30 May 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK and MB, UCCL 10064)
You folks seem to be getting along charmingly. I hope it will continue, & I don’t doubt it will.
I don’t know whether you receive a Hartford paper or not—however I have ordered the Weekly Courant to be sent to you.
St Gaudens called the other day, but we were out. His Farragut has received boundless praise, from the press & from everybody. No statue in America has had the like good fortune before; so we are all delighted.
What the K of H ought to do, is to make out a regular bill against you for a year’s advance assessments & send it to me, & (when I pay it) receipt it & send it back to me. It is very simple. ButⒶemendation there is no sense in the way they do business. TheyⒶemendation take a body’s money & then never let him know whether they received it or not.
The masons & bricklayers are hard at work tearing down & enlarging the kitchen; plumbers are all over the house uprooting & re-arranging all the pipes; Mrs. Clemens is head ovoer heels in the work ovf ordering & superintending the snaking-up of carpets, storing of pictures, etc.; nextⒶemendation Saturday June 4 we leave for the ◊ water-side, & then the joiners & paviors will come & tear out the reception-room & thus enlarge the hall. So you see these are stirring times. From & after next Saturday, our address, for the months of June & July will be
Montowese House
Branford, Conn.
All this tribe send love to you & Mrs Gerhardt—including
S L C
Mr. Karl Gerhardt | Ecole National des Beaux Arts | Elève Jouffroy | Rue Bonaparte | Paris above the addressee: rule | France. | rule return address: return to s. l. clemens, hartford, conn., if not delivered within 10 days. postmarked: hartford conn. may 31 12m and paris étranger 1e | 12 juin 81 Ⓐemendation
MS, CU-MARK, is source text for the letter; MS, MB, is source text for the envelope.
MicroPUL, reel 2, envelope only; Sotheby’s catalog, 19 June 2003, lot 45, partial publication.
The letter MS was offered for sale on 10 and 11 November 1924 by Anderson Galleries from the collection of William Harris Arnold, and again by Anderson Galleries on 18 May 1928; it was purchased at the Sotheby’s sale of 19 June 2003 from the collection of Nick Karanovich. MB purchased the envelope in April 1939 with funds bequeathed by Boston lawyer Josiah H. Benton (1843–1917).
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.