7 and 8 September 1868 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 02750)
The impulse is strong upon me to say to you how grateful I am to you and to all of you, for the patience, the consideration & the unfailing kindness which has been shown me ever since I came within the shadow of this roof, and which has made the past fortnight the sole period of my life unmarred by a regret. Unmarred by a regret. I say it deliberately. For I do not regret that I love you have loved Ⓐemendationyou, still love & shall always love you. I accept the situation, uncomplainingly, hard as it is. Of old I am acquainted with grief,2explanatory note disaster & disappointment, & have borne these troubles as became a man. So, also, I shall bear this last & bitterest, even though it break my heart. I would not dishonor this worthiest love that has yet been born within me by any puerile thought, or word, or deed. It is better to have loved & lost you than that my life should have remained forever the blank it was before. For once, at least, in the idle years that have drifted over me, I have seen the world all beautiful, & known what is it Ⓐemendationwas to hope. For once I have known what it was to feel my sluggish pulses stir with a living ambition. The world that was so beautiful, is dark again; the hope that shone as the sun, is gone; the brave ambition is dead. Yet I say again, it is better for me that I have loved & do love you; that with more than Eastern devotion I worship you; that I lay down all of my life that is worth the living, upon this hopeless altar where no fires of love shall descend to consume it. If you could but—
But no more of this. I have said it only from that impulse which drives men to speak of great calamities which have befallen them, & so seek relief. I could not say it to give you pain. The words are spoken, & they have fallen upon forgiving ears. For your dear sake my tongue & my pen are now forbidden to repeat them ever again.
And so, henceforward, I claim only that you will let me freight my speeches to you with only simply the sacred love a brother bears to a sister. I ask that you will write to me sometimes, as to a friend whom you feel will do all that a man may to be worthy of your friendship—or as to a brother whom you know will hold his sister’s honor as dearly as his own, her wishes as his law, her pure judgements above his blinded worldly wisdom. Being adrift, now, & rudderless, my voyage promises ill; but while the friendly beacon of your sisterly love beams though never so faintly through the fogs & the mists, I cannot be hopelessly wrecked. I shall not shame your confidence by speaking to you in the future letters of this dead love whose requiem I have been chanting. No, I will not offend. I will not misunderstand you.
My honored sister, you are so good & so beautiful—& I am so proud of you! Give me a little room in that great heart of yours—only the little you have promised me—& if I fail to deserve it may I remain forever the homeless vagabond I am! If you & mother Fairbanks will only scold me & upbraid me now & then, I shall fight my way through the world, never fear. Write me something from time to time—texts from the New Testament, if nothing else occurs to you—or dissertations on the sin of smoking—or extracts from your Book of Sermons3explanatory note—anything, whatever—the reflection that my matchless sister wrote it will be sufficient. If it be a suggestion, I will entertain it; if it be an injunction, I will honor it; if it be a command I will obey it or, break my royal neck exhaust Ⓐemendationmy energies trying.
And now, good-bye, my precious sister—& may all the sorrows which fate has adorne ordained for you fall upon this foolish head of mine, which would be so glad & so proud to suffer them in your stead. I leave you to the ministering angels—for, daughter of earth as you are, they throng the air about you—they are with you, & such as you, always.
Miss Olivia Langdon, | Present. docketed by OLL: Sept. 1868— | 1 st 5explanatory note
Clemens completed this letter in the early morning hours of Tuesday, 8 September. Later that morning, he and Charles Langdon left for Cleveland to visit the Fairbankses.
Isaiah 53:3.
Unidentified.
Harriet Lewis (later Paff), Olivia’s cousin, stayed with the Langdons throughout Clemens’s initial visit, from 21 August to 8 September (she is more fully identified in 19 and 20 Dec 68 to OLLclick to open link, n. 9). Nearly thirty years later she gave the following account:
I really felt that I had one advantage over my cousin, but only one. She was rich, beautiful and intellectual, but she could not see through a joke, or see anything to laugh at in the wittiest sayings unless explained in detail—I could. The day came for his arrival—Whatever opinion we had formed of his appearance, at least we were not overawed by his presence, or greeting. He said—“How do you do,” just as any one would, except with that lazy drawl which has added much flavor to his wit and humor.... Our acquaintance progressed to our mutual enjoyment. We rode, walked, talked & sang together, for Mr. C. had a very sweet tenor voice. But alas—I soon discovered that my quickness at seeing the point of a joke and the witty sayings that I had considered almost irresistible were simply nothing in comparison to my cousin’s gifts. Mr. C evidently greatly preferred her sense to my nonsense. I told him later that I should never understand why he did. I think I discovered the fact almost as soon as he did, himself, and I thought it would be a most suitable match for both, and anything I could do to help them along should be done. I had been intending to go to N.Y. for a visit, but had postponed it on account of Mr. C’s coming. I now decided to go, thinking the courtship might progress better if I were out of the way. Olivia was very unsuspicious, therefore, before leaving I gave her a hint of what I thought Mr. C. had in his mind & heart and said that on my return I should ask a question, in regard to a question I was quite sure would be asked her, and I wanted a favorable answer to both.
My visit was prolonged until a month had passed, when a preemtory message came for my immediate return, which was obeyed. What was my disappointment to learn that the question had been asked, and a refusal given. (Paff, 2–4)
“Present” was the customary term to write on a letter to be personally delivered rather than sent through the mail (Smiley, 410–11). Olivia numbered each of Clemens’s courtship letters, beginning with this one, until their marriage in February 1870. It is not known whether she numbered each upon receipt, or after several had arrived, but the numbers appear to be largely contemporaneous with the correspondence itself (see also the textual commentary for this letter). Only one of her replies is known to survive (OLL to SLC, 13 Nov 69, CU-MARK).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). This letter is the first of nineteen letters (only one of which—the third—is entirely lost) that Clemens wrote to Olivia Langdon during 1868. The envelope address (‘Miss Olivia L. Langdon, | Present’) indicates that he delivered it himself. Three of these letters (21 Sept, 18 Oct, 30 Oct) survive with envelopes that Clemens addressed and mailed directly to Olivia. Eleven later letters to her in 1868 (28 Nov, 4 Dec twice, 5 and 7 Dec, 9 and 10 Dec, 12 Dec, 19 and 20 Dec, 21 and 23 Dec, 23 and 24 Dec, 25 Dec, and 30 Dec) survive with envelopes addressed like the one for the present letter, indicating they were hand delivered. They were delivered, however, by Olivia’s brother, Charles Langdon, and must therefore have been mailed in outer envelopes, which do not survive, addressed to him (see 28 Nov 1868 to OLL, n. 5click to open link). Three letters survive with no envelopes of either kind: 4–5 Oct (presumably mailed directly to Olivia), and 27 Dec and 31 Dec (presumably mailed to her brother and then delivered by hand).
L2 , 247–249; LLMT , 18–20.
see Samossoud Collection, pp. 515–16.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.