6? February 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (Transcript: CtHMTH, UCCL 11614)
enclosures:
on the inside envelope: Goodbye, Barnes1explanatory note on the flap: lc Ⓐemendation
Barnes was editor and co-owner of the San Francisco Morning Call. He had fired Clemens from the paper in October 1864, after four months of his “indifferent” local reporting, but the two men had remained on good terms ( L1 , 302, 317–18 n. 3; L3 , 354–55). On 15 February, he published the following:
“Mark Twain” is married. The confirmed bachelor has become the Benedict. He has followed the prophetic law, and is in one sense no longer “Twain,” but one flesh with the other “Twain.” We have received the wedding cards, pink-tinted, monogrammed envelop, motto and all, and so are forced to yield him up to Hymen as well as to Cupid. He has long been a worshipper of Momus, and holds a high place in his Cabinet. And so the missionary to the Sandwich Islands has at last made a convert, the “Innocent Abroad” has become a wise man at home. The modern “Pilgrim” henceforth will have an extra staff in his travels through life, and may he never want for scrip or staff on his journey. To our old confrere we send our congratulations. (“Marriage of Mark Twain [Sam. L. Clemens],” 2)
In 1956, Barnes’s grandniece, Elizabeth D. Theobald, who presumably inherited the wedding cards, reported that the
wedding announcement is quite different than those of the modern day in that the envelope is embossed on the back flap with the intertwined initials CL, and enclosed are two cards, one engraved Olivia L. Langdon and the other Mr. and Mrs. S. L. Clemens, 472 Delaware Ave, Buffalo. (Theobald to Cyril Clemens, 8 Dec 1956, CtHMTH).
The Langdons were following the fashion, reported early in 1869 by the New York Home Journal, of embellishing wedding invitations, and doubtless announcements as well, “with a large monogram in relief, entwining the combined initials of the bride and groom” (Rochester [N. Y.] Democrat, 1 Mar 69, reprinting the Home Journal). Probably accompanying the cards was “a note announcing the marriage on the 3d [i.e., 2d] of February, in New York” (6? Feb 70 to McCombclick to open link). The cards reproduced here are in the Mark Twain Papers. They are off-white, however, and perhaps were proofs or have faded from pink. The date assigned would have allowed Barnes’s cards to reach the West Coast by overland mail in time for his 15 February notice in the Call. Clemens probably addressed cards to his special friends at a single sitting, and so the same date has been assigned to each of the next five letters. Except for the one to John McComb, however, any of these might have been mailed somewhat later, judging by a request Olivia made on 12 February in a letter to her family in Elmira: “If you will send us about 50 after cards we will address them to people that Mr C. forgot to mention” (CtHMTH). In Elmira, Annie Moffett also mailed wedding cards for Clemens (9 Feb 70 to the Langdonsclick to open link).
The envelope text is a transcript in a letter from Elizabeth D. (Mrs. Robert A.) Theobald to Cyril Clemens, 8 Dec 1956, Mark Twain House, Hartford (CtHMTH); neither of the wedding card enclosures survives with the transcript, although both are described. The two cards shown here are from the Mark Twain Papers (CU-MARK).
L4 , 56–57.
The enclosures and envelope were in the possession of Elizabeth Theobald (George Barnes’s grandniece) at least until 1956.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.