19 August 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00335)
Thursday.Ⓐemendation
My child, I w believe you’ll have to be obeyed at last—I don’t see any easy way around it without having your fingers in my hair. And so this at this moment I slash from this morning’s paper everything of mine that is in it. Of course it don’t take ten or twelve hours to write those twenty or thirty pages of MS., dearie, but it tak Ⓐemendation takes a deal of time to skim through a large pile of exchanges, because one gets interested every now & then & stops to read a while if the article looks as if it might be a good thing to copy.1explanatory note And then one is interrupted a good deal by visitersⒶemendation—& there is proof-reading to do, & a great many little things that use up time—but it is an easy, pleasant, delightful situation, & I never liked anything better.2explanatory note I am grateful to Mr. Langdon for thinking of Buffalo with his cool head when we couldn’t think of any place but Cleveland with our hot ones. {Before I forget it, tell him I got his dispatch yesterday, but of course I never could have needed it, for I think Slee would not dare to write & print articles over his name, and I am particularly sure I wouldn’t.}3explanatory note So you see, with all my work I do very little that is visible to the naked eye, & certainly not enough, visible or invisible, to hurt me. I am simply running working late at night in these first days until I get the reporters accustomed & habituated to doing things my way,—after that, a very little watching will keep them up to the mark. I simply want to educate them to modify the adjectives, cut curtailⒶemendation their philosophical reflections & leave out the slang. I have been consulting with the foreman of the news room for two days, & getting him drilled as to how I want the type-settingⒶemendation done—& this morning he has got my plan into full operation, & the paper is vastly improved in appearance. I have annihilated all the glaring thunder-&-lightning headings over the telegraphic news & made that department look quiet & respectable.4explanatory note Once in two months, hereafter, when anything astounding does happen, a grand display of headings will attract immediate attention to it—but where one uses them every day, they soon cease to have any force. We are not astonished to hear a drunken rowdy swear, because he does it on great & trivial occasions alike—but when we hear a staid clergyman rip out an oath, we know it means something.
My own little darling, I clear forgot to write with a pen—forgive me this time & I will be more careful hereafter—I will, Livy.
Tell Charlie I am a very grateful for his cordial family invitation to come, from the head even unto the tail of it—but I cannot tell, until to-morrowⒶemendation, whether I can do it or not.5explanatory note
Your little head is always right, honey. I do find it nearly impossible to keep my newspaper thoughts still on Sunday. But I will try to do better, darling.
I still don’t know whether you get the paper or not—but I know it is sent. I have instructed them to send the WeeklyⒶemendation to Hattie Lewis, also.
Good bye, my darling Livy, whom I love with all my whole heart, & whose spirit presence is never absent from my thoughts, but is the dear companion of my communings morning, noon & night. Peace & blessings & kisses, little sweetheart.
enclosure: 6explanatory note
in ink: Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. return address: if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to postmarked: buffalo Ⓐemendation n. y. aug 19 docketed by OLL: 101st
Signed articles by Mark Twain did not begin appearing in the Buffalo Express until 21 August (see 26 and 27 Sept 69 to Fairbanks, n. 1click to open link). His contributions to the 19 August issue of the paper therefore cannot all be identified. Nevertheless, his remarks here suggest that he assembled the “People and Things” column, mining the Express’s exchanges for items and supplying a few of his own. Probably he also wrote “Inspired Humor” (see note 6).
Express reporter Earl D. Berry recalled Clemens’s first summer in the editorial offices of the newspaper:
The Express occupied the whole of a four story, ramshackle brick building. ... The editorial room was on the third floor front and the city editor’s room was just above it. Each room was unpainted and unadorned—except by cobwebs. The only furniture consisted of cheap wooden tables and chairs and a crude row of bookshelves built against a side wall. In cold weather heat was furnished by old-fashioned coal stoves of the baseburner type. A long table in the center of the editorial room was the only desk accommodation.
