Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)

Source: CU-MARK ([CU-MARK])

Cue: "Mother dear, the Satsuma"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

Published on MTPO: 2022

Print Publication:

This edited text supersedes the previously published text
MTPDocEd
To Olivia Lewis Langdon
25 December 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01517)
page image with transcription below
Xmas Morning.

Mother dear, the Satsuma ware is exquisitely beautiful.1explanatory note One likes to sit down & study each stroke & tint & delicate line in it & as we do a with a marvelous picture. We thank you much more than we can put on paper, you may be sure of that. The two quilts are too lovely for indiscriminate use; I shall use them myself, exclusively. I think that that dainty Japanese fish came from you; & soⒶemendation I will thank you for it, anyway, “jus’ e’ same.” TheⒶemendation Emperor’s handwritingⒶemendation suggests yours, foreignized.

page image with transcription belowIt was a wonderful box you you people sent, & we had a charming time making discoveries in it. I have taken Ida’s House Beautiful & Baby Days & Ik Marvel’s Book, & shall give Livy & the children copies of my works in place of them.2explanatory note Theodore could hardly have sent me a book more to my liking than Miss Martineau’s Western Travels—I am charmed with the calm way she sharpens the hob-nails in her No. 13s & walks over our late fellow citizens.3explanatory note I am considering whether

top third of page, about 35 words, cut away

page image with transcription belowWell, we are having a pretty booming sort of a Christmas, both in the library & the nursery. We send you all a power of love, & the merry wishes of the season, with prayers for many happy returns.

Affectional tely
Samℓ.

P.S.

The ordering of father’s picture from Le Clere, by the boys, was an inspiration worthy of the time & of them.4explanatory note

Textual Commentary
Source text(s):

MS, CU-MARK.

Previous Publication:

MicroML, reel 4.

Provenance:

Donated in 1972 by Mrs. Eugene Lada-Mocarski, Jervis Langdon, Jr., Mrs. Robert S. Pennock, and Mrs. Bayard Schieffelin.

More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.

Explanatory Notes
1 Satsuma is a Japanese pottery decorated with blue, red, green, orange, or gold on a background of beige crackled glaze. It was especially popular during the Meiji Period, 1868–1912.
2 The gifts from Ida Langdon, wife of Charles J. Langdon, were: Clarence C. Cook’s The House Beautiful: Essays on Beds and Tables, Stools and Candlesticks (New York: Scribner, Armstrong and Co., 1878); Baby Days: A Selection of Songs, Stories, and Pictures for Very Little Folks (New York: Scribner and Co., 1877), taken from the pages of St. Nicholas magazine and introduced in verse by Mary Mapes Dodge, the magazine’s editor; and a book by Donald G. Mitchell, who used the pseudonym “Ik Marvel,” probably About Old Story-Tellers: Of How and When They Lived, and What Stories They Told (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Co., 1878) (Gribben 1980, 1:477).
3 Harriet Martineau’s two-volume Retrospect of Western Travel (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838; sold by Harper and Brothers, New York). Clemens had owned a copy of at least volume one in 1875. A copy of volume two, in which he wrote “T. W. Crane | to | S. L. Clemens | Xmas 77,” survives in the Mark Twain Papers (Gribben 1980, 1:454–55). It contains no relevant marginalia, so it is not possible to explain what he meant by “walks over our late fellow citizens,” but he might have been referring to Martineau’s sharp criticism of slaveholders and anti-abolitionists.
4 The American artist Thomas Le Clear (1818–82) was best known for his portraits of prominent men. Charles J. Langdon and Theodore Crane had evidently commissioned a portrait of Jervis Langdon, to be painted from a photograph. In April 1879 Le Clear painted Mrs. Langdon from life (Olivia Lewis Langdon to OLC, 17 Apr 1879, CU-MARK). Neither portrait has been found.
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ  & so  ●  doubtful
Ⓐ  same.” The ●  ~.”— | ~
Ⓐ  handwriting ●  hand- | writing
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