25 August 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y. (Sales catalog: Samuel T. Freeman and Co., 23 March 1936,
lot 68; and transcript by Albert Bigelow Paine:
CU-MARK, UCCL 00340)
Thank you heartily for all your good wishes—& you must accept of mine in return.1explanatory note I have written Bret that we must have the “Overland”—Ⓐemendationsee that he sends it, will you?2explanatory note
YouⒶemendation speak of Mr. Stebbins. He came within an ace of breaking off my marriage by saying to the gentleman instructed by “her” father to call on him and inquire into my character, that “Clemens is a humbug—shallow &Ⓐemendation superficial—a man who has talent, no doubt, but will make a trivial &Ⓐemendation possibly a worse use of it—a man whose life promised little &Ⓐemendation has accomplished less—a humbug, Sir, a humbug.” That was the spirit of the remarks—I have forgotten the precise language.3explanatory note It was not calculated to helpⒶemendation my case in an old, proud & honored family who are rigidly upright & without reproach themselves, & would necessarily be chary of strangers who were deliberately pronounced “humbugs” by high ecclesiastical authorityⒶemendation. The friends IⒶemendation had referred to in California said with one accord that I got drunk oftener than was necessary, &Ⓐemendation that I was wild, &Ⓐemendation godlessⒶemendation, idle, lecherous &Ⓐemendation a discontented &Ⓐemendation unsettledⒶemendation rover & they could not recommend any girl of high character & social position to marry me—but as I had already said all that about myself beforehand there was nothing shocking or surprising about it to the family4explanatory note —but I had never said I was a humbug, & I had never expected anybody who knew me to say it—& consequently there was a dark & portentous time for a while—till at lastⒶemendation the young lady said she had thought it all over deliberately & did not believe it, & would not believe it if an archangel had spoken it—& since then there has not been flaw or ripple upon my course of true love & it does run smoothly & always will—no fear about that.
About lecturing. The only way to do it is to get into “the field”—the regular lyceum field. Individual enterprise cannot but fail—even NasbyⒶemendation cannot lecture on his own hook, as I do in California.5explanatory note James Redpath, 20 Bromfield Street, Boston, commands the New England lyceums & makes appointments for lecturers & lays out their routes for them for 10 percent on the fees. His lecturers get from $50 to $200 a night, according to their popularity. A man must be known & well known—though a decided hit made in Boston will topple all the other New England bricks to the earth. Such a hit the subscriber would have made there on the 10th of next November, but I have written to cancel all my engagements for this year. And I have done the same with the West—all the West is in the hands of the “Secretary of the A.W.L.S., Ann Arbor, Mich.”6explanatory note I do not talk for less than $100 a night, the N.Y. Evening Post to the contrary notwithstandingⒶemendation. The lecture “season” proper, begins Nov. 1 & closes Feb. 28—21 months, & is worth to me $10,000—never less, & can easily be made more—I have the run of all the fields.
You are too late for this year. What you need to do is to tackle Redpath & that other fellow (the latter charges no percentage, but is paid by the massed societies & is their servant) as early as next May & get on their lists. Popular lecturers are hard to get, in the west—& I love to lecture there. If you make a hit there you’ve a good livelihood before you always afterward. Next year I shall enter the field again east & west, & for the last time. I shall use my old first lecture on the Sandwich Islands, but that will not in the least interfere with you, for it is a topic that has seldom or never been used—in fact it will be all the better for you if I should kick up an interest in the subject (& I will.)7explanatory note Write the two men I have spoken of—they are the ones to make you or break you, the first time. If you make a hit, they will go for you, afterward. I am not yet formally released from my New England crusade, but they must release me—I must rush this newspaper for a while & make it whiz.
I told publishers to send books to you & Bret.
In a thundering hurry,
Du Chaillu, with all his puffing, is not required to lecture a second time in western towns—he failsⒶemendation with his first broadside—ditto Billings.
The present text, notes, and apparatus supersede those previously published in L3, 320–21. L3’s version is available hereclick to open link.
The letter that Clemens answered does not survive. Stoddard, whom he had known since 1864 or 1865, must have sent congratulations on the publication, in late July, of The Innocents Abroad , and possibly on Clemens’s coming marriage as well (1 Aug 69 to Blissclick to open link, n. 1; 23 Apr 67 to Stoddardclick to open link, n. 1).
