24 January 1873 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN, UCCL 00864)
I am already booked for Mhercantile Library, Steinway Hall Feb. 5th & 10th, Brooklyn Academy 7th & Jersey City 8th—Sandwich Islands—the old lecture a little bit altered, & (I think) a little bit improved. Shall close it seriously instead of with a joke—which I know is the best way, but I have never had pluck enough to do it, heretofore. It used to win in San Francisco, where I wasn’t afraid.1explanatory note
Just had a letter saying the Mercantile understand (in effect) that the term “gross proceeds” signifies “net proceeds.” Rather thin, isn’t it? My telegram in reply will make my understanding of the phrase tolerably plain.2explanatory note I was indignantⒶemendation, at first, but now it seems too conflagrationally funny (coming from some 1500 or 3,000 business men, clerks, &c.,) for anger.
I hated to decline Pugh’s offer; ( not, entirel Ⓐemendation didn’t do it entirely because this lecture was old, there, for that’s no excuse in so large a city,)—but it really wouldn’t pay me to go anywhere for $400.3explanatory note I am very sorry I engaged to talk in N. Y.—it costs me valuable time—time worth more money than they can put into their houses. Am glad I shall see you if you stay there till Feb. 10.4explanatory note
letter docketed: Clemens S. L. | Hartford | Jan. 24 ’73.
Clemens lectured on the Sandwich Islands at Steinway Hall in New York on 5 and again on 10 February, at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn on 7 February, and at the Tabernacle in Jersey City on 13 (not 8) February. The “old lecture” was “Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands,” which he had used during his 1869–70 tour, itself a revised version of his original Sandwich Islands lecture, dating from 1866–67 and revived briefly in 1868. The new, “altered” lecture included some remarks about the recently elected king, Lunalilo, and ended “seriously” with a passage on the beauty of the islands—probably a new addition:
The land I have tried to tell you about lies out there in the midst of the watery wilderness, in the very heart of the almost soilless solitudes of the Pacific. It is a dreamy, beautiful, charming land. I wish I could make you comprehend how beautiful it is. It is a land that seems ever so vague and fairy like when one reads about it in books, peopled with a gentle, indolent, careless race.
It is Sunday land. The land of indolence and dreams, where the air is drowsy and things tend to repose and peace, and to the emancipation from labor, and turmoil, and weariness, and anxiety of life. (“Mark Twain,” Brooklyn Eagle, 10 Feb 73, 4)
For reviews of Clemens’s lectures, see pp. 295–96; a composite lecture text may be found in Fatout 1976, 4–15 ( L1 , 344 n. 1, 361–67, 372–73; L2 , 40–44, 213 n. 4, 217 n. 1; L3 , 375–442).
Neither the letter from the Mercantile Library Association nor Clemens’s telegram is known to survive. Clemens expected to receive “half the gross proceeds” for his two lectures in New York City (OLC to Olivia Lewis Langdon, 19 Jan 73, CtHMTH). The misunderstanding was not resolved to his satisfaction: according to Orion, in November he claimed that the association had
kept back $700 he ought to have had from his two lectures in Steinway Hall last winter. There were 2000 or 2500 people at each lecture. He was to have had half and they were to pay all expenses. The tickets were a dollar and they paid him $1300 for the two lectures. Now they want him to lecture again and he wants to tell them they are thieves. (OC to MEC, 3 Nov 73, CU-MARK)
Although reserved seats were one dollar, an unknown number of unreserved seats had cost only seventy-five cents (New York Tribune: “Lectures and Meetings,” 4 Feb 73, 7; “Of course ...,” 5 Feb 73, 4).
Redpath had been in New York since 5 January (“Home News,” New York Tribune, 6 Jan 73, 8). It is not known if he remained there long enough to see Clemens.
MS, Anthony Collection, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN).
L5 , 280–281; AAA 1924, lot 215, brief excerpt.
The MS was offered for sale in 1924 as part of the collection of businessman William F. Gable (1856–1921). It later belonged to educator and Baptist clergyman Alfred Williams Anthony (1860–1939), whose collection NN probably acquired after his death.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.