We are getting along about as usual. All hands pretty well. The shaving-stand you
got for me is just
the needed thing. It suits exactly. It compels the morning shave. Consequently, I
have not missed shaving on any morning
since I have possessed it. I thank you very much—& you may believe easily Livy does
also.
We vastly enjoyed Mr. Slee’s visit—but you knew that before. We have had a
letter from Mrs. Slee, & I hope she will come, too, next time.2explanatory note
Love to you & all the rest.
—&
punchⒶemendation up The about the telephone. I will sing you to sleep, nights, from the farm.3explanatory note
Lovingly
Saml.
Livy disapproved of the other sheet of this letter, so I tore it up. She’s awful particular!
I wish I could have been at your telephone exhibition. Your account gave me a very
vivid
appreciation of the marvels of the instrument—the most vivid of any I have had yet,
I think.4explanatory note
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):
MS, in pencil, CtHMTH.
Previous Publication:
MicroPUL, reel
1.
Explanatory Notes
1 As Clemens explained in the comment he inserted below his signature, he tore up the
original first page of this letter. He then inserted the date and “Mother Dear,—”
at the top of the remaining page.
2 John D. F. Slee, a partner in the Langdon family’s coal business, was a close friend
and financial advisor of Clemens’s. He had married Emma Virginia Underhill in 1862
(27 Feb 1869 to OLL, L3, 119 n. 4).
3 “The” was Clemens’s brother-in-law, Theodore Crane. Clemens wanted him to have a telephone
line installed between Quarry Farm, on the hill above Elmira, and Mrs. Landon’s house
in the city proper.
4 On 29 November 1877 a telephone connection was made between the Elmira Opera House
and an office elsewhere in the city. The Elmira Advertiser reported on 1 December: “The music as it came through the telephone was indescribably
beautiful, but perhaps that which gave the most satisfaction . . . was the cornet
solo, and its encore, ‘The Sweet Bye and Bye’” (“Gilmore’s Concert by Telephone,”
4). Mrs. Langdon’s account of the exhibition, in a letter not known to survive, probably
mentioned the song and prompted Clemens’s remarks at the end of the preceding letter.
MS, in pencil, CtHMTH.
MicroPUL, reel 1.