To
Olivia L. Langdon
24 and 25 November 1869 • Hartford, Conn.,
and Boston, Mass.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00377)
Late P.M.
Hartford Nov. 24/69
I am perplexed—for I wonder where my darling is. She keeps writing me indefinitely about going to New York, this week, but I can’t make out what part of this week she means.1 She is a dear little—rascal. But I love her—I love her with a stronger, prouder & profounder affection every day as the time goes by. One year ago, lacking a day, my life was glorified with the gladdest surprise that had ever burst upon it—& since that moment my Livy has been all in all to me. I have now known almost ten months of restful happiness,2 a satisfied [tranquillyity ], a broadening charity, a more generous view of men & motives, an unaccustomed stirring within me of religious impulses, not grand and strong, it is true, but steady & hopeful—the subdued & far-off cadences of approaching music, as it were. A new, strange, beautiful life these ten months have given me; a broaden‸ing‸ & aspiring life, a life worth ages of the desert existence that went before it. And therefore how can I help loving the noble woman who has made this paradise for me & [ beautified ]adorned it with the her enduring love & the gentle graces of her nature? I do love you, darling, with all ‸the‸ energy of a heart starved for love these many & many years. And its passion-torrents are left behind, its rocks & shoals are passed, its restless rivulets are united, & so, in one stately river of p Peace it holds its unvexed course to that sea whose further tides break upon the shores of Eternity.
We have had a pleasant day & a pleasant evening, child. I called at Mr Hooker’s a moment & saw him—then went over to Warner’s & visited with him & his wife an hour. She sent a world of love & loving messages to you which I ship to you in bulk to save port dues. I like her.3
Warner soon talked himself into such a glow with the prospect of what we could do with the Courant now that I have achieved such a sudden & sweeping popularity in New England, that he forgot we had not yet come to any terms, & fell to appointing the work I should do on the paper. The same way this evening at Twichell’s, in another long private conversation. I told him I would not leave the Express unless the boys were willing, & I felt sure they would not be—& that I would not ask them to give me as much for my interest as I gave for it, for they should not say I left without benefiting them by leaving—further, by his own showing, the only Courant fifth I could get they had foolishly bought from a partner & paid $4,000 more for it than they considered it worth, in order to get rid of him, & borrowed the money to do it with; (unpaid yet—a hungry debt of [ $ ]near $30,000).4 I said it would be paying the Express [ $3,000 $5,000 ]to let me go, & paying the Courant $29,000 for $25,000-interest to take me in—$9,000 altogether to get hold of an interest far less valuable & lucrative than my Express interest—& all I should get for it would be, the pleasure of living in Hartford among a most delightful society, & one in which you & I both would be supremely [satisfied in. ]I said if I were absolutely worth $35,000 I would pay $9,000 in a moment for the sake of getting ourselves comfortably situated, but unfortunately I wasn’t worth any such sum,. I said I would do nothing till I talked with you. He wanted me to talk with Mr. Langdon & write the result, & I said I would.5
Three times I have met Sam Bowles, of the Springfield Republican, & notwithstanding he wrote me a note saying I must always sit at his table when in Springfield, I was ashamed to find myself calling him a in my secret heart a born & bred cur, every time. And notwithstanding my shame, I could not help comforting myself with the reflection that my judgment of men was oftener right than wrong. The other day we met him, & afterward I said, “Nasby, I never have heard anybody say a word against Sam. Bowles, & he always treats me politely, but I cannot get rid of the conviction that he is a dog”—& Nasby said a very great many people had very convincing proofs that Mr. Bowles was exactly that. Then I remembered his treatment of Richardson, a circumstance I had forgotten., since Bliss told me the other day. And now it came [ ab ]out, confidentially, from Twichell, to-night, that last June both Hawley & Warner were full of the idea of having me on the Courant, but ran to [consult ]Bowles the great journalistic oracle, & he advised them not to do it—& in their simplicity they took in good faith the word of a man who had just come from California & knew what a card I was there & consequently what a trump I could make myself here.6 Livy darling I guess we couldn’t pull loose all the Buffalo anchors easily, & so we may as well give up Hartford—but my gracious, wouldn’t I like to tilt that Courant against the complacent Springfield Republican & make that journal sick? I think so.
