4 July 1873 • London, England (MS: ICN, UCCL 00943)
Good—I have given up Paris altogether for the present, because the Shah’s movements are so uncertain. I don’t think I shall go to France at all.1explanatory note
The note from Conway to which Clemens replied is now lost; it undoubtedly inquired about the upcoming trip to Stratford (1 July 73 to Conwayclick to open link; 10? July 73 to Warner, n. 2click to open link). On the evening of 4 July Clemens attended a dinner in celebration of Independence Day. Robert C. Schenck, the U.S. minister, presided, and “suppressed all speeches,” to the annoyance of “a number of patriots” who “could not air their eloquence” (Moran, 35:232–33). According to Benjamin Moran,
Mark Twain hit these disappointed orators off admirably. He said that his wife had told him the night before that he would be called upon to make a speech and at her instigation he sat up six hours and wrote one out. He then woke her up and read it. She said, very well, but you can’t read that off—“you deliver it extemporere.” He sat up six hours longer, got it by heart, and gave the manuscript to his wife to keep:—“and now,” said he, “after all my labor and loss of sleep, you won’t let me deliver that extemporere speech!” (Moran, 35:233–34)
Clemens did in fact preserve his manuscript (which is now at CtY-BR), and published it as “After-Dinner Speech” in Sketches, New and Old (SLC 1875, 180–81).
MS, Stone and Kimball Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago (ICN).
L5 , 397.
The MS, laid in a first edition copy of Life on the Mississippi (James R. Osgood and Co., 1883). was donated to ICN in 1962 by Howard Ellis.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.