31 October 1871 • Milford, Mass. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00668)
Livy darling, the same old practising on audiences still goes on—the same old feeling of pulses & altering manner & matter to suit the symptoms. The very same lecture that convulsed Great Barrington was received with the gentlest & most well-bred smiles & rippling comfort by Milford. Now we’ll see what Boston is going to do. Boston must sit up & behave, & do right by me. As Boston goes, so goes New England.
I got no letters at Brattleboro. None a had come. None in the post office, either. No proofs from Bliss.3explanatory note Brattleboro is unreliable, I guess.
I didn’t write last night. Felt kind of beat out. To-day I traveled the entire day in piddling trains Ⓐemendation that stopped every four or five minutes. P Am lazy, but not a bit tired—hot bath fetched me around handsomely. Saw Mrs. Lee’s brother Ⓐemendation tonight Ⓐemendation (we saw her at Gov. Hawley’s.)4explanatory note
Read Eugene Aram all day—found it tedious—skipped 4 pages out of 5. Skipped the corporal all the time. He don’t amount to anything.5explanatory note World of love. Kiss mother & cubbie for
After his Great Barrington lecture of Friday, 27 October, Clemens had a free weekend. Probably he spent it in Hartford, about sixty miles away, before keeping his engagements in Brattleboro, Vermont, and Milford, on 30 and 31 October, respectively.
Possibly an indication that Clemens “had received no proof at all since leaving on tour” ( RI 1993 , 870). See 9 Oct 71 to Redpath, n. 2click to open link.
Possibly Mrs. William Elliott Lee, the mother of Charles Dudley Warner’s wife, the former Susan Lee (“Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner,” New York Times, 14 Jan 1921, 11). Warner’s partner in the Hartford Courant was Joseph R. Hawley, former governor of Connecticut.
Ex-corporal Jacob Bunting was a humorous character in Edward Bulwer Lytton’s 1832 novel about the murderous crime of a quiet schoolmaster.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 483–484; LLMT , 162–63; Chester L. Davis 1977, 1, excerpt.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.