To Jane Lampton Clemens and Family
12 July 1867 • Marseilles, France (MS: NPV, UCCL 00140)
I should think you would feel mighty rascally now to let me go away without that picture. All right, my dear. I am coming back to Paris before long & when I do the Grand Hotel du Louvre will not be big enough to hold both of—
My Dear Folks—I started to write to Lily Hitchcock of San Francisco, (she is in Paris) but this hotel is out of paper & I shall have to let her go by till some other time.1explanatory note I promised her & Etta Booth & Mrs Fre Ferris Ⓐemendation& Mrs John B Winters & I don’t know how many more, to meet them at the Grand Hotel yesterday morning at 9 when I knew perfectly well I woould Ⓐemendationbe on my way to Marseilles by that time.2explanatory note How the world is given to lying!3explanatory note
We had a gorgeous time in Paris. It isn’t any use to try to say anything about it—I am only writing to let you know I am well.
Oh, confound it, I can’t write—I am full of excitement—have to make a trip in the harbor—haven’t slept for 24 hours.
Jackson, Slote, and Clemens again stayed at the Grand Hôtel du Louvre et de la Paix in Marseilles on the night of 12 July after returning from Paris, where they had been since 6 July. In Paris they had stayed at the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, a “huge, palatial edifice” of seven hundred rooms on the Rue de Rivoli between the Louvre and the Palais Royal (Baedeker 1872, 4). Eliza (Lillie) Wychie Hitchcock (1843–1929), a famous San Francisco belle, was in Paris with her mother, the former Martha Hunter of North Carolina (1818–99). Lillie was well known for her independent spirit and unconventional behavior. According to one contemporary, with her “brilliant accomplishments and personal graces” she “would entertain at one time a circle of twenty gentlemen” (Ellet, 451). During the Civil War, Lillie’s father insisted that she and her mother spend a large part of each year in Paris, fearing that their Southern sympathies might lead to accusations of treason—and perhaps even the confiscation of the family property in the South. In 1862 Lillie became the Paris correspondent of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, and by 1867 her detailed and well-informed “Letter from Paris | from our lady correspondent.” appeared almost weekly. The firemen of San Francisco’s Knickerbocker Engine Company Number Five made her an honorary member in 1863, because of her enthusiastic interest in fire fighting and her many kindnesses to them (Green, 1, 6, 19, 45; Holdredge, 12, 140–42, 156–58, 217–18). Clemens had known her since 1864, when he and the Hitchcocks were living at the Occidental Hotel. In January 1869, two months after Lillie had eloped with fellow San Franciscan Howard Coit, Clemens recalled that when he “saw the family in Paris, Lily had just delivered the mitten to a wealthy Italian Count, at her mother’s request (Mrs. H. said Lily loved him,)” (Green, 26–27; SLC to OLL, 13 and 14 Jan 69click to open link, CU-MARK, in LLMT , 51).
Etta Booth was probably the daughter of Lucius A. Booth of Virginia City, proprietor of the Winfield Mill and Mining Company (Kelly, 161, 175; Angel, 274). Replying to a letter from her in 1877, Clemens recalled, “I first saw you in Virginia City. It was at a ball ... & you were a child then—8 years of age, I think” (SLC to Etta Booth, 10 Sept 77click to open link, CU-MARK). In April 1906, having just encountered her by accident on the streets of New York City, Clemens recalled the Virginia City ball in more detail, placing the event at “the beginning of the winter of 1862” and estimating her age at the time as thirteen:
There were two or three hundred stalwart men present and dancing with cordial energy. And in the midst of the turmoil Etta’s crimson frock was swirling and flashing; and she was the only dancer of her sex on the floor.... Half of the men represented ladies, and they had a handkerchief tied around the left arm so that they could be told from the men. I did not dance with Etta, for I was a lady myself. I wore a revolver in my belt, and so did all the other ladies—likewise the gentlemen. (AD, 6 Apr 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA , 2:326–27)
Mrs. Leonard W. Ferris was another Nevada acquaintance. Her husband was probate judge of Storey County in 1861–64, and Clemens stayed with the Ferrises for a time in 1863 after his Virginia City hotel was destroyed by fire. On 18 February 1867 he wrote the Alta that Mrs. Ferris and her daughter were “so-journing” in New York before sailing for France in the City of Paris (SLC to JLC and PAM, 5 Aug 63click to open link, L1 , 261–63; SLC 1867). Mrs. John B. Winters, also visiting Paris without her husband, was another Nevada friend, whom Clemens described as “the very image of Pamela.” Her husband was a prominent Nevada businessman, active in mining and milling (SLC to JLC and PAM, 4 June 63click to open link, L1 , 257; Doten, 2:933; ET&S2 , 488).
Falstaff’s lament in King Henry IV, Part I, act 5, scene 4: “Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!“
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
L2 , 72–73; MTBus , 93–94, including a complete photofacsimile following 98.
see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 512–14.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.