21 August 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00339)
Darling, it is 9 o’clock, now, & you are aware that there are no kisses for us to-night.1explanatory note I feel more than half sorry I do didⒶemendation did not go to you, for I have not succeeded in doing the mass of work I had laid out for myself, for sitting up so late last night has kept me stupiefied all day. It is the last time I shall be out of bed at midnightⒶemendation. And this night I mean to catch up. I shall be in bed, Puss, before your dainty little figure is tucked between your sheets, this evening. Bless your precious heart, I wish I could see you. I am afraid this is going to be a pretty long week, without a glimpse of my darling. But then (D. V.,) I shall put my arms about you next Friday evening & stay till Monday morning. You see I ought to be at my post by 8 o’clock every morning, & fresh—which I wouldnt so I would have to return on Saturday night—& that was partly why I put off my visit this week. But Larned says don’t bother about that—he will do the work of both of us from 3 5 Ⓐemendation 3 P.M. Satu Friday till Monday noon whenever I want to go to Elmira—which is equivalent to getting out two editions of the paper alone.2explanatory note He is not a very bad fellow.
McWilliams & I went down to the Lake after supper & had a row. I needed the exercise.
His wife sorts out my soiled linen, takes a list of it, delivers it to the washerwoman in my absence, returns it again & attends to the settlement of the bill—& Mac tells me she will cheerfully do me do any mending I may need. She is a very excellent little youngⒶemendation lady, & I like her very much.3explanatory note much. Thanks Ⓐemendation Thanks to my darling’s busy fingers, however, I haven’t any mending to do., at present.
Among the books sent us to review was one called “Wedlock,” which I siezedⒶemendation & read, intending to mark it & take it to you, but it was nothing but a mass of threadbare old platitudes & maudlin advice shoveled together without rhyme or reason, & so I threw it away & told Larned to embody that opinion in his notice (he was reviewing the books.)4explanatory note
I wrote Redpath to-day, asking him to let me off entirely from lecturing in New England ne this season, for if I would rather scribble, now, while I take a genuine interest in it, & it I am so tired of wandering, & want to be still & rest.
That thief that wrote about the dead canary & sends me so much execrable music5explanatory note has found me out & is writing publishing extravagant puffs of me & mailing the papers to me, duly marked, as usual.6explanatory note I shall offer a bounty for his scalp, yet. He is one of the most persistent & exasperating acquaintances I was ever afflicted with. 7explanatory note
Larned & I sit upon opposite sides of the same table & it is exceedingly convenient—for if you will remember, you sometimes write till you reach the middleⒶemendation of a subject & then run hard aground—you know what you want to say, but for the life of you you can’t say—your ideas & your words get thick & sluggish & you are vanquished. So occasionally, after biting our nails & scratching our heads awhile, we s just reach over & swap manuscript—& then we scribble away without the least trouble, he finishing my article & I his. Some of our patch-work editorials are of this kind are all the better for the new life they get by crossing the breed.
Little dearie, little darling, in a few minutes, after I shall have read a Testament lesson & prayed for us both, as usual, I shall be in bed. And I shall dream, both before & after I go to sleep, of the little flower that has sprung up in the desert beside me & shed its fragrance over my life & made its ways attractive with its beauty and turned its weariness to contentment with itsⒶemendation sweet spirit. And I shall bless you, my darling, out of the fulness of a heart that knows your worth beyond the ken of any, even those that have been with you always; & out of the depths of a gratitude that owes to you the knowledge of what light is, where darkness was, & peace where turbulence reigned, & the beauty & majesty of love where a lovelinessⒶemendation soul sat in its rags before & held out its unheeded hand for charity. BetterⒶemendation than ot Ⓐemendation all others I understand you & appreciate you, for this it is the prerogative of love to attain to alone, & therefore better than all others I can love you, & do love you, & shall love you, always, my Livy.
Good night darling—& peaceful slumbers refresh you & ministering angels attend you.
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. return address: if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to postmark, hand corrected at post office: buffalo n. y. aug 23 22 docketed by OLL: 104th | E | Express | Es E Ex | Express | Express | Espress
Presumably Clemens had written, or telegraphed, Olivia on Friday, 20 August—two missing letters, docket numbers 102 and 103, might have been written that day—to tell her that, work permitting, he would arrive in Elmira on Saturday evening, but not to expect him if he were not there by 9:00 p.m. (He had already disappointed her by not arriving on Friday: see 20 and 21 Aug 69 to PAMclick to open link.)
The Saturday and Monday editions. The Express did not publish on Sunday (Rowell, 66).
John James McWilliams (1842–1912), of Cornwall on Hudson, New York, was a graduate of the State Normal College at Albany. In 1860 he had moved to Elmira, where he worked in the First National Bank and then for J. Langdon and Company. Recently he had transferred to Langdon’s Buffalo office, where he was a bookkeeper. McWilliams and his wife, Esther (“Essie”) Keeler Norton McWilliams, of Elmira, were newlyweds, having married in Elmira on 24 June 1869. (Later they had a son and a daughter, Shirrell and Mary.) Like Clemens, the McWilliamses lived at the boarding house maintained by Mrs. J. C. Randall at 39 Swan Street, within two blocks of the Buffalo Express offices at 14 East Swan Street. Clemens gave their name to the fictional couple—based principally on himself and Olivia—whom he first portrayed in “The Experience of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup,” in Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (1875) (Reigstad 1989, 3–4; “Mentions,” “Married,” Elmira Advertiser, 25 June 69, 4; “J. J. M’Williams’s Busy Life Ended by Pneumonia,” Buffalo Courier, 12 June 1912, 7; Buffalo Directory, 170, 381, 513; Reese).
