23 December 1873 • London, England (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01015)
Livy darling, Finlay & I called on the Smalleys this evening. What nice children they have. The smallest reminded me a great deal of the Modoc.1explanatory note
We all went last night to hear Burnand read his Happy Thoughts, & it made me a trifle nervous to find the opera glasses all leveled at me. I didn’t mind it for a time, but when it had lasted an hour & a half I began to get a little fidgetty & ill at ease under it. Dolby said: “If I were Burnand, I would have you on the stage behind a curtain & charge these da‐da-dam people an extra shilling for a sight.”2explanatory note
The photographs are so good, & they are around everywhere, so it seems as if 3 people out of every 5 I meet on the street recognize me. This in London! It seems incredible.3explanatory note
Burnand reads mighty well. It is a wonderfully humorous, witty, bright, tip-top Ⓐemendationentertainment. I led the laughter, & the whole house followed suit. I went to the ante-room after it was over & congratulated him with all my heart. He said I was a whole audience by myself—& he wasn’t far wrong.4explanatory note
Come come—must stop.
I love you, sweetheart.
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn on flap: slc/mt postmarked: london-w 7 de 24 73 and new york jan ◇ paid all
The Smalleys had five children, whose dates of birth have not been discovered: Eleanor, Phillips, Evelyn, Ida, and Emerson (Joseph J. Mathews, 173).
Dolby had “a stutter which leads him to become suddenly stately in the middle of a homely phrase and to give a queer intonation to his voice” (Howe, 139).
The photograph was almost certainly the one taken by Charles Watkins in September 1872 (see 5 Oct 72 to Fitzgibbon, n. 2click to open link). In mid-September a reporter for the South London Press mentioned having been “favoured” by Watkins with a copy of this portrait, which brought out “all the strong points in Mark’s appearance: his well-shaped head—from which the thick stubbly hair rises as he has shown it in one of his own caricatures—the keen, eagle eye peering out from shaggy brows, and the firm square jaw indicative of power and determination” (“London Lounger,” 14 Sept 72, 1). This photograph was also probably available for purchase by the public: on 1 November 1872 John Camden Hotten wrote Watkins to ask “your price per doz & per 100 to a poor but honest bookseller” of “Mark Twain’s photograph” (CU-MARK). (Hotten also asked, “If you have an autograph of Mark Twain I wish you wd send it to me by bearer. I will faithfully return it in the morning. I am a student of caligraphy.”) Clemens was also photographed by Rogers and Nelson, art photographers and portrait painters at 215 Regent Street, in 1873. Three poses are known to be extant from that sitting. Clemens inscribed a print of one for Stoddard, who used it to illustrate a 1908 article about Clemens in the Pacific Monthly (Stoddard 1908, 270). He inscribed another to Lilian Aldrich in March 1874 (MH-H). A surviving print of the third bears no inscription. All are reproduced in Photographs and Manuscript Facsimilesclick to open link.
Francis Cowley Burnand (1836–1917) attended Eton and Cambridge; he then prepared for a career in the church, and the law. In 1863 he submitted an article to Punch and was invited to join the staff. (In 1880 he became the editor of that journal, serving for twenty-six years.) He was also active as a playwright, writing many successful comedies and burlesques. On 22 December Burnand began a series of London readings from “Happy Thoughts,” his popular comic series in Punch. The London Pall Mall Gazette described a November performance of a similar program in Brighton:
Thus presented, the chapters, or chief divisions, of “Happy Thoughts” become so many little comedies, which lose nothing from the fact that hearers have already a reading acquaintance with their personages and incidents. Accordingly, without assuming the gestures and general demeanor of an actor, Mr. Burnand has to play parts throughout. . . . It says much for the author’s art that his sketches and scenes of social life should bear so well being held up to the light. (“Mr. F. C. Burnand . . . ,” 28 Nov 73, 11)
Burnand also published collections of his “Happy Thoughts” in 1868, 1871, and 1872, the last of which he illustrated himself (Griffiths, 135–36; BBA , s.v. “Burnand, Francis Cowley’; “Happy Thought Readings,” London Times, 16 Dec 73, 8).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L5 , 532–534; LLMT , 364, brief paraphrase.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.