Mr. Clemens was a believer in personal comfort while at work. On hot days in particular he cast aside formalities—and a considerable portion of his clothing as well. At the outset he bought a comfortable lounging chair with a writing board hinged on to the arm, and it was no infrequent sight during the summer to find him nestled cosily in that chair, a pipe in his mouth and only a negligee shirt, trousers and socks in evidence as costume. His collar and shoes would most likely be in a waste basket and his hat, coat and waistcoat wherever they chanced to land when he cast them off. (Berry)
Langdon’s dispatch must have asked that his name not be signed to, or invoked in, any Buffalo Express articles about the current controversy over coal prices. Prompted by the belief that the Anthracite Coal Association (comprising three companies, including Langdon’s—see 27 Feb 69 to OLL, n. 4click to open link) was responsible for the high price of coal in Buffalo, residents began in early August to form the Citizen’s Mutual Coal Mining, Purchasing and Sale Company—a cooperative designed to circumvent the alleged “monopoly.” Langdon was evidently less disturbed by this economic threat than by the personal criticisms of him published in newspaper reports of the cooperative movement. The Express, which had not reported these criticisms but had been sympathetic to the citizens’ cause, was about to modify its position: on 20 August Clemens published “The ‘Monopoly’ Speaks,” an editorial noting that “up to the present time we have heard only the people’s side of the coal question, though there could be no doubt that the coal men had a side also.” He directed his readers to a letter, in that day’s issue, from a “gentleman of unimpeachable character,” John D. F. Slee, the “authorized business agent and general salesman of ... ‘the Anthracite Coal Association,’ ... the highest officer in their employ in Buffalo” (SLC 1869 [MT00781]). In his letter Slee urged the Express to reprint a lengthy article from the New York Evening Post which, he said, indicated “how utterly groundless is the charge of ‘extortion’ brought against the so-called monopolists.” (The Express of course complied, also on 20 August.) Slee attributed high prices to the “unreasonable demands of the miners,” who were striking for improved wages and working conditions, demands the Association was resisting “well nigh alone.” He rejected reports that “Mr. Langdon controls most of the coal sent to this market”; denied allegations that Langdon sought to control canals and railroads serving Buffalo; and concluded with a defense of Langdon’s character: “Mr. Langdon needs no encomiums from me, but no man knows him but ranks him as one of the most liberal-minded and high-toned business gentlemen in the State” (Slee). The change in the Express’s views drew pointed comment from a source well aware of the new editor’s personal ties (see 3 Sept 69 to OLLclick to open link, pp. 333–34). Langdon, for his part, was aware of the public relations value of “liberal-minded” gestures. Exactly a week after publishing Slee’s letter, the Express was able to report:
We learn with sincere gratification that Mr. James i.e., Jervis Langdon, of Elmira, has made a voluntary donation of fifty tons of hard coal to the Buffalo General Hospital. Mr. Langdon is a large dealer in coal and ships largely to this city. Although he is wealthy and a member of a corporation, he has a soul of his own and his liberality is not confined to the city in which he resides. This liberal donation so graciously tendered will gladden the hearts of the inmates of the Hospital as the cold Winter comes, and cause them to bless the giver, and the citizens of Buffalo will honor the man who has honored the cause of charity in this city. (“A Liberal Gift to the General Hospital,” 27 Aug 69, 4)
(Buffalo Express: “Cheap Coal,” 4 Aug 69, 4; “Coal,” 12 Aug 69, 4; “The Anthracite Coal Mines,” 20 Aug 69, 2, reprinting the New York Evening Post, 14 Aug 69, 1.)
See the illustrations comparing the front pages of 18 and 19 August:
Charles Langdon’s “family” invitation, probably asking Clemens to Elmira for the weekend of 21–22 August, could have come directly or in a letter from Olivia; no letter from either survives.
None of Clemens’s enclosures from the Buffalo Express of 19 August survive with the letter. The clipping of “Inspired Humor” (SLC 1869 [MT00778]), found separately among the Mark Twain Papers and reproduced here, may have been one of them, however. Clemens corrected “awe-imposing” to “awe-inspiring” in pencil. Probably also enclosed were at least the final two or three paragraphs of the “People and Things” column (SLC 1869 [MT00779]): see Enclosure with 19 August 1869 to Olivia L. Langdonclick to open link.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), is copy-text for the letter. Although no enclosures survive with the letter, a clipping from the Buffalo Express that Clemens may have enclosed— “Inspired Humor,” 19 Aug 69, 2 (SLC 1869 [MT00778])—survives separately in CU-MARK. It is reproduced here in photographic facsimile. See Enclosure with 19 August 1869 to Olivia L. Langdonclick to open link for another possible enclosure.
L3 , 303–309; LLMT , 102–4, without the enclosure; MTMF , 102, brief quotation.
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.