I would greatly like to do that, but I very seldom write a miscellaneous article now-a-day-sⒶemendation, & the I am already under contract in London & America for all such things that
I do write. So you see I can’t.1explanatory note
I wish you would remember me gratefully to friends in the Savage &
Whitefriars2explanatory note—especially Henry Lee, if he will only be good & not so lazy & tell me what
amount of money it was I once borrowed of him in Paris & told Dolby to repay him &
Dolby writes that he forgot it3explanatory note—& I’ve forgotten the amount
& Lee is too indolent to drop me a line—& I never will borrow money from such a lazy
man again! I think Lee means to “lay low & keep dark” & get rich on the
interest. A literary child has no show with one of those old cunning financial frauds.
1 Clemens remained in New York for the second performance of Ah Sin on 1 August, then left the following day. Before returning to Elmira, he stopped
briefly in
Hartford. This undated letter was written after 1873, when the Clemenses traveled
to
Paris (see note 3), and before 1879, when George Manville Fenn (1831–1909), a
prolific English novelist and author of boys’ books, ceased to be the editor and proprietor
of Once a Week (London), for which he evidently had requested a
contribution The only year in that time span when Clemens is known to have been
in Hartford on 2 August is 1877.
2 In 1872 and 1873, when Clemens was in London, he was befriended by members
of the Savage and Whitefriars clubs. He attended their dinners, where he was invited
to speak (L5, passim).
3 Clemens and his wife visited Paris in the fall of 1873, accompanied by Lee, the
naturalist of the Brighton (England) Aquarium. His loan was no doubt occasioned by
the Clemenses’ need for money after their bank failed and suspended payment.
George Dolby was Clemens’s English lecture agent (L5: 15 Sept 1872 to OLC,
159–60; 25 or 26 Sept 1873 to Lee, 443–44; 22 Nov 1873 to Lee, 481).
MS, Cyril Clemens Collection, CtHMTH.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Donated in 1984 by Cyril Clemens.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.