10 and 11 November 1869 • Boston, Mass. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00367)
Darling, it is midnight. ⒶemendationHouse full—I made a handsome success—I know that, no matter whether the papers say so in the morning or not. I am dreadfully tired, & will go to bed, now—had company here till this moment.
Livy dear, (Nov. 11.) have bought full wedding outfit to-day (haven’t got a cent left.) Ⓐemendation& occasionally an the packages will arrive by express directed simply to “J. Langdon, Elmira.” Now your mother must unpack them & put them away for me & be sure not to let Mr. Langdon go wearing them around. I tell you, they are starchy.
Kisses & blessing Ⓐemendationon my little darling
enclosures: 2explanatory note
on a small scrap of paper:
All between where I have torn it in two was devoted to one of those infamous synopses of the lecture. But I like this notice first-rate—it is all namby-pamby praise.3explanatory note
in ink: Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. return address: young’s hotel, court avenue, boston, mass. 4explanatory note postmarked: boston mass.Ⓐemendation nov. 11 3.p.m.
docketed by OLL: 134th
Olivia’s 13 and 14 November letter—mailed to Danvers, Massachusetts, where Clemens lectured on 17 November—was in part a reply to the present letter. It is the only one of her courtship letters known to survive (CU-MARK):
My dear, I am sorry that there has gone no letter to you today, but it has been a very busy day and I could not find the time to write, and now I must send you only a few lines, as it is rather late—
Sunday morning—
I was too stupid to write last night after I had commenced, so I put by the letter and went to bed—
I read Father what you wrote about the Tennesee land, he said, it was too bad for your brother to be such a drag to you, he did not make any remark about his working the land, and I did not like to press the matter because I know that he has a good deal on his hands—more than he ought to have, but if you think that I better bring it before him again, I will do so—
I am very sorry that your brother is troubled, and very thankful that you are propspered, glad on your account and glad because you can help others—God gives diversities of gifts, he has not given to your brother money making wisdom, but, from what you say, he has given y him a beautiful spirit nevertheless—as go God prospers us, we will not, we will not forget h Him, and allow ourselves to blame those who seem to use less judgement in getting on in this world, but will help just as many people to lift their burdens as we are able— You are a good youth to say what you have to your brother about helping him to the money when he cannot get along longer without it, because I know that while you are in debt you do not know very well how to spare money, but it is the gifts that really cost us something that are most valuable in Gods sight—We will be the more economical in our way of living, I will look out that I get few dresses and gloves and the like, and we shall be able to help them on—I am glad that your work is doing so well, for two very obvious reasons——
I am so happy, so perfectly at rest in you, so proud of the true nobility of your nature—it makes the whole world look so bright to me, that I cannot but have a great desire to do all I can to lift the burdens from those who are carrying a heavy load—I feel so that I have no burden, that I am so richly cared for, that I cannot but have a tender yearning for those whose backs seem almost broken with the heavy load under which it is bent—we are happy, my dear, therefore we are the better able and must be the more ready to help others—and I know that you are,
I wakened this morning, and looked out on the winter landscape, which I so dearly love, felt the comfort and beauty of my home, felt the love of those here and yours which I know to be true and steady even when sa sepirated from me, and I felt like dancing, that seemed the most natural way to express it—I believe dancing and singing was is a true way to give praise to God—our whole natures seem to enter in then——
It snowed nearly all night last night, and this morning the ground and dresse d trees were beautifully arrayed in their white garments—
We are all delighted that you are to be with us on New Year’s day, I trust that no adversity may come to you—
I was indeed proud and happy that you succeeded so well in Boston—
Don’t let your sister stay away from our wedding because she fancies her clothes are not fine enough— We want her, and her daughter here we don’t mind about her their clothing.
I had a perfectly delightful letter yesterday from Mrs Brooks, she is as lovely and charming as ever—
I would like to write on but I must clost close this and get ready for Sunday school—
Clemens tore the enclosures from page one of the Boston Advertiser of 11 November and page two of the Providence Morning Herald of 10 November.
