5 and 7 December 1868 • New York, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 02726)
I feel better, now—ever so much better—after last night’s mental storm. But why I should, I do not know. Yes, I do know, too—at least I think I know. But I cannot write it, though I could tell it you, easily. I can even write it, too, after a fashion: I think it is because I have been praying that I might seek the Savior for his own sake, & from no selfish motive—not to secure your loving approbation—not to sweep away Mrs. Fairbanks uneasiness concerning my eternal future & make her heart glad—not to crown my mother’s & my sister’s long generation of prayers for me with tidings that they are answered & all is well—not that I may thus achieve what all true men desire, the good opinion of good men—not for the sake of these things, but for the sake of Christ alone. Now you will say: “Then the storm passed, the thunders ceased & a great calm was upon the face of the Ⓐemendationtroubled waters—& you were at peace.”1explanatory note No, it was not so, Livy. I simply feet felt Ⓐemendationless despondent—nothing more. I will not exaggerate it. And I prayed that no word, & no act of mine, might deceive you, even in the faintest degree—that I might do nothing, say nothing, which could in any way mislead you—that you might not fancy me already a Christian, in some sense, by what I write, when the Father knows I am only trying to be—only groping in the dark—only h Ⓐemendationstill hoping, still endeavoring, when peradventure it may be that there shall be no fruition for the hope, no victory for the endeavor. It is hard to have to speak such truths as these, but then I so love you, Livy, that I cannot bear the idea of your thinking better of me than I am—for then, Ⓐemendationunwittingly, I should be in a manner playing a false part toward you. And Livy, neither last night nor tonight, have I found anything in the Bible but conviction & condemnation—save & except one little verse. It is Romans, 8th chapter & 24th verse.2explanatory note It seemed to me that a sunbeam rested there.
Livy, it was a mangled letter I sent you yesterday—but then I was in a mangled mood when I wrote the postscript & mailed the letter. I found I had abused my privilege of writing you, & had written at least two letters in one. Common decency demanded that I should reduce it—& in doing it I was not much guided by rhyme or reason. The “confession” I destroyed was that I had refused to deliver lecture a week hereabouts for $600, because—Oh,Ⓐemendation I can’t tell it again—you would say I was an love-sick idiot. { And between ourselves, I am!} I could not be so reckless as to write the above if you had any curiosity in your composition. {Oh!} 3explanatory note
You want me to succeed. Bless you for saying it, Livy—& I pray you, say it again—for I love to hear it. And with the favor & the be blessingⒶemendation, of Him who rules our destinies, I shall succeed, Livy—do not fear. Why you love me, Livy—you love me well—better than you think for—much better than you could be brought to thoroughly comprehend at this time except it were revealed to you by seeing me shrouded & coffined, . Ⓐemendation & dead. Then you would know. Death startles many a torpid love into life.
Liv I have found in the “exquisite” book to-night a passage which is the very soul & spirit of what I have been trying to tell you with tongue & pen.4explanatory note It is confirmation. It is prophecy. Read it, Livy, & you will see yourself in it—& you will see that you need have no doubts & no misgivings when you wish that I shall succeed. You will see—I as I have done all along, ever since Thanksgiving Ⓐemendationday of blessed memory—that your anxietie natural anxieties & perplexities will fade away & you will end by giving me all your heart & all your priceless love. For this is the process of the loftiest phase of Love—a love in upon which heart & intellect, judgment & calm reason sit in judgment—& their verdict gives birth to the highest type of Love—to the only “True” Love—a love that is deathless—a love that grows, & never diminishes. You said once, in the drawing-room, that you were glad you loved me—& you will infallibly find that you can say it again, & before very long, Livy. Do say it, just as soon as you can. , Livy. Try to say it now—please say it in your very next letter—for I do so long to hear it, Livy. It is high honor I am asking—an honor to which all earthly honors else seem tame & of little worth—but yet I dare to crave it, Livy. But if you cannot say it now, my faith will remain the same—it cannot falter—for your prayers to g God will be answered & He will Ⓐemendationyet enable you to say it. Still pray that we may be all in all to each other for life, Livy. Still pray—pray unceasingly. I shall so pray—sinner that I am, & all unworthy to approach the Throne. And fearful, too, & courageless, save when I bear your blameless name upon my lips. It is easy to pray for you, but it seems dreadful presumption to ask favors for myself. You have earned them—but I do not deserve them. Why Livy, think of it for a moment—think of a son dishonoring a generous earthly father all his life & then going at the last hour & asking for food & shelter under his roof. Cannot you know how that son would approach the door—then retire to the shadows—approach again & again—hesitate—knock feebly—& when the door was opened find his tongue sealed to the roof of his mouth & feel humbler than the very dogs that snuffed the air suspiciously about him? But if he came partly to ask a kindness for his sister—faithful always, & well-beloved of the household—how then? You know me & can c understand me.