Wedlock; or, The Right Relations of the Sexes: Disclosing the Laws of Conjugal Selection, and Showing Who May, and Who May Not Marry was written and published in 1869 by Samuel Roberts Wells, editor and publisher of the American Phrenological Journal. Larned wrote: “Its contents are about one-third good sense, one-third bosh, and the other third dead wood stuff for filling out the volume. The sensible portion, moreover, is as old in the knowledge of mankind as Adam and Eve. On the whole, we are afraid we can’t speak highly of the work” (Larned 1869).
“The Dead Canary,” by George W. Elliott (see 5–10 Mar 69 to Elliottclick to open link), was a lyric about a bird named Lillie who expires from sorrow after her two eggs are “crushed” by “sad mishap” and “mysterious fate.” Widely reprinted (for example, in the Elmira Advertiser, on 21 May 1869, 4), its final verse ran:
Ye murderers, unawed by fear, Who bend at Herod’s crimson shrine!— Turn once a scaleless vision here, And view this lifeless bird of mine: Then in your hell-born purpose pause! Forsake the path so reckless trod; Lest, while ye scoff at Nature’s laws, Ye feel the withering curse of God! (Elliott 1869 [bib11244])Elliott had been sending Clemens copies of his lyrics, including his latest, “The Blush Rose,” which he had published, along with a complete list of his songs (all set to music by others), on 6 August in the Fort Plain (N.Y.) Mohawk Valley Register. Clemens may have thought Elliott a “thief” because several of the listed titles seemed suspiciously derivative: “Banks of the Genessee,” “Columbia, Queen of the Land,” “Carrie, with the Golden Hair,” “Allie, the Blue-Eyed Blonde,” and “The Sweet Good Night” (Elliott 1869 [bib11245]).
Elliott published two “extravagant puffs” in the 20 August Mohawk Valley Register:
—Saml. L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”) has bought an interest in the Buffalo Express. We welcome “Mark Twain” to our ranks as a needed accession to journalistic jollity; but it is to be regretted that he did not have a little more time for preparation. His personal safety would have been subserved by the erection of an iron building, thoroughly braced and girded, for an office. Now, his life will remain in perpetual peril, because the constant cachinnatory explosions inside and outside the establishment, from those whose sense of propriety and humanity will be lost in their risible overflow, will cause the very walls of the building to topple till they fall! (Elliott 1869 [bib11246])
When “Mark Twain” announced his intention to finish his book and leave for California, we feared that his fair fame would be forever blasted. It seemed as though he were apprehensive of the disastrous consequences of his book; and like experienced railroad men who, hearing a short, sharp whistle from the locomotive, prepare for some impending danger, he was anxious to seek a place of safety, remote from the scene of ruin he had wrought. We had personally seen the almost fatal effects of his “Jumping Frog.” We once read a sketch from it to a circle of friends, and before we had finished, their eyes looked as though they had been weeping over the loss of all they had in the world. They held their sides and groaned aloud with pain. We read another sketch, and it finished them for the time, as completely as though they had all been stricken down with paralysis. The result was, they each had to be carefully carried home on a furlough by their friends!
We knew that the present work would be voluminous, and we trembled for the result. Happily the publishers hit upon a plan of letting the book out gradually, through an army of agents, who were to be instructed to caution people of delicate constitutions in regard to its powerful effect. Finally, the business of distribution was so admirably arranged, that “Mark Twain” concluded to settle down on the Buffalo Express; to remain and stand the consequences, be they what they might—even though the book should be the substantial building of his fortune and his fame!
For us to even name the varied contents of “The Innocents Abroad,” would be to throw our readers into a violent qui vive, from which they would, perhaps, never recover! The work will not be for sale at the bookstores, because it would be dangerous to people to have it lying around loose. It can be obtained only of the regularly appointed agents, and should be read sparingly, at first. It will cause the lean to grow fat, the weak to wax strong, the blind to open their eyes, and the dolefully delirious to dance with joy! Buy it, by all means! Have the necessary sum awaiting in your wallet, stowed securely away in your porte monnaies, or carefully concealed in the corners of your handkerchiefs. Buy it, and you will bless “Mark Twain” to the end of your existence. Its mirthful memories will shed a halo of happiness around your pathway and over your declining years, like the mellow hues of a golden sunset around the rock-ribbed, snow-capped, cloud-enveloped Sierras of the West! (Elliott 1869 [bib11247])
Clemens and Bliss repeatedly quoted only the penultimate sentence from the second “puff” in their advertising materials for Innocents (“Advertising Supplement,” Buffalo Express, 9 Oct 69, 2; APC 1869, 2, and 1870, 2).
On 26 August Clemens attempted, unsuccessfully, to placate his persecutor with a noncommittal paragraph in the Buffalo Express. Around the same time he also sent him a not entirely complimentary letter (see 6 and 7 Sept 69 to OLLclick to open link, nn. 2 and 6).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L3 , 316–320; LLMT , 104–6.
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.