Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes ()

Source: St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, California. Formerly home to the Estelle Doheny collection (now dispersed) ([CCamarSJ])

Cue: "Livy darling, I will"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: Larson, Brian

Published on MTPO: 2012

Print Publication:

MTPDocEd
To Olivia L. Clemens
25 August 1881 • 1st of 2 • Boston, Mass. (MS: CCamarSJ, UCCL 02015)
hotel vendôme. commonwealth avenuej. w. wolcott propr.

Livy darling, I will write you just a line; then send down for my breakfast; then expect Osgood about 10.30 o’clock. I never saw Mr. Slee any more after I went to bed at midnight in the cars. I found, next morning, in Albany, that I could catch the Springfield train by rushing; so I rushed—in a hack—& was the last ppassenger that joined it.

Well, pretty soon I heard a couple of foreigners talking (it was in the smoking car,) & they had exceedingly good faces—in fact one of them had a face strongly resembling Charles Kingsley’s; & although he was evidently a laboring man, & was covered with cinders, his face was beautiful because of its sweetness. ;

Well, we hadn’t gone many miles when it turned out that this one, being deceived by the chuckle-headed station-names (both having a Boston in its name,) was on the wrong road.— So his ticket wasn’t good, & he must get off at the next station & go back & wait, &c So I called the conductor aside & paid the man’s fare to Boston & took his ticket. It had two days to run—so it is dead to-night. It was a “limited” ticket—second class. But what I started to say, was, that getting interested in those people’s faces, absorbed my attention & I just accepted, as final, ) the fact that there was no drawing room car when I came aboard, & never looked out of the window to see if a change was made—but sweated it manfully out, for 4 hours, in that filthy smoking car; & at last, when I stood in the Springfield depôt & the train I had just vacated glided by, I noticed that it had upwards of a million drawing room cars attached. So I said Dam those foreigners. But there’s Osgood. I love you, darling.

S L C
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):

MS, CCamarSJ.

Previous Publication:

Harnsberger 1947, 56–57; LLMT , 204–5; Christie’s catalog, 1 and 2 February 1988, lot 468, partial publication.

Provenance:

See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open link. The MS was sold to the Yushodo Company at Christie’s sale of the Estelle Doheny Collection on 1 and 2 February 1988.

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