10? July 1870 • Elmira, N.Y. (Lyceum 1871, 27, UCCL 00485)
Friend RedpathⒶemendation,—I find in your list of lecturers the name of Hon. Thomas Fitch, Member of Congress from Nevada. My attention was more particularly called to this matter by your inquiry as to what I might chance to know about him. I know him well, as lawyer, newspaper‐editor, silver-miner, & Ⓐemendation Congressman.2explanatory note I know him to be an orator by birth, education, & instinct. He is a fascinating speaker. I pledge my word that he will hold any audience willing prisoners for two hours that can be gathered together before him, in any city of America, from Boston to New Orleans, & from Baltimore to San Francisco. And no matter what subject he chooses, whether it be worn or fresh, old or new, he will make his audience think they never listened to any thing so delightful before. I have heard Mr. Fitch pretty often; & so I am not afraid to make these strong statements.3explanatory note
Clemens probably returned to Elmira from Washington on Saturday, 9 July, or the day following. He and Olivia presumably did not return to Buffalo until, at the earliest, 22 August, a day after the memorial service for Jervis Langdon (7 Aug 70 to Larned, n. 1click to open link). But since he was associated with Buffalo in the public mind, Clemens headed this letter accordingly.
See RI 1993 , 678–79, and ET&S1 , 262–66.
Clemens may have promised a “puff” when he saw Fitch in Washington on 6 July and encouraged him to lecture. The present letter was too late for inclusion in the Boston Lyceum Bureau’s promotional magazine for the 1870–71 season, published shortly before 13 July. Redpath used most of it (“I know him . . . statements.”), however, in newspaper advertisements for Fitch’s 29 November lecture in Boston (see the textual commentary). He surely also used it to advertise the other lectures Fitch delivered during a two-week tour that concluded before the third session of the Forty-first Congress convened on 5 December (3 Dec 70 to Redpath, n. 2click to open link). The entire letter appeared in the bureau’s promotional magazines for 1871–72, 1872–73, and 1873–74, when Fitch, having been defeated for re-election to Congress, lectured more extensively. Redpath’s successor, George H. Hathaway, reprised it in 1883–84 for Fitch’s return to the platform (“New Publications,” Boston Advertiser, 13 July 70, 2; BDUSC , 187, 1000; Redpath 1876; Pond, xxv; Lyceum: 1871, 27; 1872, 37; 1873, xii; 1883, 21).
“Hon. Thomas Fitch, M.C.,” Lyceum 1871, 27. Although published in July 1871, a year after Clemens wrote the letter to Fitch, the Lyceum provides the only complete text of the letter available. It was either transcribed directly from the MS or from an earlier transcription in a promotional brochure for Fitch issued sometime during the 1870 season by the Boston Lyceum Bureau ( BAL 3324; no copy found for inspection). Several newspaper advertisements published in November 1870, each of which included an excerpt from the letter, were likewise probably based on a transcription prepared for advertising copy either directly or indirectly from the MS, but none provides any substantive or suggestively authorial accidental variants. They are: “Boston Lyceum—Extra Lecture,” Boston Evening Transcript, 26 Nov 70, 4; “Boston Lyceum. Extra Lecture,” Boston Morning Journal, 26 Nov 70, 3; “Boston Lyceum.—Extra Lecture”: Boston Advertiser, 26 Nov 70, 2; Boston Evening Traveller, 29 Nov 70, 3. The first three papers repeated their advertisements on 28 and 29 November.
L4 , 170–171; “Personal,” New York Tribune, 28 Nov 72, 2, excerpt.