Stoddard was a frequent contributor of poetry and prose to the San Francisco Overland Monthly, edited since its inception in the summer of 1868 by Bret Harte (23 Jun 68 to Blissclick to open link, n. 1). Clemens’s letter to Harte has not been recovered, but his high regard for the Overland Monthly is clear from a report he sent to the San Francisco Alta California in July 1869:
The Eastern press are unanimous in their commendation of your new magazine. Every paper and every periodical has something to say about it, and they lavish compliments upon it with a heartiness that is proof that they mean what they say. Even the Nation, that is seldom satisfied with anything, takes frequent occasion to demonstrate that it is satisfied with the Overland. And every now and then, it and the other critical reviews of acknowledged authority, take occasion to say that Bret Harte’s sketch of the “Luck of Roaring Camp” is the best prose magazine article that has seen the light for many months on either side of the ocean. They never mention who wrote the sketch, of course (and I only guess at it), for they do not know. The Overland keeps its contributors’ names in the dark. Harte’s name would be very familiar in the land but for this. However, the magazine itself is well known in high literary circles. I have heard it handsomely praised by some of the most ponderous of America’s literary chiefs; and they displayed a complimentary and appreciative familiarity with Harte’s articles, and those of Brooks, Sam. Williams, Bartlett, etc. (SLC 1869)
It was in its issue of 13 May 1869 that the Nation had called “The Luck of Roaring Camp” possibly “the best prose magazine article that has appeared in this country for many years” (Nation 8:376, in Barnett 1980, 4). Harte evidently did arrange for the Overland Monthly to be sent to the Buffalo Express: on 13 September the paper reprinted most of his incisive comments on Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s The Gates Ajar (1868) from the current issue (Harte 1869, 293–94). It was likely Clemens himself who observed that the “book notices of the Overland Monthly, of San Francisco, have achieved a celebrity which is great in America and still greater in England, as models of piquancy, critical analysis and felicitous English” (SLC 1869). For Noah Brooks, Samuel Williams, and William Chauncey Bartlett, see 2? Mar 67 to the Proprietors of the Alta Californiaclick to open link, n. 1; 24 Jan 68 to JLC and PAMclick to open link, n. 12; 14 Apr 68 to Samuel Williamsclick to open link, n. 1; 29 Dec 68 to Jervis Langdonclick to open link, n. 7.
For other accounts of the remarks by San Francisco clergyman Horatio Stebbins, see 20 and 21 Jan 69 to OLLclick to open link, n. 6.
Clemens exaggerates his candor. In his letter of 24 January 1869 to Olivia Langdonclick to open link he conceded that he had not revealed his past “in full & relentless detail” to her or her parents.
Clemens had lectured in California in the fall of 1866 and again in the spring of 1868, partly “on his own hook” (Editorial narrative of gap between letters dated 25 August 1866 and 29 October 1866click to open link; 2 Nov 66 to JLC and Familyclick to open link, n. 4; 14 Apr 68 to Samuel Williamsclick to open link).
The Associated Western Literary Societies booked leading performers for its member groups throughout the Midwest. The secretary Clemens dealt with in 1868 and for at least part of 1869 was G. L. Torbert. He was succeeded, evidently sometime in 1869, by Charles Simeon Carter (8 Jun 67 to John McCombclick to open link, n. 4; 15 Aug 68 to Frank Fullerclick to open link, n. 3; 24 Sep 68 to Fullerclick to open link; 5 Oct 68 to Abel W. Fairbanksclick to open link; 5 and 7 Dec 68 to OLLclick to open link; Lecture Schedule, 1868–1869click to open link; Eubank 1969, 76–83).
Probably Clemens here recalled one or both of his 1866 Sandwich Islands lectures in San Francisco: his 2 October debut performance or his equally successful farewell appearance on 10 December (see Editorial narrative of gap between letters dated 25 August 1866 and 29 October 1866click to open link, 6 Dec 66 to Frederick F. Lowclick to open link). Stoddard had visited the Sandwich Islands in 1864–65 and again in 1868–69 and had a special connection to the region through his sister Sarah, who had married into the Makee family, owners of Rose Ranch, on Maui, the largest sugar plantation in the islands. In late July 1869, soon after returning to San Francisco, he
tried to exploit his extensive literary acquaintance by asking correspondents throughout the country to advise him about lecturing in their areas—in the company of “a couple of little Native boys who should at the close of the evening, sing, dance and entertain the people with some of their picturesque and grotesque mannerisms.”
The replies were not encouraging. (Austen 1991, 45)
Although Stoddard abandoned his plans for a Sandwich Islands lecture, he drew on his travels in Hawaii for the Overland Monthly and for his South-Sea Idyls , published in 1873, and returned to live there for a few years in the early 1880s (Austen 1991, 26–30, 39–45, 58–61, 93–108; 7 May 66 to William Bowenclick to open link, n. 2; Stoddard 1873).
None. The text is based on two transcripts, one complete and one partial, each of which derived independently from the MS.
L3 , 320–21, partial publication. Newly published on MTPO, 2010.
See Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenanceclick to open link. By 1936, the manuscript had become part of the collection of Charles T. Jeffery, of Merion, Pennsylvania. After Jeffery’s death, it was offered for sale by Samuel T. Freeman and Co.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.
All variants between the source texts are reported below. Adopted readings followed by ‘(MTP)’ are editorial emendations of the source readings.