Source: University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley | Sotheby’s, New York, N.Y. | Swann Auction Galleries, catalog no. 2228, sale of 4 November 2010, lot 213 | New York Independent,
([CU-MARK])
Cue: "Laws bless you, I done it apurpose. Nobody ever gets my name right"
Source format: "transcription | MS facsimile | Partial transcription and MS facsimile | transcription"
To Katherine K. Walker 31 October 1881 • Hartford, Conn.(Katherine K. Walker, “An Open Letter to Mark Twain,” New York Independent 35, 4 January 1883, 6; transcription and MS facsimile, Swann Auction Galleries catalog,
sale no. 2228, 4 Nov 2010, lot 213: UCCL09233)
Laws bless you, I done it apurpose. Nobody ever gets my name right, (witness the enclosedⒶemendation first two envelopsⒶemendation I fished out of the waste-basket this moment), therefore I never put anybody else’s
name right, unless it is specially requested.Ⓐemendation
Come, now, please write that article &Ⓐemendation dispatch it to the magazine. Mine has gone where it won’tⒶemendation appear in print for several months, I judge—so you see,Ⓐemendation yours would be almost certain to come out ahead of mine.Ⓐemendation
Do it, & I will retire from my rigid rule & spell your name right—always.Ⓐemendation
I had a mindⒶemendation to phrenograph (yes, that’s correct) thisⒶemendation letter to you, for the sake of the experiment; but was afraid you might think I only did it to save three cents, whereasⒶemendation upon my word & sacred honorⒶemendation I wish I may never die if such a sordid thought as that ever entered my head for a moment.
So I beg you to believe that if I didⒶemendation phrenograph it, the thing was done &Ⓐemendation gone before I had time to reflect &Ⓐemendation take it back. One of the inconvenientest things about this phrenography is,Ⓐemendation that you can’t run it over & fix it right & slick it up—no,Ⓐemendation it goes in the rough.
The transcribed text in Swann is printed in all italic type, which is here silently
ignored. Walker herself acknowledged in a 29 January 1883 letter to Clemens “the swift
punishment I recd at the hands of the Independent’s type-setters, who made fine hash & a chinese puzzle
out of my pen script.” That must refer at least in part to the manifestly confused
transcription of this letter, which included as part of Clemens’s text words that
were clearly uttered by Walker. See the emendations below.
P1
Katherine K. Walker, “An Open Letter to Mark Twain,” New York Independent, 35 (4 January 1883), 6.
P2
Partial transcript, Swann Auction Galleries catalog, 4 November 2010, sale no. 2228,
lot 213.
P3
Partial MS facsimile, Swann Auction Galleries catalog, 4 November 2010, sale no. 2228,
lot 213.
Emendations and Textual Notes
All variants between the source texts are reported here. The readings identified by
the siglum ‘MTP’ are editorial emendations of the source readings made because none
is deemed correct by itself.
Ⓐ
Mine . . . judge—so you see, (#P2) ●
Mine has gone where it won't appear in print for several months, I judge. So you see the italicization of this sentence in Walker is here rejected as her editorial choice
(in both senses), not the reading of the original letter to her
(#P1)
Ⓐ¶ Come . . . mine. (#MTP) ●
“. . . Come . . . mine . . . (#P1)
no ¶ “~ . . . mine (#P2)
Ⓐ¶ I had a mind (#MTP) ●
¶ “I had a mind (#P1)
no ¶ “I had mind (#P2)
Ⓐ
phrenograph (yes, that’s correct) this (#P2) ●
phrenograph (permit me here to betray to the public the fact that what is coincidence to the bishop is phrenography to the layman in his lecture of 1881, so long delayed in the press, no unfrequent
happening when religion and science try their hand at a common nomenclature) this
This part of Walker's text is what she referred to as a “fine hash & a chinese puzzle”
(Walker to SLC, 29 January 1883): it really makes no sense and is here excluded as
not part of what Clemens wrote, but rather part of what Walker wrote by way of explanation.
Since Walker's text also omitted the parenthetical ‘(yes, that's correct)’, it is a good guess that the typesetter committed an eye-skip and in the process
misconstrued Walker's parenthetical insertion as Clemens's—indicating, by the way,
that Walker submitted to the Independent her own handwritten copies of Clemens's letters, not the letters themselves
(#P1)
The transcribed text in Swann is printed in all italic type, which is here silently ignored. Walker herself acknowledged in a 29 January 1883 letter to Clemens “the swift punishment I recd at the hands of the Independent’s type-setters, who made fine hash & a chinese puzzle out of my pen script.” That must refer at least in part to the manifestly confused transcription of this letter, which included as part of Clemens’s text words that were clearly uttered by Walker. See the emendations below.