1–3 August 1874 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 03351)
23 rutland street edinburgh
My Dear friend— We will rejoice to welcome your heroic little “Friend”— I know her well—in spirit— It is good you are all doing so well— Tell Mater Pulchra that she must have an annual photographing of the children for me— That is indeed an amazing hawl of money—2explanatory note I read it to my publisher—Douglas3explanatory note—& he held up his hands—speechless— We are in our usual here. John is away in the Highlands walking across the wild hills, all by himself— Barclay & his brood are on the Banks of the Tummel—playing themselves—& eating cherries—& drinking milk— I hope to get away by & by— I send you some rough lines by a friend of yours— Curious as being the first made by a man of 63—& which, like the first playing on the fiddle, are more interesting to him probably than pleasing to others— ’Lizabeth is good Mrs Barclay—“John” you know. 4explanatory note All happiness to you FOUR! Ⓐemendation & a kiss to my Susie—
Clemens wrote this note in the top margin of the first page of John Brown’s 18 July letter. Allowing for transatlantic mail—possibly on the steamer State of Nevada, which left Glasgow on 19 July and arrived in New York on 31 July—Brown’s letter would have reached him no earlier than 1 August (“Shipping Intelligence,” New York Tribune, 1 Aug 74, 5). Brown was among those to whom he had referred Dickinson, so he wished her to see Brown’s response (see 28 June 74 to Dickinsonclick to open link). Dickinson replied on 4 August, returning Brown’s letter, but retaining its envelope with Clemens’s “word” (CU-MARK):
Dickinson had presumably seen a newspaper item about Clemens’s Gilded Age play. By late July reports were appearing in New York and Boston, and were no doubt copied in Philadelphia, where she lived (“Dramatic Notes,” New York Tribune, 29 July 74, 4; “Topics Uppermost,” Elmira Advertiser, 1 Aug 74, 2; “Table Gossip,” Boston Globe, 1 Aug 74, 4). Her “‘investigating com’e’” was an allusion to the committee investigating the charges of adultery against Henry Ward Beecher (see the previous letter, n. 2). It is not known if Dickinson eventually returned Brown’s envelope to Clemens. Nor has his reply, if any, to her 4 August letter been found. Ironically, Dickinson did not go to Europe, and therefore Clemens’s letters of introduction were not used, nor has any of them been found (Chester, 157).
Brown answered two letters from Clemens: the 15 June letter informing him of the birth of Clara, and an unrecovered letter written between 23 and 28 June introducing Anna Dickinson and, apparently, updating the Gilded Age sales and royalty figures reported to Brown on 28 February. Clemens’s second royalty payment had been due in mid-June (see 15 June 74 to Warner, n. 2click to open link).
David Douglas, of Brown’s Edinburgh publishers, Edmonston and Douglas.
The enclosed verses, which do not survive, were by Brown himself, who would be sixty-four on 22 September. On 2 November he sent Clemens a three-page leaflet, printed for his family, of verse (“Lawless Numbers”) about a duck (CU-MARK). He did not formally publish his poetry. The Barclays were Brown’s friends; John was his son.
MS, in the top margin of the first page of John Brown to SLC, 18 July 74 (UCLC 32022), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L6 , 203–5.
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.