10 or 11 December 1869 • New York, N.Y. (MS: NSyU, UCCL 00384)
one-third MS page (about 9 words) missing
Away at this late day I come forward to thank you cordially & sincerely for the letter you furnished to Charley Langdon & Prof. Ford. (I have been lecturing every night since,) It was exactly the thing they needed, & will admit them into all doors like another “Open Sesame.” I wouldn’t have bothered you with it about it, knowing how busy you are, but then I didn’t know those kings over there, & I had to do it. If they boys get into trouble, any close places now, they will not have any trouble in the matter of getting our Ministers & Consuls to give attention to their case. And so I thank you again. I wanted to tha do this by word of mouth, but I had only one night in Washington—not an hour of day-light.1explanatory note The young lady who occupies the most of the universe, —& also her father & mother—send their kindest remembrances.
See 9 Oct 69 to Colfaxclick to open link. Clemens may here be answering a letter from Colfax that had sought him in Elmira, at the Boston Lyceum Bureau, or at one or more of his lecture stops. Possibly, however, he had learned of Colfax’s “‘Open Sesame’” in a letter from Langdon or Ford, or through Olivia or her parents. In any case, he clearly wrote this “thank you” soon after 8 December, when he lectured in Washington but failed to see Colfax. Most likely he did so in New York City, either on 10 December, before or after his lecture in Mount Vernon, New York, or the following day before he lectured in West Meriden, Connecticut (“Morning Arrivals,” New York Evening Express, 11 Dec 69, 3).
MS, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. (NSyU). The topmost portion of the MS page, which probably contained at least Clemens’s dateline and salutation, is cut away, leaving no trace of the missing characters. The letter was written on a sheet of laid paper, ruled in blue, measuring 6 inches across. The length now measures 6¼ inches.
L3 , 421.
The MS was pasted into a first edition of The Innocents Abroad sometime before 1928, when Merle Johnson made some descriptive notes about the letter on an endpaper. The book and MS were donated to NSyU in 1953 by Adrian Van Sinderen (1887–1963), a trustee of the Library Associates.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.