Clemens wrote these two sentences on a strip he tore from the bottom of a leaf of the Eclectic Magazine for November 1869 (n.s., 10:625–26). The offending synopsis read as follows:
We are obliged to say again, as we said in the cases of Nasby and Josh Billings, that there is little use in trying to write a sketch of the discourse. But we must attempt to give our readers a little taste of the speaker’s quality. Mr. Clemens devoted the first ten minutes of his lecture to a painfully accurate description of a person afflicted with the most loathsome form of Oriental leprosy; and then he gave five minutes to the narration of a boyish adventure which ended in his seeing the horrible face of a dead man in the moonlight. And all this mass of horror for what? Simply that he might say that his memory was full of unpleasant things so linked together that when he thought of one he inevitably thought of another, and so on through the entire series; and starting with leprosy and dead faces in the moonlight his mind necessarily ran through other unpleasant things until it brought him to the Sandwich Islands and his lecture. The position of the islands he gave geographically; but why they were placed so far away from everything and in such an inconvenient space, he declined to consider. The man who would have discovered the islands but did not, he said, was diverted from his course by a manuscript found in a bottle; and this, said Mark Twain, is not the only case in which a man has been turned from the true path by suggestions drawn from a bottle. The European nations brought into the islands their own diseases, together with civilization, education and other calamities. The effect of this had been to diminish the native population:—education in particular causing a frightful mortality as the facilities for learning were multiplied. But fifty thousand natives are now left upon the islands, and it is proposed to start a few more seminaries to finish them. The country people of the islands, the women, he said, wear a single garment made of one piece: “and the men don’t.” But when the weather is inclement the men wear cotton in their ears. The hospitality of the people he declared to be of a very high and generous order. A stranger might enter any house and straightway his host would set before him raw fresh fish with the scales on, baked dogs, fricasseed cats, and all the luxuries of the season. But in trade they were exceedingly sharp and deceitful,—lying invariably from one end of the transaction to the other; not descending to common lies either, but indulging in lies that are “gorgeously imposing and that awe you by their grandeur.” The fondness of the islanders for dogs he declared to be intense. Dogs had the best of everything and were the close companions of the men. “They fondle and caress the dog until he is a full grown dog, and then they eat him.” “I couldn’t do that,” said Mr. Clemens, in one of his dryest and funniest passages: “I’d rather go hungry two days than eat an old personal friend in that way.”
Clemens apparently sent another Advertiser clipping to the Buffalo Express, for on 13 November the paper reprinted it, without the synopsis (“Mark Twain in Boston,” 2). The other Boston papers seconded the Advertiser’s “namby-pamby praise.” Typical was the Herald, the city’s leading daily, whose review concluded: “The whole lecture was a rare treat, and all who were fortunate enough to hear it will remember its rich and racy points as long as they live” (“Mark Twain at Music Hall,” 11 Nov 69, 2; see also “Mark Twain ‘At Home,’” Boston Post, 11 Nov 69, 3; “Local Intelligence,” Boston Evening Transcript, 11 Nov 69, 4; “Mark Twain’s Lecture,” Boston Evening Journal, 11 Nov 69, 4).
This hotel, established in 1845 by George Young, still its proprietor, was “a small and cosey hostelry, hidden from the main thoroughfares by the tall buildings in front and on either side of it. It was famous for its good beds, its solid comforts, and its choice table ... and its patronage came chiefly from businessmen” (Edwin M. Bacon, 514–15; Boston Directory, 663, 775).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), is copy-text for the letter. Clemens tore the enclosures from the Boston Advertiser (“Mark Twain on ‘The Sandwich Islands,’” 11 Nov 69, 1) and the Providence (R.I.) Morning Herald (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” 10 Nov 69, 2). They survive with the letter and are reproduced in facsimile. Clemens wrote this letter on one leaf of the same notebook paper as 30, 31 October, 1 November to Olivia Langdon. He wrapped the Boston Advertiser review in a strip torn from the Eclectic Magazine, n.s. 10 (November 1869): 625–26.
L3 , 391–395; MFMT , 18, without the enclosures and with omissions; LLMT , 120, 360, brief quotation and paraphrase.
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.