To
C. F. Sterling 24 January 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y.(MS: ViU, UCCL00563)
Buffalo, Jan. 24.
Dear Sir:
It isn’t any hardship to receive a letter like yours, nor to write & say thank you,
& right cordially, too, for it.1explanatory note
I know that Tifft House—& I never could understand why they make such invidious
distinctions & show such a mean partiality, these Buffalo people, in always callin referring to that place out
yonder in the extreme edge of town as the poor-house, just as if the Tifft warn’t in existence.2explanatory note
Yrs Sincerely
Mark Twain.
Textual Commentary
24 January 1871 • To
C. F. Sterling
• Buffalo, N.Y. • UCCL00563
Source text(s):
MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).
Previous Publication:
L4, 309–10.
Provenance:
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.
In his letter Sterling had alluded to Mark Twain’s recent complaint about the burden
of letter
writing—“One of Mankind’s Bores,” in the February Galaxy (SLC 1871, 318–19):
UCLC31744
Birmingham Ct.
Jan. 21. 1871.
Dear Mark,
I don’t care if letters are a bore to you either to answer or receive,
I’ve had so much amusement from your travels, memoranda, &c. I want to thank you for
it and I’m going
to do it. Accept then the hearty gratitude of one who feels indebted in a higher degree
than his subscription to the Galaxy or purchase
of “The Innocents Abroad” cancels. Sometimes I think the balance between you writers
and we readers is most
unfair and while you are racking your brains to amuse us, we in our selfishness swallow
it all and also all amusing things that happen
to us. That you too may have a little smile let me tell you how they do things in
Buffalo.
Stopping there one night a few weeks since I went to the ‘Tift House’ called the nicest
I
was told. Going up to my room I, as is my invariable custom felt of the bedding to
see if there was sufficient to keep me warm as it
was during one of the cold spells we have recently had. Found sheet, one blanket and
white spread. Coming down I asked the clerk to put
more bedding on 106. “Certainly sir.” Going up to bed about 11.30 I found a blanket
nicely spread over the
outside. Still feeling doubtful as to quantity I felt again and found the blanket had changed places with the
counterpane and there was precisely the same amount as at first. You will appreciate this as you know the style they spread at
the “Tift House” and prices they charge. Don’t imagine I send this for publication.
Tis for you to laugh at.
Truly Yours,
C. F. Sterling
(CU-MARK)
Clemens noted on Sterling’s letter:
Jan. 24, 1871.
Received on a low spirited day, & preserved for the comfort it brought.
The Tifft House, one of Buffalo’s most prominent hotels, opened in 1865. Clemens knew
it well, having stayed there
during his first visit to Buffalo in July 1869. In February 1870 some of the wedding
guests who accompanied him and Olivia to Buffalo
took rooms there. The “poor-house” probably was the Home for Aged and Destitute Females
on Rhode Island Street,
maintained by Buffalo’s Church Charity Foundation (Severance,
177–78; L3, 281 n. 4; Buffalo Directory 1871, 53).
MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).
L4 , 309–10.
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.