26 December 1871 • Champaign, Ill. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00694)
Livy Darling, it is almost lecture time, & I thought I would rattle off a line to tell you how dearly I love you, child—for I cannot abide this execrable hotel & shall leave for Tuscola after the lecture & see if I can’t do better.1explanatory note My new lecture is about licked into shape, & this afternoonⒶemendation ; after trimming at it all day I memorized one-fourth of it. Shall commit another fourth tomorrow, maybe more—& shall begin talking it the moment I get out of the range of the cursed Chicago Tribune that printed my new lecture & so made it impossible for me to talk it with any spirit in Illinois. If these devils incarnate only appreciated what suffering they inflict with their infernal synopses, maybe they would try to have humanity enough to refrain.
I am so sorry you are so lonesome, honey, but keep bravely up till by & by. With ever so much love,2explanatory note
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Cor Forest & HawthorneⒶemendation | Hartford | Conn postmarked: champaign illⒶemendation dec 27
While still in Chicago, Clemens had noted in his lecture itinerary book, for 26 December: “Ill. Central. Leave Chicago 9.20 AM—get to Champaign 2.50 or 3 PM—128 miles” (Redpath and Fall 1871–72, 9). Like the Doane House, the Champaign lecture, presumably on Artemus Ward, was unsatisfactory. The Champaign County Gazette commented: “By Mark Twain’s lecture the Young Men’s Social Club made $159. The people who heard it are ahead 0” (“Local Chunks,” 3 Jan 72, 1).
Olivia replied on 30 and 31 December (CU-MARK):
llc
My dear Darling
Your letter from Champaign has just come, I am so thankful that you love me and thankful to you for expressing it, it is always so very sweet a story, always thrills me as something new—
I am so sorry that you have been annoyed by those reporters again, but I don’t believe people often read those long reports— I wish you would send me the paper though, as I shall not hear the lecture, and I want to know what you are talking—
Mother left me yesterday noon and Clara came last night, I did hate dreadfully to let Mother go, but it is perfectly delightful to have Clara here, I have wished for you incessantly, to enjoy her visit too—she is as bright and good and lovely as ever—
I am going down this morning to see about a German teacher, we are going to begin German right away— You must not think of me as lonely Dear Heart but you will let me express to you how much I love & of course miss you—you must be flattered by it—isn’t it pleasant to be loved and missed so much— Oh Youth our baby is so sweet and prettie, you will love the little fellow, this morning I would say to him pet, pet-i-pet pet, the motion of my lips seemed to amuse him very much, he laughed until his little shoulders shook— Oh I do love the child so tenderly, if anything happens to me in the Spring you must never let him go away from you, keep him always with you, read and study and play with him, and I believe we should be reunited in the other world—
Today is the 30th it is now less than a month till you come home, oh am I not thankful with all my heart, when it comes to be this week, and then this very day I think I shall bubble over with happiness, oh it is good to love you so tenderly—
Clara and I mean to read and study and do every thing— As I writte write she sits the other side of the room in the daintiest bule blue morning wrapper and looks her prettiest— She brought me a very pretty tidy for a chair, and Allie sent us each an imbroydered pocket handkerchief, she imbroydered them both herself—
Sunday Evening
My Darling how can you stay away from us, Clara Sue and Theodore are here, Sue and Theodore are just now looking over Raynard the fox, Clara is looking at Fall-staff and his friends, and (Paul Konewewka’s Silhouetts that I gave Mother for Christmas)— Sue is thoroughly in love with the baby, thinks him the sweetest baby she ever saw—
Clara and I have commenced “Their Wedding Journey” and I cannot help constantly wishing that you had marked it for me, I think maybe you would have said some nice sweet things in the margins that would have entitled it to a place in the green box, there are such exceedingly prettie love touches in it— I think I shall have to get you to mark it yet some time—
I do want you to be in these good times, all the people would enjoy having you here so very much, and you know I would tolerate it—
Mr George Warner was in here the other evening and was talking some about our house and lot—he wants you to see a house in New York, if we are going to build a kind of City house, thinks it would give us some pleasant ideas— It is on the South side of 37th St. second house from 4th Ave., if you get a chance to see it you will know where to find it— Mrs Chas Perkins, does not want us to decide on a lot over here, but wants us to build some where between Nook Farm & their place— Youth you won’t have any lecture on the 25th of next month will you? Don’t forget to answer me, I am calculating so on that time I think it would be real dreadful to be disapointed—they must not give you any lecture for the 25th I can’t have you away any longer than the 24th. Can I Youth? Cubbie Splendid Sue and Theodore are going to stay about two weeks, I wish they could stay until you come.
P. S. Your patent right documents have come
In addition to Olivia Lewis Langdon and Susan and Theodore Crane, Olivia mentioned: Clara and Alice Spaulding; George H. Warner, a Forest Street neighbor and the brother of Charles Dudley Warner; and Lucy Adams Perkins, who lived on Woodland Street and whose husband, Charles, was to be the Clemenses’ Hartford attorney. Clara Spaulding was looking at Falstaff and His Companions (1872), a collection of silhouette portraits by popular illustrator Paul Konewka (1840–71), and she and Olivia were reading Howells’s Their Wedding Journey (1871). The edition of Reynard the Fox the Cranes were examining has not been identified (Geer 1871, 192, 217; “Nook Farm Genealogy,” 22; NUC , 303:287; Lyceum 1872, 96).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 522–24; LLMT , 171; MTMF , 159 n. 2, brief excerpt.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.