1 September 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00343)
Yes, my little darling, I am bothered somewhat about that housekeeping business. Even if everything else about it was perfectly delightful I couldn’t bear the idea of your sitting or working alone all day while I was at the office, & you won’t consent to have Hattie Lewis or anybody with you for company. No, sir, as I came out from supper last night, I said to myself (I had just been away up stairs visiting), “It seems to me that Mac & his wife2explanatory note are happy & happily situated in their two unpretending rooms—& suppose Livy & I were keeping house out where Larned is, & Livy at home all by herself half the time—& so worried, & tired out, & sick & dej discouraged that she would be a moving object to look upon—no sir, we must n’t think of it for just one year.3explanatory note We must board (not in this caravansery, but in a house where there are no other boarders, & where the girl can have somebody to go & speak to when she is lonely.) We must board one year—& then we’ll both be consumingly anxious to keep house—as it is, it would be a great undertaking, right in the middle of a Buffalo winter for two novices like Livy & me.” We’ll talk this over next time I run home, darling, for if you think over it & are still in favor of housekeeping right from the start, why we will keep house right from the start.
I enclose a letter from my sister.4explanatory note I really wish I could have her & Annie at our marriage. I’ll think about it.
Remember, Puss, if we can get the Spauldingses & Prof Ford to live with us as you propose, we will keep house, by all means.5explanatory note And remember, too, my darling, that your wishes shall be obeyed as to how we are to live, but I only desire that you will think the matter over right carefully, examining it at all points before you decide. It is a dear good little girl to give up her cherished dreams to please me—we’ll talk it all over, Livy—prepare yourself.
Thank you for your mother’s letter—I perceive that they are all enjoying themselves & improving in health, & I am particularly & exceedingly glad of it—& being “one of the dear ones” I have a right to be, haven’t I, sweetheart?6explanatory note
I grieve every time I think of my tube-roses never worn, that she gathered for me.7explanatory note But this grieving two or three days brings back no opportunity. I’ll learn to like button-hole flowers because Livy does. —t There shall be something we both love, dearie. If it be not some author, some dainty office of a flower, some manner of living, or other fleeting & unessential thing, then it shall be God.
Yes, dearie, think over all the plans, so that when “— — — —” we can proceed understandingly.
What printed matter written by me have you got stowed away, Livy?8explanatory note
In am in a hurry, now, & so I kiss my darling good morning & good-day & good-night, & get to work.
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. return address: office of the buffalo express 14 east swan st., buffalo, n. y. postmarked: buffalo n.y. sep Ⓐemendation 1 docketed by OLL: 110th
Clemens wrote and mailed this letter on 1 September, just after working on the Express for the following day. The envelope is postmarked 1 September, a date that would have allowed time for Olivia to receive the letter and respond to Clemens’s remarks about the “button-hole flowers” (paragraph five)—and for Clemens to have her response before he wrote to her on 3 September.
John and Esther McWilliams (see 21 Aug 69 to OLL, n. 3click to open link).
Larned and his wife—the former Frances Anne Kemble McCrea (1838–1915) of Chatham, Ontario, whom he had married on 29 April 1861—lived at 40 Eleventh Street, about a mile and a half from the Express office. They had at least one child, Mary (1864–1940), at this time. Eventually they had a second daughter, Anne (1872–1951), and a son, Sherwood (dates unknown) (Olmsted, 11; “Obituary: Mrs. J. N. Larned,” Buffalo Morning Express, 28 Nov 1915, sec. 6, 45; Buffalo Directory, 364; Reese; Buffalo Evening News: “Miss Mary Larned,” 2 July 1940, 4; obituary of Anne Larned, 15 Mar 1951, 48).
Pamela Moffett’s letter is not known to survive.
Neither Darius Ford nor Clara and Alice Spaulding, whom Ford had tutored along with Olivia, ever were part of the Clemens household in Buffalo (see 9 and 31 Mar 69 to Crane, n. 6click to open link).
“Mr. and Mrs. J. Langdon went to Spencer Springs in their own conveyance on Thursday 26 August,” joining Dr. and Mrs. Henry Sayles (their neighbors) and many other Elmirans at the popular summer resort (“Local Happenings,” Elmira Saturday Evening Review, 28 Aug 69, 8). Located about twenty miles northeast of Elmira, the establishment had a “new three-story hotel, one hundred feet long, and a large dormitory,” provided “good saddle horses, and horses and carriages” and an “attending physician” for its guests, as well as “a series of bath rooms, got up with all the modern conveniences. ... Invalids can avail themselves, thereby, of the healing waters, both externally and internally” (“Spencer Springs,” Elmira Saturday Evening Review, 15 May 69, 8, and 21 Aug 69, 8).
During Clemens’s 27–30 August visit with Olivia.
Earlier in the year, Clemens had given Olivia a “commission” to clip and save his published articles for future use (see 28 Feb 69 to OLLclick to open link).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L3 , 325–327; LLMT , 106, 359, brief quotation and paraphrase. A postscript formerly identified by Dixon Wecter as part of this letter has been dated 4–5 October 1868 ( LLMT , 359; MTMF , 106; L2 , 255).
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.