with a book inscribed to Louise Caroline Alberta Wettin
(Princess Louise)
4 June 1883 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01919 and UCCL 12375)
P. S. Although the introduction dates a year back, the book is only just now
issued.
A good long delay. S L C
I very much want to send a little book to her Royal Highness—the famous Portuguese phrase-book; but I do not know the etiquette of the matter, & I would not wittingly infringe any rule of propriety. It is a book which I perfectly well know will amuse her “some at most” if she has not seen it before, and will still amuse her “some at least,” even if she has inspected it a hundred times already. So I will send the book to you, & you who know all about the proper observances will protect me from indiscretion, in case of need, by putting the said book in the fire, & remaining as dumb as I generally was when I was up there. I do not rebind the thing, because that would look as if I thought it worth keeping, whereas it is only worth glancing at & casting aside.
Will you please present my compliments to Mrs. De Winton & Mrs. MacKenzie?—& I beg to make my sincere compliments to you, also, for your infinite kindnesses to me. I did have a delightful time up there, most certainly.
To
Her Royal Highness
the Princess Louise
With the respectful compliments of
the book’s American Sponsor.
Hartford, June 1883.
MS, CU-MARK, is source text for the letter. MS of the enclosure, an inscription in Fonseca 1883, is also in CU-MARK. It is not known for certain whether the book was enclosed with the letter, or what happened to the inscribed book after it left Clemens’s hands. But the fact that the items were not in the original Mark Twain Papers collection suggests that they were in fact sent. No further information on their provenance has been found.
MTL, 1:432; MicroML, reel 5.