterday to Mr. F. from Holmes “Poet at the Breakfast Table”—and he said “that sounds like Clemens in his best moods.” I’m just crazy to have him write one book of polite literature—I want him to show the world more of his rich, brilliant imaginings.
But I never make one of these suggestions, without feeling as if perhaps you both wondered at my Partington presumption. Of course you cannot write to me now, but your husband can be your amanuensis.
Mollie said the evening we rode away from your house, “I love everybody in that house.” So do I.
Mother Fairbanks
“Partington presumption” probably refers to Benjamin P. Shillaber’s garrulous and opinionated Mrs. Partington, rather than Sydney Smith’s Dame Partington (Hart 1983, 688).
By 11 April Clemens was able to take a respite from family life, for on 12 April the New York Tribune noted his presence at the Astor House (where David Ross Locke was a fellow guest). He probably made the trip with his brother-in-law, Charles Langdon, who was sailing for England on 13 April (and would remain abroad until July), although Langdon registered at the St. Nicholas Hotel. Clemens joined Langdon at the St. Nicholas on 12 April, and presumably saw him off the next day. He may also have been able to see Joseph Twichell, who had planned to arrive in the city on Tuesday, 9 April (19–22 Mar 72 to the Twichells, n. 1click to open link). Clemens was again reported at the Astor House on 16 April, indicating, perhaps, that he had left the city and returned. If so, he might have gone to Hartford to consult his lawyer, Charles Perkins, about his royalty dispute with Bliss (see 20 Mar 72 to Bliss {draft}, n. 2click to open link). He must have remained in New York no more than another day or two before making the ten-hour trip back to Elmira (“Morning Arrivals,” New York Evening Express, 12, 13, and 17 Apr 72, 3; New York Tribune: “Prominent Arrivals,” 12 Apr 72 and 17 Apr 72, 8; “Passengers Sailed,” 15 Apr 72, 2; “Personal,” New York World, 13 Apr 72, 7; “Going to Europe,” Elmira Advertiser, 9 Apr 72, 4; 19–22 Mar 72 to the Twichells, n. 1click to open link; Langdon, Jr.).