Livy, I don’t like the “exquisite” book, now, as I did before. I don’t want you to read it now. , do I will keep it for you, & you shall read it another time. That will do, will it not? I forgive you, you know, for forbidding me to read the “Home Life”—& so I shall read “A Life for a Life” instead—& shall like it, no doubt, because you do—otherwise I should take it up with a prejudice against the author of “J. “Halifax.”5explanatory note
I think I will run up to Hartford, Monday morning, to see the Twichell’s & look after my book—& return Tuesday night. You didn’t seriously mind my telling Dan & the Twichells, did you? They will never mention it—& what’s the use of loyal & true friends, Livy, if you can’t divi share joys as well as griefs with them? They , & my sister & Mrs. F. are all I shall tell.
Do hurry the picture, Livy, please.
I believe I will enclose part of yesterday’s long letter in this, instead of burning it. No I won’t—it would make this too long.
Livy, you ought to get this Tuesday Monday, or at furthest Wednesday. Tuesday. Now, can’t you write a line Tuesday & dispatch it at once, so that I can get it Wednesday? { If you can do this, address it to Everett House, Union Square—for I have concluded not to quit the Everett finally & forever for the Metropolitan until I get back from my next little trip. But if you can’t write Tuesday,—but then please write Wednesday & direct it to Norwich, New York (spell that strong or they’ll send it to Connecticut;) care of Geo. M. Tillson—for I lecture there Friday the 11th. You needn’t be afraid, for if it don’t reach me there I will instruct Tillson to forward it to me at Fort Plain, N. Y., care of George Elliott. Scranton, Pa., care of A. Crandall 6explanatory note—I lecture there Wednesday the 16th. Why you can write me a secon letter, to Scranton yourself, Livy—& another to Fort Plain, N.Y., care of Geo. Elliott—where I lecture the 19th. Do, please—& let me stop & see you the 20th . Ⓐemendation—I wish I dared to stop on the 12th. I kiss you & bless you. Good-bye.
in margin: Livy there are som s—so many things—& important ones—that I wish to tell you—& I can only tell them—I couldn’t write them, in a month.
P.S.—Monday Morning—I got your kind little letter (written Friday night,) & thank you very much for it, Livy. You must forgive my wile wildⒶemendation, distempered language when speaking of you. It only looks wild on paper, for then there is no voice to modulate it. It is simply the overflowings of a strong love—& is not deliberate flattery, or self-deception, as you mistake it to be, Livy. But I will curb it, for your sake. Livy, please do not wrong my intelligence so much as to fear seriously for that “awakening.” Your way of taking everything literally has made you so accept from me such words as Perfection & Paragon—& thus I find you gravely worrying your- Ⓐemendationgentle spirit with the conviction that I regard you as absolutely perfect, & so must necessarily wake up to a ghastly consciousness of my mistake on some sad morning of wedded life. No, no, no, Livy,—I am grateful to God that you are not perfect—I am & when we are husband & wife, as (& I hope & pray & do believe that He in His goodness will permit me to see that welcome day,) I shall see you, Livy, as I see you now: a Woman—nothing more & nothing less—a Woman, with the faults, the failings, the weaknesses of her sex & of her race; but with a more generous share of the merits & virtues of our nature than falls to the lot of many; a Woman, Livy, mortal, & so of necessity imperfect—a Woman only—God forbid that you should be an angel. I am not fit to mate with an angel—I could not make myself fit. But I can reach to your altitude, in time, & I will. I mean as near to it as God has will permit. Livy, how can you talk as if I might wake up to something dreadful, when you know that the contrary is in evidence before my eyes—when you know that the love & reverence of all your household bear you stands before me the splendid evidence of what you have been from infancy?—proof beyond & above suspicion or refutation, that you are a true Woman & cannot be else than a true & noble Wife. Livy, if you had only studied the human face for a lifetime—not as an elegant pastime, but eagerly, anxiously, in strange lands & friendless, to see if it were a good face or an ill, a kind face or a cruel, a generous face or a selfish, a face to be trusted or shunned—so conning faces knowing that if you read it them wrongly you may would suffer—if you had done this, Livy, you could look in your glass & find there proofs stronger than the sworn evidence of men—proofs that your are & long have as good & Ⓐemendationpure & noble a woman as any that walks the earth to-day. Do not fear for the “awakening,” Livy. I see the faults you have, as plainly as you see them (two really grave ones whose existence you do not suspect, yourself,)—I know you well—I have not been educated to require weeks & months to learn a person in—& I respect you, & honor you, & love you, above all things else in the wide earth. Livy, you think it “so strange” that I love you. No, (you must pardon me,) you really think it so strange that you love me, in any degree—but I hope the strangeness Ⓐemendationof it will pass away. It is not strange that I love you—or that any one who knows you loves you. I have written all the foregoing calmly & dispassionately, & have said no word that I could not take an oath to before maj magistrate Ⓐemendationor minister, we—& Ⓐemendationso, gravely seriously & earnestly I beg you to receive it as truth—truth, Livy. Let your mind be at rest—I know you never can be “perfect”—& am thankful that it is so. I am glad Mrs. Crane is ready to love me—I am sure I am ready to love her. The little poem7explanatory note could not have come in better timeⒶemendation, I think—I do thank you for it. I am so bitterly disappointed at the news from Mr. Langdon. Oh, he was looking so well, when I left, & promising so well. Try to tell me better news next time.
