9 January 1868 • Washington, D.C. (MS: NPV and ViU, UCCL 00176)
P.S. The marked paper from one Geo. W. Elliott (I think that was the name) referred to by Pamela, had no marks or writing done by me—don’t you know my handwriting yet? The request was to me to acknowledge the receipt of the paper—that was all. 1explanatory note
That infernal lecture is over, thank Heaven! It came near being a villainous failure. It was not advertised at all. The manager was taken sick yesterday, & the man who was sent to tell me, never got to me till after noon to-day. There was the dickens to pay. It was too late to do anything.—too late to stop the lecture. —I scared up the a door-keeperⒶemendation, & was ready at the proper time, & by pure good luck a tolerably good house assembled & I was saved! I hardyly knew what I was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style. I was to have preached again Saturday night, but I won’t—I can’t get along without a manager.2explanatory note
I have been in New York ever since Christmas, you know, & now I shall have to work like sin to catch up on my correspondence.3explanatory note
And I have to get up that confounded book, too. Cut my letters out of the Alta’s & send them to me in an envelop. Some, here, that are not mailed yet, I shall have to copy, I suppose.4explanatory note
A movement is on foot to keep the present Patent Office man in his place. If it succeeds, I think it will be very well for Orion.5explanatory note
I have got a thousand things to do, & am not doing any of them. I Ⓐemendationfeel perfectly savage.
Mrs. Wm. A. Moffett, | 1312 Chesnut street | St Louis | Mo. postmarked: washington d.c. Ⓐemendation ’68 free and collected Ⓐemendation JAN 10 Ⓐemendation5 P.M. WASH’N, D.C. franked by Clemens: Wm M Stewart | USS
The “marked paper” has not been found, but was presumably an issue of the weekly Fort Plain (N.Y.) Mohawk Valley Register. By the end of 1868 George W. Elliott was an associate editor of this newspaper, and was very likely already connected with it. Although nothing Clemens might have sent to his family has been found in the now-incomplete files of the newspaper, it is likely that the “marked” issue contained a sample of the grandiose praise Elliott later showered on Mark Twain (see 19 and 20 Dec 68 to OLL, n. 11click to open link). Elliott was probably behind one of the unexpected “calls” to lecture which Clemens told Fuller on 13 December 1867 had arrived “lately from N. Y. & Indiana towns.” Clemens did eventually lecture in Fort Plain, in December 1868.
Whatever problems were caused by this unidentified manager (see 8 Jan 68 to JLC and PAM, n. 7click to open link), Clemens also had a conflicting obligation, since he had agreed to respond to one of the toasts at the Washington Newspaper Correspondents’ Club annual banquet on the evening of Saturday, 11 January. By the afternoon or evening of 10 January, he had received still another reason to cancel the second performance. As he explained to the Alta on 11 January, one of the newspapers (the Evening Star) “published a synopsis” of the lecture: “I was sorry for that, although it was so well meant, because one never feels comfortable, afterward, repeating a lecture that has been partly printed; and worse than that, people don’t care about going to hear what they can buy in a newspaper for less money” (SLC 1868).
Clemens wrote two letters to the Enterprise on 10 and 11 January, and two letters to the Alta on 11 and 12 January (SLC 1868, SLC 1868, SLC 1868, SLC 1868).
Although evidently still without a firm commitment from Elisha Bliss (see 24 Jan 68 to JLC and PAMclick to open link), Clemens had begun to write, and to collect his newspaper letters for, The Innocents Abroad.
In December the commissioner of patents, Thomas C. Theaker (1812–83), had been urged to resign “in accordance with the invitation of the President through the Secretary of the Interior,” Orville Browning, who wanted to appoint a “practical mechanic thoroughly acquainted with the various inventions.” Theaker resigned on 13 December (effective 15 January). But shortly after Clemens left for New York, the Star reported, “Strong influence is being brought to bear upon the President to induce him not to accept the resignation.” Clemens evidently thought Orion’s politics would recommend him (for a Patent Office clerkship) more highly to Theaker, a Republican, than to any candidate supported by President Johnson. But one week after Clemens wrote this letter, on 16 January, the president accepted Theaker’s resignation (Washington Evening Star: “Commissioner of Patents,” 10 Dec 67, 1; “Resigned,” 13 Dec 67, 1; “Commissioner of Patents,” 28 Dec 67, 1; “Resignation Accepted,” 16 Jan 68, 1).
MS of letter, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV); MS of envelope, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU). The date in the postmark (‘10’) is badly inked and therefore uncertain: it may be ‘15’ or ‘13’ instead, in which case the envelope would belong to Clemens’s 14 January 1868 letter to JLC and family, or to some other letter, now lost, written on 12 or 13 January.
L2 , 151–153; MTB , 1:356, excerpt; MTL , 1:144–45, without postscript and envelope.
see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 512–14. The envelope was deposited at ViU on 17 December 1963.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.