22 March 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. ( MTL , 1:172, UCCL 00447)
I Ⓐemendationam not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live & Ⓐemendation I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out.1explanatory note
The Boston Lyceum Bureau’s promotional magazine for the 1870–71 lecture season, which appeared in July 1870, included the following notice (Lyceum 1870, 16):
Mark Twain.
“Mark Twain” (Mr. Clemens), we fear, must be numbered for a season among the Lost Stars of the Lyceum firmament.
The fate of Midas has overtaken this brilliant but unfortunate lecturer. He lectured—and made money; he edited—and made money; he wrote a book—and made money: and when a relative, under the guise of friendship, perpetrated “a first-class swindle” on him, he made a great deal of money by that. Even the income-tax collector has failed to soften the rigor of his fate. Under these disheartening circumstances, he cannot be made to see the necessity of lecturing:—
“Just for a vault full of silver he left us!”
For the “first-class swindle,” see pp. 45–49; for Clemens’s encounter with the tax collector, see 2 and 3 Mar 70 to Langdon, n. 5click to open link. Redpath and Fall’s closing quotation was a play on a line from Robert Browning’s “The Lost Leader”: “Just for a handful of silver he left us.”
MTL , 1:172. The rationale for emendations to remove MTL styling is given in Description of Texts.
L4 , 94; In addition to the copytext, MTB , 1:409, with omissions.