19 and 25 January 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (Kiralis, 1, UCCL 01182)
Private.
Will you please print the enclosed—provided you have no objections, that is?
This woman is the most inveterate sham & fraud & manipulator of newspapers I know of; & I didn’t think she would ever be smart enough to get a chance to use me as a lying bulletin board to help her deceive the public, but by cutting down & printing a private note to Mrs. Raymond she really has got the best of me, after all.1explanatory note
I’ve been sick abed some days, or this would have gone sooner. However, dates don’t matter when one is trying to circumvent a dead beat.
enclosure:
Sir: This morning’s Tribune had this item:
“Miss Field played her part admirably & made a most happy success.”—(Mark Twain.)
The only inference one can draw from that, is, that I was an eye-witness of Miss Field’s performance. But in truth I never have seen the lady play at all. In a private note to another lady, I did pay Miss Field as good & as hearty a compliment as I could, considering the fact that I was speaking from mere hearsay evidence, but I perceive, from the above version, that my remark has been considerably improved & strengthened since I uttered it. I do not mind being quoted in full, but I must protest against a cutting down of my words which makes me seem to say a very great deal more than I did say, or had any moral right to say.
Hartford, Jan. 19.2explanatory note
Clemens’s “inveterate sham” was Kate Field, as his enclosure makes clear. His private note to Mrs. Raymond has not been found. She was Marie E. Gordon (d. 1891), born Marie Eugenie Phillips in New Orleans. She first appeared on stage in Baltimore in 1864, where she met Raymond, a fellow cast member, and married him some three years later. Since then she had traveled with at least two different theater companies. By 30 March 1875 she was appearing with her husband in the Gilded Age play, as Laura Hawkins. When the play returned to Hartford for a single performance on 6 May, Gordon won praise for her “grace of motion, great beauty of person and a sincerity of expression,” which made her “a very remarkable, a very gratifying representative of the role” (“Colonel Sellers,” Hartford Times, 7 May 75, 2). She was “tall and well proportioned,” possessing “brilliant eyes and a shapely head, covered with blonde hair of genuine hue” (“Obituary,” New York Dramatic Mirror, 8 Aug 91, 7; “Elmira Opera House,” Elmira Advertiser, 30 Mar 75, 4).
Clemens delayed sending this enclosure until Monday, 25 January, when he added the cover letter to Stillson, former managing editor of the New York World, but perhaps at this point no longer with the newspaper in any capacity (see 23 Mar 74 to Stillson, n. 1click to open link). The World published neither the letter nor the enclosure. Clemens had met Kate Field, a successful author and lecturer, briefly in 1871, and became better acquainted with her in London in 1873. In the fall of 1874 she launched a new career as a dramatic actress (against the advice of most of her friends), but her debut at Booth’s Theater in New York that November was a decided failure. Her friend Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune, offended her by publishing his drama critic’s negative review (“Booth’s Theater—Masks and Faces—Miss Kate Field,” 16 Nov 74, 5). Nevertheless, Raymond engaged her for the role of Laura Hawkins in the touring company of the Gilded Age play, replacing Gertrude Kellogg, who had enjoyed great critical success in New York. Clemens had entertained Field in Hartford on 11 January, but did not attend her performance there that evening (see 11 Jan 75 to Raymond, n. 4click to open link). Although his relations with her were apparently cordial, he had little regard for her as a performer. The Hartford press also was unenthusiastic. The Courant remarked:
Miss Kate Field, the well-known writer and lecturer, made her first appearance in the play last night in the character of Laura. Miss Field is as yet so inexperienced on the stage that she is entitled to charitable criticism. During the first part of the evening she was evidently nervous, and her talking savored somewhat of recitation. But in the Washington scene she forgot herself in her character and exhibited decided histrionic ability, although she can hardly flatter herself on a great success. This with her genius and perseverance she is tolerably sure to gain. (“Colonel Sellers,” 12 Jan 75, 2; see also 11 Jan 75 to Raymond, n. 1click to open link)
And the Times commented:
Miss Field, as “Laura Hawkins,” never forgot that she was a lady, that she was Miss Field, and this sparkling and clever writer never, for a moment, gained that abandon and loss of individuality, which is the first condition of representing another character on the stage. Her acting was a pale and dim sketch, with many of the elements of truth in it, but none of the finish, grace or strength. Her pen is a great deal mightier than her tongue. (“The Gilded Age,” 12 Jan 75, 2)
The “improved & strengthened” version of what Clemens admitted he wrote to Mrs. Raymond appeared in one of three favorable reports of Field’s performance in the Gilded Age play in the New York Tribune for 19 January 1875 (“Miss Kate Field in the Country,” 5; L4 , 322–24; L5 , 369–70 n. 4, 375, 386–87; Whiting 1900, 322–28, 335, 337; Field, 112–14; Bryant Morey French, 246).
Kiralis, 1.
L6 , 354–356.