To Pamela A. Moffett
5 December 1853 • Philadelphia, Pa.
(MS, damage emended: NPV, UCCL 00005)

[Philadelphia], Dec. 5

[My Dear ]Sister:

I have already written two letters within the last two hours, and you will excuse me if this is not lengthy. If I had the money, I would come to St. Louis now, while the river is open;1 but in the last two or three weeks I have spent about thirty dollars for clothing, so I suppose I shall remain where I am. I only want to return to avoid night work, which [is ]injuring my eyes. I have received one or two letters from home, but they are not written as they should be; [and know ]no more about what is going on there, than the man in the moon. One only has to leave home to learn how to write an [interesting [letter] ] 2 to an absent friend when he gets back. I suppose you board at Mrs. Hunter’s yet—and that, I think, is somewhere in Olive street above Fifth.3 Phila is one of the healthiest [places in ]the Union. I [wanted to spend ]this winter in a [warm climate; ]but it is too late now. I don’t like our present prospect for cold [ wh weather ]at all.

Truly your brother

Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 That is, before the winter freeze closed the Mississippi.

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2 Clemens omitted the required noun, possibly because “interesting” fell at a line end in the manuscript. At some later date, Orion Clemens wrote “letter” in the margin, a likely correction which is adopted here.

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3 By 1854, and almost certainly in 1853, William and Pamela Moffett were renting a home in St. Louis on Pine Street between Fifth and Sixth streets (Knox, 133). Clemens recalls here that, while he was staying with them in the summer of 1853, the Moffetts had boarded with Ann E. Hunter, mother of his and Pamela’s aunt Ella Hunter Lampton. St. Louis directories for the 1850s, less than comprehensive, do not give an Olive Street address for Ann Hunter and only in 1851 list her as the keeper of a boardinghouse, at 138 Market Street (Green, 177). It remains possible, however, that she did have such an establishment “in Olive street above Fifth” or that she simply lived there and provided meals for the Moffetts alone.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV). A piece torn out of the top edge of the leaf affects words on both sides, which are emended at 33.1, 33.2, and 33.14. The illustrations show the damaged text in the first lines on the recto and verso of the leaf.

Previous publication: L1, 33; MTB, 1:101, excerpts; MTL, 1:30.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61. In about 1880, Orion Clemens incorporated this letter MS in the draft of his autobiography then in progress; his page numbers appear in purple ink atop each page.

Emendations and textual notes:

Philadelphia • [P]hiladelphia [torn]

My Dear • M[y De]ar [torn]

is • is is

and know • [sic]

interesting [letter] to • interesting |to

places in • places [i]n [torn]

wanted to spend • wante[ n]d [torn]

warm climate; • warm [clmat]; [torn]

wh weather • wheather [‘e’ over partly formed ‘h’]