to Olivia Lewis Langdon
2 and 6 August 1873 • Edinburgh, Scotland (MS: CtHMTH, UCCL 00959)
I have been having a very lazy day lying on the sofa and just resting most of the day— Mr Clemens has gone out now for a little walk, it is a bright beautiful evening— I should so like it if we could chat together for a little while, so many things that I would like to talk with you about—
Susie trots all about the room of course she is not at all steady on her feet as yet but she enjoys it just as much apparently— I shal Ⓐemendation say to her Shusie Susie Shoo the flies and she makes her little hads handsⒶemendation go and says s Sh! s Sh! s Sh!, s SheⒶemendation 1explanatory note has watched with the greatest interest two or three flies that have been on the window and would laugh when they would fly—she grows more and more interesting and entertaining all the time— She says baby very distinctly— The other day her father bought her a very pretty picture of a kitten and we ask her to say cat, she says tat, she says kitty quite distinctly— Every picture or anything that she particularly admires she says something nearly like puddle, every time she comes into the room she points to the picture on the wall and says “puddle”—
Aug 6th
This afternoon at three o’clock Dr Brown is coming to take us for a drive, he is the most charming old gentleman and I believe grows more and more so all the time— 2explanatory note Being in bed and lying about on the sofa I had worn a net every time that he saw me, the other day he said to me I hope you do not put one of those horrid things (meaning the false hair extras) on the top of your head when you go out— I said I added a little something at the back— This morning when he came I had dressed my hair—very soon after he came in, he said “Oh you spoil your head with putting that thing on, but it is very modest compared to some of them”—I have promised to show you in perfect simplicity.” So I promised to do it up lower down— Wasn’t it funny that he should notice so?—
Two or three days ago Dr Brown’s sister called, she is a very pleasant maiden lady of sixty five or seventy, I wish you could have seen her she is just like the characters that we see represented in books as lovable maiden aunts and so on— 3explanatory note She was speaking of some friends of theirs in America who lived in a boarding house and said to them it was such an odd idea that people should board— Said it was always a great mar to her in traveling if she was obliged to stop over night at a hotel—she at was really unhappy if she was not either under her own roof or that of some friend— She told of us a us of a trip that she took when she was a young lady— She took rode a pony and her two brothers (the present Dr Brown and a younger brother) walked by her side, in that way they traveled through the beautiful lake region of Scotland— She said they started from their father’s manse after eating a hearty dinner breakfast, they got along without any dinner, having plenty of bread and butter with them and at night took a very frugal tea, she knew they could get along very economically on their own food as the bread and butter they brought from home would last them some time—but it seemed to her that the feeding the pony would ruin them— Mother is n’t that a pretty picture of the frugal habits of m which ministers children had in those days— Miss Brown said she did not think she could possibly enjoy a trip now about those regions as she did then, it seemed that the wild beauty of the scenery would be marred by the modern roads which had been made to facilitate travel— She knew it was selfish but she should dislike to see the lakes in their present changed condition, she prefered her vivid memory of them as they were when she was a young girl— 4explanatory note Oh Mother how I do wish that you could see these people they are so perfectly delightful—
Tomorrow evening we dine with Dr and Miss Brown and meet the younger brother, who was one of the foot passengers on inⒶemendation the journey around the lakes, and his wife, they are just now passing through the city on their way on to the continent— 5explanatory note
We were to meet there a Mr Russel, editor of the “Scotsman,” the leading daily here—but he and his wife were unable to be there so they sent us the most cordial invitation to visit them in their country home and spend two or three days with them, 6explanatory note they are right near Melrose and Abbotsford and will drive us all about there. 7explanatory note
We shall go Friday noon afternoon returning Sat. evening, we should probably remain longer, but Clara comes Saturday night and it would be so forlorn for her not to find us that we shall return, what a great pity that she is not here to go with us, — she has missed so many things by being away. 8explanatory note
Mother I do love you and hope Minequa will do you a world of good. 9explanatory note I want to write more and perhaps I will befoe before I send off this letter but must stop now. Love to all—
With deepest love
Livy—
Ditto.—
Our books have come—a rare thing we have been on the track of for ten days—got it at last—the famous “Abbotsford Edition” of Scott’s works—12 huge volumes elaborately illustrated. Pretty scarce book.10explanatory note
Clemens wrote “Shoo” in the line above, where Olivia had left a space. Here he wrote over her four lowercase s’s, correcting them to capitals.
