To Olivia L. Langdon
8 August 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00329)

Buffalo, Sunday.1

Livy darling, often during this lonesome day I have found myself saying unconsciously, “I will never make her unhappy any more.” That is an emanation of a guilty conscience. I did not think I was acting so badly. But I must have been, else why this accusing repetition of that promise? It is not a new thing, though. Always, as soon as we are separated, I begin to think of how many things I ought to have done which I did not do, & how many things I did do which I ought not to have done,2 & so have failed to give you happiness that it lay in my power to give you. And I keep on accusing until I hate myself. I wish I could be myself again for a little while, so that I could gladly do everything that would please you, & [ ri ] resist every provocation to make you unhappy. My darling, I hurt you yesterday, I know it perfectly well. The reason you staid in your room so long when I was waiting was be to quiet your feelings down & keep from crying. I tried to look into your eyes when you came out, but discovered no trace of tears. ‸(You avoided my scrutiny.)‸ But my heart smote me all the same. Livy, Livy, Livy, I do hate myself at this moment—I do despise myself, to think that all your precious love, and all your patient, gentleness & your beautiful nature were not puissant enough to curb my little peevish spirit & bridle my irreverent tongue. I was not fit to stand in such a presence in such a mood. I have made you suffer, Livy, & now I am suffering in expiation of it. And I hope I shall suffer a million fold more, if ever word or deed of mine shall hurt you again.

* * * * * * *

9 P.M.—I have just come in from church. I don’t know what church it was, or the name of the preacher. They sang p Presbyterian hymns & there was a sort of Presbyterian frozen-solemnity and stony unfeelingness about church & congregation which cheered me [greatly,] — & brought to me peace & hap satisfaction. The sermon impressed me, in spite of its sing-song delivery, & I feel encouraged to pray for a kindlier spirit to take possession of my heart now that [ these this] long season of harassment is drawing to a close.3 His text was: “Son, remember.” (Luke XVI., 24.)4 The idea of the discourse was that each day’s words & deeds are silently, secretly, & inexorably written down by our memories—nothing omitted, nothing slurred over—nothing palliated, nothing excused, nothing rubbed out—& in the hereafter this appalling book will be opened before us & we confronted with its pitiless testimony—& all through [ this ] So it behoves us to take critical care of each day’s doings, & see that its record balances blamelessly at night—not content ourselves with a “trial-balance” once a month & a grand footing-up once a year. —let all the pages of this dread journal be clean at the last day, & not be content that only a part of them are so.

Livy dear, I need you, I long to-night—I wish you were here. I love you, love you, love you, Livy, with all my whole heart, my darling, & before I lie down I will pray that I may yet be truly worthy of you & be enabled to entirely comprehend & appreciate the exquisite refinements of your nature, & so comprehending be withheld from rudely touching them & giving you pain.

Good-night, Livy dear. I owe your father many, very many thanks, (for my obligations to him almost overshadow my obligations to Charley, now)5 & I will ask you to express them for me—for if there is one thing you can do with a happier grace than another, it is to express gratitude to your father.

I enclose Mrs. Langdon’s pencil—I ought to be ashamed of myself, but I couldn’t recollect it, at least I couldn’t spare it sooner. I love you, Livy. With a kiss & a [blessing]

Sam

[in ink:] Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. [postmarked:] buffalo n. y. aug 9 [docketed by OLL:] 90th

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Five letters to Olivia immediately preceding the present letter (docket numbers 85–89) are now lost. Clemens probably wrote some of these in mid-July, when he traveled first to Buffalo, and then to Cleveland. Others he probably wrote during the first week of August, after his and the Langdons’ visit to Niagara, while he was shuttling between Elmira and Buffalo, enduring the “bore of wading through the books & getting up balance sheets” for the Buffalo Express (14 Aug 69 to the Fairbankses). Following the present letter ten letters to Olivia (docket numbers 91–100), probably written daily from 9 through 18 August, are lost.

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2 “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done” (from “A General Confession,” Book of Common Prayer, 25). The Book of Common Prayer, containing the Church of England’s prescribed forms of worship, was created in 1549. It had been adopted, in somewhat modified form, by the Protestant Episcopal church of the United States in 1789 (Blunt, xx–xxx, xliv–xlv, 3).

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3 Clemens alludes both to his recent spat with Elisha Bliss, and to his frustrated efforts to reach an agreement with the Cleveland Herald.

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4 Actually Luke 16:25: “But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” Neither the preacher nor his church has been conclusively identified. Although it has been suggested that Clemens heard the Reverend Grosvenor Williams Heacock at the Lafayette Street Presbyterian Church, several other Presbyterian churches were within easy walking distance of the boarding house where he was presumably staying at this time (see Reigstad 1990, 1, and 21 Aug 69 to OLL, n. 3).

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5 Clemens was obliged to Olivia’s brother for having introduced him to her, via her photograph, in 1867 (see L2, 145 n. 3). His obligations to Olivia’s father were more material: by the time he wrote this letter, Jervis Langdon must have promised to advance him half the $25,000 purchase price for a one-third share of the Buffalo Express and to stand as his guarantor for the balance (12 Aug 69 to Bliss, n. 2; 20 and 21 Aug 69 to PAM, p. 311).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L3, 289–291; LLMT, 359, brief paraphrase.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.

Emendations and textual notes:

ri • [‘i’ partly formed; possibly ‘e’]

greatly, • greatly,, [deletion implied]

these this • theseis

this • [‘s’ partly formed]

blessing • [‘ing’ conflated]