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Add to My Citations To Robert Watt
8 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: Koslosky, UCCL 01206)
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Mch. 8.

My Dear Mr. Watt:1

I haven’t any biographical facts—gave them all to Routledge, who put them in “Men of the Time.”2 There’s nothing else that I would like to see in print until I am dead—& then I shan’t be reading much of the time. I could find more enjoyment in other ways where I hope to go hereafter; & if I should make a mistake & get to the other place, printed matter wouldn’t stand the climate there.

Shall not publish the Mississippi river book till a year hence.

In enclose two scraps from this morning’s local paper. I never lecture outside of my own town, now.; (& then I don’t charge for my services, since they’re for charity.)

Ys Truly

S. L. Clemens


[enclosures:] 3

Father Hawley’s Acknowledgment.

To the Editor of the Courant:—

I take great satisfaction in acknowledging
the receipt of $12.16 from J. G. Rathbun, Esq.
the proceeds of the lecture given by Mark
Twain, the object of which goes to supply me
with funds to relieve the wants of the many
poor who necessarily look to me for aid. And
I would sincerely tender my heartfelt thanks
to the lecturer for his generous offering; to
the committee for their untiring zeal and efforts;
to Colt’s band, who contributed so much
to the enjoyment of the occasion; and to all
who by their patronage have done so much towards
bringing about this glorious result.

D. Hawley, City Missionary.

Mr. J. G. Rathbun has deposited $1,216, the
receipts of Mark Twain’s lecture, with the
Hartford Trust Company, to be handed over
to Father Hawley for the benefit of the city’s
poor.

Explanatory Notes

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1 Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK):
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Marcus M. (Brick) Pomeroy was the editor of the New York Democrat (L4, 422 n. 4). Watt’s “‘Three millionairs’” probably was chapters 40–41 of Roughing It, in which the narrator and two partners lose their chance to become millionaires by failing to record a rich claim (RI 1993, 256–70). For the two volumes of translations that “soon will be sold entirely out,” see 15 and 16 July 74 to Watt, n. 1, and 26 Jan 75 to Watt, n. 2. By the end of 1875, Watt was producing his “good and elegant edition” of Mark Twain selections. On 6 December he wrote to notify Clemens that he was that day sending him “Vol I of your ‘Selected Works’, containing almost everything from ‘Roughing It’—Vol II will contain ‘The Innocents at Home,’ and then follows all the Sketches” (CU-MARK). The first two volumes of his Udvalgte arbeider [Selected Works] (Copenhagen: L. A. Jorgensens, 1875), which survive in the Mark Twain Papers, were in fact translations of the two-volume English edition of Roughing It, entitled “Roughing It” and The Innocents at Home, respectively (SLC 1872). The collection of sketches that was to follow has not been identified. The Nation notice Watt alluded to appeared in the issue for 10 April 1873 (16:258):

Hinsides Atlanterhavet. I. (New York: F. W. Christern.)—Mr. Robert Watt, editor of the Day’s News, a lively daily paper published in Copenhagen, is the author of this book of American travels, written in the Danish language, whose title signifies “Beyond the Atlantic.” Mr. Watt is a spirited and fluent writer. . . .

Although it is evident the author has been painstaking in the collection of his facts, yet this part of his book is open to the criticism that its description of early settlements in the West is much too rose-colored. . . . In his closing chapter, however, on the men and women of America, the author reveals his appreciation of the best traits in the American character, showing that he has not in this respect permitted himself to be affected by stale European prejudices. We hope that in his second volume, which we shall be glad to read when published, he may be more careful to avoid the appearance of writing in the interest of certain steamship and railway companies, rather than in that of his countrymen alone. Even the appearance of evil is to be avoided.

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2 See 22 May 74 to Bliss, n. 2.

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3 The “two scraps” from the Hartford Courant of 8 March (2) do not survive with the letter, but clearly were mentions of Clemens’s 5 March charity lecture (see 21 Feb 75 to Sprague and others, and 6 Mar 75 to Seaver). Both are simulated here in line-by-line resettings. The second (which corrected the $12.16 reported in the first) was part of the daily “Brief Mention” column; it is possible that Clemens clipped a larger portion of the column, circling the relevant paragraph.



glyphglyphSource text(s):glyph
MS, collection of Pierce A. Koslosky, Jr., seen at Sotheby’s, New York City, while awaiting sale (Sotheby 1996), is copy-text for the letter. “Father Hawley’s Acknowledgment” and “Brief Mention,” Hartford Courant, 8 Mar 75, 2, are the sources for the enclosed clippings. Copy-text is a microfilm edition of the newspaper in the Newspaper and Microcopy Division, University of California, Berkeley (CU-NEWS).

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyph L6, 408–11; Sotheby 1996, lot 199, excerpts, letter only.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphVictor and Irene Murr Jacobs purchased the MS in 1964 from Emily Driscoll; they sold it again on 29 October 1996 through Sotheby’s. Koslosky purchased it from Michael Silverman in August 1997.