In 1906 Clemens described the beginning of his family’s warm friendship with Dr. John Brown:
In 1873, when Susy was fourteen months old, we arrived in Edinburgh from London, fleeing thither for rest and refuge, after experiencing what had been to us an entirely new kind of life—six weeks of daily lunches, teas, and dinners away from home. . . . Straightway Mrs. Clemens needed a physician, and I stepped around to 23 Rutland Street to see if the author of “Rab and His Friends” was still a practising physician. He was. He came, and for six weeks thereafter we were together every day, either in his house or in our hotel. (AD, 2 Feb 1906, in MTA , 2:43–44)
Brown (1810–82), the son of a minister, was born in Biggar (Lanarkshire, Scotland), but educated in Edinburgh, where he became a practicing physician in 1833. He is best remembered as the author of essays and stories—collected in three volumes entitled Horae Subsecivae (1858, 1861, and 1882)—on topics ranging from medicine to human nature, the arts, and the scenery of his native country. In 1906 Clemens called his best-known dog story, “Rab and His Friends” (first published in 1858), a “pathetic and beautiful masterpiece,” and remembered Brown’s
sweet and winning face—as beautiful a face as I have ever known. Reposeful, gentle, benignant—the face of a saint at peace with all the world and placidly beaming upon it the sunshine of love that filled his heart. Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland; and I think that on its downward sweep southward it found no frontier. . . . We made the round of his professional visits with him in his carriage every day for six weeks. He always brought a basket of grapes, and we brought books. The scheme which we began with on the first round of visits was the one which was maintained until the end—and was based upon this remark, which he made when he was disembarking from the carriage at his first stopping place, to visit a patient: “Entertain yourselves while I go in here and reduce the population.” (AD, 5 Feb 1906, in MTA , 2:44, 47–48)
Brown in turn developed a deep affection for the entire family, describing Olivia in a letter as “a quite lovely little woman, modest and clever,” with “a girlie eighteen months old, her ludicrous miniature—and such eyes!” ( MTB , 1:487). He soon became Susy’s “worshiper and willing slave,” happily romping and playing with her, and he nicknamed her “Megalopis” because her “large eyes seemed to him to warrant that sounding Greek epithet” (SLC 1876–85, 3; AD, 2 Feb 1906 and 5 Feb 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA , 2:43, 45–46).
Isabella Cranston Brown (1812–88), who had taken charge of the doctor’s household in 1866 upon the marriage of his only daughter. Brown’s wife had died in 1864 (M’Laren, 31, 60; John Brown, 135).
Isabella Brown’s fondly remembered trip through the picturesque Lake District of northwest England (not Scotland) probably took place in 1833: John Brown noted in an 1874 letter, “I walked from Edinburgh to Windermere and back in 1833, taking about a month to do it” (Brown to Susan Beever, 2 Apr 74, John Brown, 226–27). A family friend recalled the deep impression the experience had made:
Her two brothers, John and William, and a companion of theirs, were with her. They walked, and she rode on a pony, lent her by a friend. . . . The weather was perfect.
‘The gleam, the shadow, and the peace profound,’
and all the loveliness sank into her heart, and dwelt there for evermore. When I went to the Lake District, though it must have been forty years after her visit, she wrote to me describing with perfect correctness every turn of the road, the position of the wooded crag, the little wayside inn, as if she had been there the week before. (M’Laren, 46–47)
William Brown, also a physician, and his wife, Maggy, not further identified (John Brown, 38 n. 1, 139–40).
Alexander Russel (1814–76) of Edinburgh, a friend of Brown’s for at least twenty years, began his newspaper career as a printer, but soon began writing for Tait’s Magazine. In 1839 he was appointed editor of the Berwick Advertiser, and three years later moved to the Cupar Fife Herald. He joined the staff of the Edinburgh Scotsman in 1845 and became its unofficial editor within a year, assuming the title formally in 1848. The Scotsman had been established in 1817 as a “sturdily independent newspaper,” which “often angered the establishment” (Griffiths, 508). Since 1865 it had expanded its readership beyond Edinburgh by paying expensive rail costs for delivery, and by 1873 enjoyed a circulation of forty thousand. Russel’s articles consistently and courageously defended liberal ideas and causes (Graham, 301–17; John Brown, 81; Griffiths, 499–500). Four years after his death a good friend recalled:
The untiring vigour of his work, the clearness and pith of his style, his skill in political dialectics, his unsurpassed political knowledge, his remarkable powers of sarcasm, his rare sense of the ludicrous, his wit and mirthfulness, were familiar to all readers. The real generosity of his nature, the sterling honesty of purpose, the exquisite simplicity of character, the warm, genial, kindly, trustful nature, however, were known most to those who knew him best. (Graham, 316–17)
Russel “rejoiced in the presence of friends round his table”; he and his second wife, the former Mrs. Evans, also greatly enjoyed entertaining authors and other visitors of note (Graham, 314).
Melrose, site of the late Gothic (ca. 1450) ruin of Melrose Abbey, was about thirty miles southeast of Edinburgh. Abbotsford, two miles above Melrose on the bank of the Tweed River, was the home of Sir Walter Scott from 1811 until his death in 1832. Several rooms in the picturesque mansion were open to public view, including the study and library (Baedeker 1901, 501). John Brown mentioned this visit in a letter to a friend:
There is a man here whom you would like in much, “Mark Twain”—Mr. Clemens; and he has a darling little wife, whom you had better not see, as it might disquiet your peace for life, not to speak of hers—such a startlingly pretty little creature, with eyes like a Peregrine’s, and better than she looks. They were out seeing Russel and Abbotsford yesterday. (Brown to Alexander Nicolson, “Sunday, August” 10 Aug 73 , John Brown, 224)
Olivia wrote her mother on 15 August that “last week” she and Clemens had visited Melrose and Abbotsford and “stopped with a Mr Russel editor of ‘The Scotsman’ and had a very pleasant time” (10–15 Aug 73, CtHMTH).
Minnequa Springs, in Canton, Pennsylvania, was a summer resort known for its mineral waters ( L4 , 152 n. 1).
Clemens evidently purchased two sets of this twelve-volume edition of Sir Walter Scott’s thirty-two “Waverley” novels (Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1842–47): one for his own library, and one as a gift for someone in the Langdon family. Charles and Ida Langdon’s daughter donated the second set to the Mark Twain House in 1963 (Gribben, 2:618).
MS, Mark Twain House, Hartford (CtHMTH).
L5 , 426–430.
donated to CtHMTH in 1962 or 1963 by Ida Langdon.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.