19 July 1866 • Honolulu, Sandwich Islands (The Friend, 1 Aug 66, UCCL 00104)
Rev. Mr. ⒶemendationDamon:1explanatory note—Dear Sir—I return herewith the last book I borrowed, with many thanks for its use and for all your kindness. I take your Jarves’ History with me, because I may not be able to get it at home.2explanatory note I “cabbage” it by the strong arm, for fear you might refuse to part with it if I asked you. This is a case of military necessity, and is therefore admissableⒶemendation. The honesty of the transaction may be doubtful, but the policy of it is sound—sound as the foundation upon which the imperial greatness of America rests.
So just hold on a bit. I will send the book back within a month, or soon after I arrive.3explanatory note
Samuel Chenery Damon (1815–85) was pastor of the Oahu Bethel Church and chaplain of the Honolulu American Seamen’s Friend Society. Since 1843 he had published and edited The Friend: A Monthly Journal, Devoted to Temperance, Seamen, Marine and General Intelligence. Clemens became friendly with Damon and for “part of his sojourn . . . roomed on the corner of Fort Street and Chaplain Lane next to the Damon home” (Damon, 61). This gave him easy access to the chaplain and his large library, important sources of information about the Sandwich Islands (see N&J1 , 199–203, 215). Damon prefaced Clemens’s letter with these words: “This noted correspondent of the Sacramento Union, has left for the coast, but we may expect he will continue to write about the islands and people. On his departure, he sent us the following epistle.”
Clemens was preparing to depart from Honolulu aboard the clipper Smyrniote, which sailed the day he wrote this letter (“Passengers,” Honolulu Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 21 July 66, 2). The borrowed book was the third edition of History of the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: Charles Edwin Hitchcock, 1847), by James Jackson Jarves (1818–88), a journalist, historian, art critic, and art collector. It was this edition that Clemens used in writing his Sandwich Islands letters to the Sacramento Union, the final eight of which were not published until after his return to San Francisco on 13 August (see MTH , 256, 365–420). In 1884 Clemens used the second edition of Jarves’s book—History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844)—while trying to write a Sandwich Islands novel (see N&J1 , 103–5). That copy survives in the Mark Twain Papers (CU-MARK).
“We sincerely wish that all who borrow books were equally conscientious,” Damon remarked following the letter. “May this remind others who have books in their possession belonging to our Sanctum, to return them instanter.” It was not until 20 May 1867, however, that Clemens could report: “I am growing more worthy every day. I have mailed to Father Damon, in the Sandwich Islands, the Hawaiian History I stole from him” (SLC 1867, 1). In the meantime, his theft provoked some chaffing in the Hawaiian press (see MTH , 156–63).
“‘Mark Twain,’ at the Confessional!” The Friend 17 n.s. (1 Aug 66): 65.
L1 , 349–350; MTH , 156.
unknown.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.