P.P.S.—Monday, 4 P.M.—Livy, I received Twichell’s welcoming dispatch too late, for the train, & so it is a question whether I shall go to Hartford at all. I may go to-night, though, for I suppose I ought to see the publishers.
I have just received a letter from my Western friend,8explanatory note appointing me to begin at Detroit one day earlier—that is, on Dec. 22d Ⓐemendation—& so I could hardly dare to stop on the 20th to see you, even if I had permission. Now this is to ask Mrs. Langdon, through you, if I may stop just a night, Dec. 12. Ⓐemendation—not a moment longer, if it be her will. Please urge this for me Livy—will you? I would not ask it, but it does look as if I shall have no other opportunity of seeing you for four Ⓐemendationmonths. It is too long. And ⒶemendationI have things to say which should be said, w & which I could not write in a month. I am sure I might be permitted to come, considering all the circumstances. Still, if her judgment says No, I submit. Livy, if I do not get a decided No, by letter or telegraph, at “Norwich, New York,” (see address,) on Dec. 11, I shall arrive at your house some time on the evening of the 12th if I can possibly get there. Because I shall have no opportunity of waiting for an answer. No—that course would be wrong, & so I must not do it. But please get me the permission, Livy—do. Bless me, I am so tied hand & foot with these lecture appointments that I don’t know whether I am standing on my head or my heels.
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Present. on back of envelope: + docketed by OLL: 10th OLL, in pencil: A son dishonoring a loving earthly Father &c
Mark 4:39: “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
“For we are saved by hope.”
Clemens removed his “confession” from the previous letter by tearing it out of the pages. Nothing further has been learned about the offer for six lectures which he refused. He wrote and crossed out the last two sentences of the cancellation solely to tease Olivia about her curiosity in such matters. He made the bracketed final word slightly more difficult to read than the rest, because it is the punch line—representing Olivia’s reaction upon discovering that the sentence she has just deciphered expresses too much confidence in her lack of curiosity.
As suggested earlier (30 Oct 68 to OLL, n. 7click to open link), the “exquisite” book may have been all, or one, of the four parts of Patmore’s Angel in the House, although no specific passage matching Clemens’s description has been identified.
The Home Life: In the Light of Its Divine Idea (1867) by James Baldwin Brown (1820–84) was a study of the Christian ideal of marriage and child rearing which emphasized the role of the wife as the guardian of “truth, purity, dignity, goodness, and charity” (Brown, 21). Olivia’s objections to it are not known. A Life for a Life (1859) was by English author Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–87), who had earlier published John Halifax, Gentleman (1857), which in an 1863 letter to the San Francisco Morning Call Clemens had described as a “high-flown batch of contradictions and inconsistencies” ( ET&S1 , 283). Craik’s more recent novel concerned the courtship of a sheltered young woman by a man some years her senior. Lacking her family’s blessing, the courtship was conducted largely through letters that extolled the sanctity of womanhood and marriage, and urged equal purity and high purpose for both man and woman. Clemens read and “marked” a copy of A Life for a Life some weeks later, assuring Olivia that he liked it “right well” (SLC to OLL, 17 Feb 69click to open link, CU-MARK).
Tillson and Crandall were representatives of Clemens’s sponsors in Norwich and Scranton, respectively, and have not been further identified. For Elliott, see 19 and 20 Dec 68 to OLL, n. 11click to open link.
Unidentified.
G. L. Torbert.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L2 , 312–318.
see Samossoud Collection, pp. 515–16.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.