Jump to Content

Add to My Citations To Olivia L. Clemens
27 December 1871 • Tuscola, Ill.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00695)
Click to add citation to My Citations.

Tuscola, 27th

Livy Darling—

I made an ass of myself leaving a mean hotel at midnight to hunt up another a good one 20 miles away. Train was [behind] time & didn’t get me here till 2.30 AM—& wasn’t it bitter cold—the coldest night of the season. No one at the depot. Hunted up the hotel myself & carried my own [baggage. Found] every bed in the house occupied—so I had to sit up, in a fireless office the rest of the night.1 My [ spe splendid] overcoat earned its cost—every cent of it.2 My body was not cold for a moment—but all the dirty shirts & things I could [ pile i ] find in my valise wouldn’t keep my legs warm. I wouldn’t tell who I was, or I could have fared better—I was too savage.

Got breakfast at 7.30, & then pitched into my new lecture & memorized the last half of it. So I know it all, now, & can begin to use it the moment I get away from the Chicago Tribune country.

Lectured on Ward [tonight]. I [ got ] had got through work in time to take a brief, nice nap before talking—consequently was uncommonly bright & fresh.3

Am in splendid condition, now to go on working till 1 o’clock——you see they have changed the [time-table], & so I have to be up the entire night to-night again. But I am in hight vigor & don’t mind it.

I do hope the cubbie is well again—shall be anxious to get your letter tomorrow & learn how he is.4

I am going to kiss you good night, my darling, & get at my work. I can do a great deal between this & train time.

Kiss mother & the baby for me, & believe that I love you with all my heart, my darling.

Sam.

altalt

Mrs. Sam. L. Clemens | Cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn [postmarked:] [tuscola ill]. dec 29

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
1 Clemens’s reservation at Tuscola’s new Beach House (built in 1870), was for the night of 27 December, following his lecture (Redpath and Fall 1871–72, 9–10; Wallace, 51).

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
2 Writing to Orion and Mollie Clemens from London on 12? September 1873, Clemens reported that he had “ordered a sealskin overcoat for Charley Langdon—price £50, which is just what mine cost me in Buffalo” (NPV†). He indicated that he had bought his own coat in September 1871. The price in Buffalo would have been $250.

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
3 In addition to memorizing his revised “Roughing It” lecture, Clemens was reading and correcting proofs of the book (RI 1993, 871–72). No reviews of his Tuscola performance have been found.

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
4 For more than a week, Langdon Clemens had been suffering from “lung fever” (28 Dec 71 to JLC). On 20 December Olivia had written to Clemens about the baby, but sent her letter to Mattoon, Illinois, which he did not reach until 29 December (CU-MARK):
Click to add citation to My Citations.

But as the present letter shows, Olivia also reported the baby’s condition in subsequent letters which Clemens had already received. Anna Dickinson lectured on “Demagogues and Workingmen” (“Anna Dickinson this Evening,” Hartford Courant, 20 Dec 71, 2). “Emma” may have been Olivia’s Elmira friend Emma Sayles.



glyphglyphSource text(s):glyph
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyph L4, 524–26; MFMT, 48–49, excerpt.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphsee Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

glyphglyphEmendations and textual notes:glyph


behind • beohind

baggage. Found • baggage.—|Found

spe splendid • spelendid

pile i[second ‘i’ partly formed]

tonight • to-|night

got[‘t’ partly formed]

time-table • time-timable

tuscola ill. dec 29[twhite diamondwhite diamondcol] a ill. dec 2[9] [badly inked]