31 August 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: NPV, UCCL 00498)
I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of el Ⓐemendationletters every day, & it is a comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk & be patient over it.
We got the book1explanatory note & I did think I wrote a line thanking you for it—but I suppose I neglected it.
But I know I sent you a letter from Fred Quarles th Ⓐemendationa week or two ago—a second letter, I mean.2explanatory note
We are getting along tolerably well. Mother is here, & Miss Emma Nye.3explanatory note Livy cannot sleep, since her father’s death—but I give her a narcotic every night & make her.
I am just as busy as I can be—am still writing for the Galaxy & also writing a book like the “Innocents” in size & style. Otherwise ⒶemendationI would have gone run down to see Margaret before she leaves for L St. Louis. I have got my work ciphered down to days, & I haven’t a single day to spare between this & the date which, by written contract I am to deliver the MSS. of the book to the publisher.4explanatory note
In a hurry
P. S. We all send love—Mother included, who says she is much obliged for your & Ma’s letters.
Unidentified.
William Frederick S. Quarles (1833–98) was the son of Jane Lampton Clemens’s sister, Martha Ann (Patsy) Lampton (1807–50), and her husband, John Adams Quarles (1802–76). As a boy Clemens had spent summers on the Quarles farm near Florida, Missouri ( Inds , 342; Lampton 1990, 57).
Nye (1846–70), Olivia Clemens’s former Elmira schoolmate, had arrived for a visit from Aiken, South Carolina, where she had been living with her parents and siblings since late 1869 (Wisbey 1991, 1–3; L2 , 324 n. 7; L3 , 506).
The contract called for delivery of the manuscript “as soon as practicable, but as early as 1st of January next, if said Company shall desire it” (Book Contract for Roughing It click to open link).
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
L4 , 185–186; MTL , 1:176, with omissions; MTBus , 117, brief excerpt; Hill, 43–44, brief excerpt.
see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.