14 December 1879 • Hartford, Conn. (Transcript: CU-MARK, UCCL 01740)
Thank you most heartily for the books—I am devouring them—they have found a hungry place, and they content it & satisfy it to a miracle. I wish I could hear you speak these splendid chapters before a great audience—to read them by myself & hear the boom of the applause only in the ear of my imagination, leaves a something wanting—& there is also a still greater lack, your manner, & voice, & presence.
The Chicago speech arrived an hour too late, but I was all right anyway, for I found that my memory had been able to correct all the errors. I read it to the Saturday Club (of young girls) & told them to remember that it was doubtful if its superior existed in our language.
Transcript, CU-MARK.
MTL , 1:373–74; Rogers 1927, 265–66.
A transcript, apparently the one now in CU-MARK, was sent to Bernard DeVoto on 15 October 1941 by Sherman D. Wakefield, whose wife was Ingersoll’s granddaughter. Another transcript is in the Papers of Robert Green Ingersoll at DLC.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.