14 May 1869 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00302)
A natural impulse siezes Ⓐemendation me to write to my darling, every opportunity I get. I suppose I ought to be writing a newspaper letter, but the mood is not with me & I would only fail. But if I fail with Livy, she won’t mind it.
You are the faithfullest little wife that ever a man had. I hardly dared to hope for a letter when I went down town this morning, but there it was—& I felt so grateful to you, dearie. I adjourned to the shade of an elm in the park (glorious, isn’t it, that we seek shade, once more, instead of warm places to shield us from hideous winter?) Bless1explanatory note Ⓐemendation her you, I can see you in the big black chair as distinctly as if I were there. I wish I could touch you. (That word touch is your handwriting—maybe “Sister Crane” was not so far wrong when she fancied a resemblance in our hands.—if there is, I have unconsciously adopted yours.) Take the pen & write “touch.,” Ⓐemendation with your eyes shut.2explanatory note
Uncle Cholley isn’t coming—have just received a telegram. He says he will write & explain.
I wrote an article last night on the “Private Habits of the Siamese Twins.,” & I put a lot of obscure jokes in it on purpose to tangle my little sweetheart.3explanatory note I am not going to explain them, either, you little rascal, because th Ⓐemendation you threw that sarcasm at me. “So there, now.”
Twichell & I, & another preacher or two, & the editor of the “p Post” are to take tea—with Mr. Henry Clay Trumbull, this evening, but you can’t go, on account of that sarcasm.4explanatory note
The printing of the book is let two to two different houses, both large concerns, (so I suppose we are to have more than one set of electrotype plates,) & each is they are to print 10,000 copies each, right away. One paper mill has contrascted to make paper for this Mr. Bliss only all the summer, & drop everything else. The main part of this paper is for my book, & the remainder is for a final edition of Richardson’s “Beyond the Mississippi”—they think the opening of the Pacific R. R. will warrant the effort to sell a new edition.5explanatory note
Bother the California trip!—I can’t hear from the boys in Washington when they propose that we shall start. I must hear within a day or two, though, I suppose, & then I’ll tell Livy. It is splendid to have somebody to tell things to who will take an interest in them. Heretofore, when I was going to California, I told my landlord—& he sent in his bill. That was all he cared about it. Now there is somebody who will care to know when, & how, & all about it., bless her heart.
I a was writing in the supposition that I had written about this before, but I don’t really believe I have. I can’t remember. Anyway, Riley & Young wrote (“New York Tribune”—not J. R. Y., but his brother—& “Alta California”)6explanatory note wrote me from Washington that they are going across the Plains early in June, & wanted me to go with them instead of by sea. I said I liked it & I guessed I would (for they are splendid good jolly company—much better than I would have at sea.) So I told them to appoint the exact day for leaving, & let me know, & the chances were a hundred to one that I would go.
You see, I can’t talk business to the Courant, for Warner is not home yet.7explanatory note I don’t want to talk to the Post people till I am done with the Courant (for cou nothing could be done, inasmuch as I have passed my word that I would not close a bargain with another party without first seeing Hawley again.) But chiefly, the book will possibly make me better known in New England & consequently more valuable to a newspaper—& so that will be good capital to trade on after a little. And finally, I do not want to be idle all the summer—& so, what can I do but go to Cal=? I am writing very cheerfully about it, but I do wish something would turn up to make that fearful trip entirely useless & unnecessary. For I do not want to make it—however, you know that, yourself.
I am ever so much obliged for the notices, my pet. You are the most valuable girl in the world. I never could have kept those Ⓐemendation things, & yet just now it n is very necessary to have them for the Boston lecture agent. I knew I could trust you to scare up some of them; but I was surprised & glad you had so many. This is Friday—I will wait till Monday, (time for your return letter,) & in the meantime, dearie, won’t you look again for that N. Y. Tribune notice? I sent it you in a letter dated at New York the 28th of last November. If you can find that letter, maybe it is in it yet. However, there is no use in looking for dates—shake up all the letters of mine you can find, & if it is in any one of them I guess it will fall out.8explanatory note
But here! this won’t do. While I am writing to the concentrated sun, moon & stars, the time to go to Trumbull’s is almost at hand. Good-bye—& blessings on my Livy darling.
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | New York. postmarked: hartford conn. may 15 docketed by OLL: 69th | touch
“For never-resting time leads summer on / To hideous winter and confounds him there” (Shakespeare, Sonnet V, “Those hours that with gentle work did frame”).
Olivia experimented on the envelope. The result is reproduced here, along with Clemens’s inscription:
SLC:
OLL:
On 18 May Silas S. Packard paid Clemens $25 for “Personal Habits of the Siamese Twins,” which he published in Packard’s Monthly in August (“Mr S. L. Clemens in a/c & Interest a/c with Slote Woodman & Co to August 15. 1869,” CU-MARK; SLC 1869). Clemens reprinted the sketch several times before finally collecting it in Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (1875).
The editor of the Hartford Evening Post was Isaac Hill Bromley (see 21 June 69 to OLL, n. 4click to open link). The Reverend Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903), a resident of Hartford and brother of local historian James Hammond Trumbull (1821–97), was the New England secretary of the American Sunday-School Union, founded in 1817 to promote biblical instruction (Trumbull, 1:171).
The success of the first edition of Albert Deane Richardson’s Beyond the Mississippi (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1867) helped persuade Clemens to publish his own book by subscription ( L2 , 119–21, 125–26, 160). The 1869 “final” edition incorporated new chapters on the history of the transcontinental railroad, which had just been completed (see 10 May 69 to Redpath, n. 7click to open link).
John Henry Riley (1823–72), Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Alta California, shared rooms with Clemens in the capital during the winter of 1867–68. James Rankin Young (1847–1924) was head of the New York Tribune’s Washington bureau. His brother, John Russell Young (1840–99), was within five days of resigning as managing editor of the Tribune, the result of alleged misconduct (“Death of Col. J. Henry Riley,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 Sept 72, 2; L2 , 110 n. 6, 196 n. 1; Broderick, 127–28; Duncan, 38–39).
Charles Dudley Warner, co-editor of the Hartford Courant, did not return from Europe until June (see 21 June 69 to OLL, n. 3click to open link).
On 28 November 1868 Clemens had sent Olivia a letter enclosing notices of his 6 May 1867 Sandwich Islands lecture in New York City, preserved for him by his agent, Frank Fuller. (This letter was memorable to Clemens not only for its enclosures, but because it was the first he wrote to Olivia after their informal engagement.) Among the reviews was “Mark Twain as a Lecturer” (New York Tribune, 11 May 67, 2; in L2 , 417–19), by Edward H. House, whom Clemens identified as “the most eminent dramatic critic in the Union” ( L2 , 291). Clemens must have requested the Tribune review in the letter (now lost) he wrote to Olivia on 10 May (see 10 May 69 to Redpath, n. 2click to open link). She may never have located this notice; at least James Redpath (“the Boston lecture agent”) did not use it in his advertising circular (see Boston Lyceum Bureau Advertising Circularclick to open link).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L3 , 227–230; LLMT 358–59, brief paraphrase.
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.