10 August 1871 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00644)
Livy darling, the dispatch came, & I answered it right away. Funny, ain’t it, how the letters hang fire? I have written every day but two, I believe—one day in N. Y., & one since I arrived here. One day I wrote two letters—one of them brief. Shall do that oftener hereafter.1explanatory note
Also the box of clothing came, & was welcome. It was thoughtful of you, my treasure. With this box came another from N. Y.,—for I bought two coats & five vests there. I am all right, now. I didn’t need five vests, but sent for them in a spurt of anger when I found I had nothing with me but a lot of those hated old single breasted atrocities that I have thrown away thirteen times, given away six times, & burned up twice. Now I’ll inflict them on Orion, with the understanding that the next time I find them among my traps again there shall be a permanent coolness in the Clemens family here.2explanatory note
I wrote a splendid chapter today, for the middle of the book.3explanatory note I admire the book more & more, the more I cut & slash & lick & trim & revamp it. But you’ll be getting impatient, now, & so I am going to begin tonight & work day & night both till I get through. It is a tedious, arduous job shaping so suchⒶemendation a mass of MS for the press. It took me two months to do it for the Innocents. But this is another sight easier job, because it is so much better literary work—so much more acceptably written. It takes 1800 pages of MS to make this book?—& that is just what I have got—or rather, I have got 1,830. I thought that just a little over 1500 pages would be enough & that I could leave off all the Overland trip—& what a pity I can’t.4explanatory note
Ma bought a silk dress yesterday, for $24, & tired herself clear out, today, helping Mary & Annie make it up.5explanatory note She looked fagged. You see, they couldn’t find a sempstress, & Ma absolutely needed the dress to swell around in while she is here. Ma is a wonderfully winning woman, with her gentle simplicity & her never-failing goodness of heart & yearning interest in all creatures & their smallest joys & sorrows. It is why she is such a good letter-writer—this warm personal interest of hers in every thing that others have at heart. Whatever is important to another is important to her. Her letters treat of everybody’s affairs, & would make her out seem a mousing, meddling, uneasy devil of a gossip to a person who did not know her.
Annies is a very attractive & interesting girl, & your brown silk becomes her exceedingly, it is so modest & yet so dressy & handsome.
Mollie is always attractive & pleasant and interesting, in company.
Orion is as queer & heedless Ⓐemendation heedless a bird as ever. He met a strange young lady in the hall this evening; mistook her for the landladyⒶemendation’s daughter (the resemblance being similar equal to that between a cameleopard & a kangaroo,) & shouted: “Hello, you’re back early!” She took him for a fugitive from the asylum & left without finishing her errand.
Night before last he was standing on the porch—absentminded, as usual—when a lady came out with the landlady—couldn’t get the gate open—Orion said to the landlady, “Stay where you are—I’ll open it for her”—which he did. Thought he knew her—which he didn’t. Said: “It is getting late—I’m going to see you home.” She said, “Oh, no, thank you—it isn’t f very far, & I’m not afraid.” Said he, gaily: “Oh, you ain’t?! well if you ain’t I ain’t either—so come along.” What could the woman do, with so cheerful an infant? Why, simply let him go home with her—which she did. She took him a route he had never traveled before—finally stopped before a house he never had seen before—said: “This is my home; I am much obliged to you, sir: Good-nightⒶemendation”—& left him standing there wondering whether his friend had moved her habitation within twenty-four hours, or whether he had been making an ass of himself again. The odds were in favor of the latter—& if he had bet with himself on it he might have made some money.
But this won’t do. Good Ⓐemendationnight, my old darling & yours truly will go to work.
P. S.—I’ ll bet Bliss is still carrying some of my letters in his pocket. That’s why they don’t go.
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Care Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. postmarked: hartford ctⒶemendation. aug 11 11 am docketed by OLC: 6explanatory note 8th
Having received none of Clemens’s letters, Olivia had telegraphed, perhaps on 9 August.
Since early July, Orion and Mollie had been living in a second-story room at Mrs. E. M. Eaton’s boarding house at 54 College Street, Hartford, “close to the Presbyterian church. The room has a fixed wash stand with hot and cold water. There is a bath room in the house. A piano dealer boards there; he owns the house and rents it to Mrs. Eaton” (OC to SLC, 4 July 71, CU-MARK). As the rest of the present letter indicates, when not working on Roughing It, Clemens was spending a good deal of his time at Mrs. Eaton’s, and perhaps even temporarily lodged there along with his mother and niece, who were visiting Orion and Mollie. The piano dealer was W. J. Babcock, “Professor of Music. Teacher of the Piano Forte, Organ and Singing. And sole Agent for the sale of Chickering & Co.’s splendid Piano Fortes” (Geer: 1870, 44; 1871, 34; 1872, 59).
Perhaps chapter 53, Jim Blaine’s story of “his grandfather’s old ram” ( RI 1993 , 863–64).
Clemens’s statement here that it “takes 1800 pages of MS” to make a six-hundred-page book is consistent with his May estimate (15 May 71 to Blissclick to open link). Even his earlier estimate (in 21? Sept 70 to Blissclick to open link) has been shown to be consistent with a total of eighteen hundred pages ( RI 1993 , 812–13, 817). It is therefore unclear when, if ever, he believed that “a little over 1500 pages would be enough.” He soon discovered that even eighteen hundred thirty pages was not sufficient to make Roughing It six hundred pages long.
Mary, otherwise unidentified, may have been a family servant from Fredonia who accompanied Jane Clemens and Annie Moffett to Hartford.
A letter (now missing) of 9 August and Clemens’s telegram on 9 or 10 August probably account for the two missing docket numbers, 6 and 7.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 443–445; Hill, 48, 54, brief excerpts; LLMT , 159–60.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.