My pet, I had to give up Mrs Perkins.7 I slopped out there in the mud today (it rained like all possessed, yesterday, but held up & did not interfere with my audience at night.)8 When I reached her house she had been gone to the city about fifteen minutes. I was very sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.
Didn’t see Alice Day—am afraid I didn’t right thoroughly want to, though maybe I might have been mistaken.
I have ordered Twichell to stand by & assist Mr. Beecher to marry us, & I told him you wanted it so.9 It’s powerful expensive, but then we’ll charge him for his board while he is there.
Bless your old heart I wish I could see you. Rather see you than anybody in the world. I would, Livy, old sweetheart. I would, indeed. Because I love you. I love you with all my heart, Livy darling.
Good-bye, & the peace of God be rest upon you now & always, darling.
Sam.
[enclosure:] 10
h. g. smith,
studio building,
boston.
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. ‸St. Nicholas Hotel | New York.‸ [return address:] [boston lyceum ]bureau, no. 20 bromfield st. boston. [postmarked:] boston mass. nov. 25. 8.p.m. [docketed by OLL:] 147th
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
The hall has not been so crowded, on any occasion, for a long time. And the vast audience sat for over an
hour in a state of positive enjoyment, in a condition of hardly suppressed “giggle” and expectancy of
giggle, with now and then a burst of hearty, unrestrained laughter. The laughter was never forced; people laughed because
they could not help it. And what was it all about? Mr. Clemens, a self-possessed gentleman, with a good head and a face that led one to expect humor,
with an unembarrassed but rather nonchalant manner, was walking about the stage, talking about the Sandwich Islands;
talking, and not repeating what seemed to be a written lecture. It was a conversational performance. His stories, his jokes,
his illustrations, were told in a conversational way, and not “delivered.” With a half lingering
hesitation in his speech, and a rising inflection of voice, he talked exactly as he does in private; and the same
peculiarities that make him to the parlor a capital narrator, ensured him success before this audience. The thing seems very simple, and yet there was a good deal of art in it. Perhaps we can find in the
cyclopedia more than he told us about the Sandwich Islands, more and a good deal less. But we do
not find Mark Twain in the cyclopedia account, nor his peculiar manner of looking at things. The art of the lecture
consisted in the curious mingling of grave narration and description with the most comical associations, and with occasional
flashes of genuine wit. And the whole was leavened by a manner that would make the fortune of a comedian. Mr.
Dickens’s greatest success was in comedy, and even his finest passages of humor owed their best effect to the
manner of the artist. In the humorous lecture or reading it is impossible to separate the person from what he says or reads. Mr. Clemens made as decided a hit with his audience in Hartford as he did in Boston. And we do not
doubt that it was a genuine success. We did not go expecting him to expound political economy or the philosophy of Kant, but
to have an hour of healthy laughter; and we thanked fortune that we had it, and that there is left a genuine humorist who
can give it to us. And when we went away we did not care to make an inventory of our “information.”
For ourselves, we reckon among our benefactors those who can make us laugh, innocently. Humor has its office.
(“The Humorous Lecture—Mark Twain,” 25 Nov 69, 2)
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 403–408; LLMT, 122–24, without the enclosure.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
Emendations and textual notes:
tranquillyity • [‘y’ partly formed]
beautified • [false ascenders/descenders]
$ • [partly formed]
$3,000 $5,000 • $3 5,000
satisfied in. • [altered in pencil, possibly by Clara Clemens Samossoud or by Dixon Wecter, to ‘satisfied.in.’; see LLMT, 123]
ab • [‘b’ partly formed]
consult • consutlt
boston lyceum • [b] oston lyceum [torn]
