To Jane Lampton Clemens and Family
21 February 1868 • Washington, D.C.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00197)

76 224 F street
(Keep your eye on the address)
Washn Feb. 21.

Dear Folks—

I was at 224 first—s Stewart is there yet—I have moved five times since—shall move again, shortly. Shabby furniture & shabby food—that is Washn—I mean to keep moving.1

I have received all the printed letters you mention—Ma’s last, containing one, to-day—& one from Mollie containing 3—the file is complete, as [ published ] & numbered. But I see no letters from various places in France, Italy, Spain, Egypt, & so on—though it runs in my head that I wrote them. However, it is of no consequence—the Alta contract is completed.2

I was at the Illinois State reception last night3—a stranger—but after I got on good friendly terms with everybody, a Michigan lady gravely complimented Annie, through me, on her excellent letter in the Jumping Frog!4 I said the letter was genuine, & I would convey the compliment to the proper source. You may give it to my niece, with her uncle’s best love.

I couldn’t accept the Postoffice—the book contract was in the way—I could not go behind that—& besides, I did not want the office. I might want such a thing under the next administration, & if it shall so happen, it will be in my favor that I did not serve under this one. It would not do to take the office, & then have the book company sue me & take away the first year’s salary for breach of contract. Love to Sammy & Annie & all—I have many letters to write.

Yrs aff

Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 In an 1870 sketch in the Galaxy, Clemens recalled that he and Riley frequently “lodged together in many places in Washington during the winter of ’67–’8, moving comfortably from place to place, and attracting attention by paying our board—a course which cannot fail to make a person conspicuous in Washington” (SLC 1870, 726). And in an 1889 interview, he mentioned rooming “in a house which also sheltered George Alfred Townsend, [Hiram J.] Ramsdell, George [W.] Adams, and Riley, of the San Francisco Alta. . . . A little later that winter William Swinton and I housed together” (“Mark Twain. An Interview with the Famous Humorist,” New York Herald, 19 May 89, 19).

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2 On 12 February Orion, who was living with his sister and mother in St. Louis, wrote to his wife, still staying with her family in Keokuk:

Sure enough those papers were sent to you by mistake. Not knowing what had become of the account of Russian bathing [SLC 1867 [MT00581]], and the others, Pamela sent 50 cents to the Alta for them; but they have not come. I believe I cut them out for you. Put them in an envelop and send them here or to Sam L. Clemens (Mark Twain) 224 F street, Washington City, D.C. as soon as you can. (OC to MEC, 12 Feb 68, CU-MARK)

The file “as published & numbered” could not have included anything later than letter number 39, published the previous Sunday, 16 February, and since Clemens was receiving clippings relayed to him through his family in St. Louis, the file he had almost certainly included less. The first gap in the numbering occurred following letter 39, which was written from Nazareth. Any letters Clemens may have written the Alta about Spain or Egypt would not yet have been published—and in fact no such letters ever appeared in the newspaper. For a discussion of letters Clemens may have written in France and Italy but that the Alta never published, see 1–2 Sept 67 to JLC and family, nn. 2–4.

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3 Clemens described this occasion in his 21 February dispatch to the Chicago Republican:

This Illinoisan reunion was lively, void of restraint, and eminently pleasant. This is the most agreeable way in which Senators and Representatives can meet their flitting constituents, and the idea is well worthy of adoption by the representatives of other States here. Americans are not by nature, inclination, or home teaching, courtly enough to enjoy the formal humbuggery of an orthodox “reception.” (SLC 1868 [MT00640])

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4 Young Annie Moffett’s “model letter” appeared in “An Open Letter to the American People” (SLC 1866 [MT00426]), first published in the New York Weekly Review on 17 February 1866 and reprinted as “A Complaint about Correspondents” in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).

Previous publication: L2, 195–197; MTB, 1:359, brief excerpt; MTBus, 98–99.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 512–14.

Emendations and textual notes:

published • pub-|lished