27 October 1869 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: OClWhi, UCCL 00364)
I thank you most kindly for your good words & your friendly regard, & shall do all I can to honor them. I am glad you like the book, & not in the least surprised that you find things in it that should have been left out—I can find such myself without the least trouble—& you will believe me when I say they grieve me indeed. I find there are more of them than I thought there were. The book fairly bristled with them at first, & it w Ⓐemendationis well I weeded it as much as I did. But for you & Mrs. Fairbanks it would have been a very sorry affair. I shall always remember both of you gratefully for the training you gave me in—you in your mild, persuasive way, & she in her efficient tyrannical, overbearing fashion.
I expected to be in Cleveland tomorrow on my way to Pittsburgh, but find I shall have to take another route.1explanatory note
We shall expect you & Solon, & the Fairbanks household, to drop be at our wedding in February, without fail—so you must stand by to drop everything at the tap of the gong, & start.
No, Charley isn’t dodging his engagement—he & Ida are to be married as soon as he gets back. It is all arranged, & all parties are happy & satisfied.2explanatory note
With loving regards to you & Solon, I am as always,
Mrs Langdon & Livy ask to be remembered.
Clemens’s travel plans were affected by a derailment on the evening of 26 October:
As the Fast Express train coming West, (No. 1,) on the Erie Railway, was running at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, it encountered a broken rail when going around a curve in the road about a mile east of Susquehanna, and all the five passenger cars (including the Palace Car,) together with one baggage car, were thrown from the track. No one was seriously hurt. ... All the five passenger coaches were crowded with passengers, and it is a miracle that many of them were not seriously injured. The rail which caused the accident was broken in five pieces. (“Railroad Accident,” Elmira Advertiser, 27 Oct 69, 1)
The break in the track, about 65 miles east of Elmira, may have prevented the timely arrival of the train Clemens had been expecting to take west to Cleveland. In his 19 November letter to Mrs. Fairbanks, he ascribed his failure to visit her to “distress about those Railways.”
Charles J. Langdon married Ida Clark on 12 October 1870, three and a half months after the premature end of his world tour.
MS, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio (OClWHi).
L3 , 374–375; Emily A. Severance, 217–18; MTMF , 110, excerpts.
Julia Severance Millikin (Emily Severance’s daughter) owned the MS at least until the late 1940s, when Dixon Wecter transcribed it on Huntington Library stationery; it was acquired by OClWHi in 1986.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.