To Olivia L. Langdon
21 December 1869 • Boston, Mass.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00392)

Little sweetheart, I have the advantage of you at last. Often & over again your letters for me have been accumulating at some point distant from me while I have been fidgetting & doing without. But now for a day or two I have been forwarding my remarks to Elmira while my darling has been still vegetating in New York. And this one goes to Elmira, too. But I sent your father a telegram a little while ago to let you know that Joe Goodman & Mr. Seeley are in New York on their way to Elmira. Seeley is after the comfortable, berth of U. S. District Judge for the District of Nevada—an old friend of mine.1

I do hope Joe won’t get tight while he is here in the States, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But he is a splendid fellow, anyhow.

I have written my sister in such a way that she will be almost sure to come to our wedding. I have promised to send my mother $500– in a short time—& I will pay my sister’s expenses too.

I talked last night in Canton, & had the hospitalities of Mr. Ames, (son of Oakes Ames the P.R.R. Mogul) inflicted on me—& it is the last time I will stop in a New England private house. Their idea of hospitality is to make themselves comfortable first, & leave the guest to get along if he can. No smoking allowed on the premises. The next New Englander that receives me into his house will take me as I am, not as I ought to be. To curtail a guest’s liberties & demand that he shall come up to the host’s peculiar self-righteous ideas of virtue, is simply pitiful & contemptible. I hate Mr. Ames with all my heart.2 I had no sleep last night, & must seek some rest, little sweetheart.3 Bless you my own darling, whom I love better & better & more & more tenderly every day.

Sam.

Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. [return address:] boston lyceum bureau, no. 20 bromfield st. boston. [postmarked:] [boston mass.] dec. 21. [8.p.m.] [docketed by OLL:] Dec 21st 160th

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Jonas Seely (1832?–83), a lawyer in Carson City and Virginia City in the early 1860s, and currently an acting United States district attorney in Nevada, had accompanied Goodman to Washington. Seely was seeking the post that had been held for four years by a close Nevada friend of Clemens’s, Alexander W. (“Sandy”) Baldwin (1840–69), who was killed in a California train accident on 14 November. (Goodman and Seely had been pallbearers at Baldwin’s funeral in Oakland two days later and Clemens had memorialized him in “A Fair Career Closed,” in the Buffalo Express of 27 November, as “a shining example of how generous Fortune can be, and how fickle” [SLC 1869].) Seely was one of two principal contenders for the appointment, which carried an annual salary of $3,500—considered inadequate but reportedly about to increase to $6,000. The other was Edgar W. Hillyer (d. 1882), the prosecuting attorney for Storey County, Nevada, who was “backed by Senator [William M.] Stewart and certain commanding influences” (“The U.S. District Judgeship,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 11 Dec 69, 2). Unknown to Clemens, Hillyer had been appointed on 15 December. He was confirmed by the Senate by 23 December (Kelly 1862, 88; Kelly 1863, 279; “Died,” San Francisco Morning Call, 16 June 83, 4; “Obsequies of the Late Judge Baldwin of Nevada,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 17 Nov 69, 3; L1, 280 n. 11; Chase et al., 124; Virginia City Territorial Enterprise: “For Europe,” 2 Dec 69, 2; “Confirmed,” 23 Dec 69, 2).

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2 Oakes Ames (1804–73)—the wealthy manufacturer and capitalist, member of Congress since 1862, and principal figure in the Crédit Mobilier corporation through which he corruptly financed the recently completed Union Pacific Railway—had four sons: Oakes Angier (1829–99), Oliver (1831–95), Frank (1833–98), and Henry. Oakes Angier and Oliver both lived in North Easton, Massachusetts, about eight miles south of Canton, while Frank lived in Canton itself, making him the most likely to have been Clemens’s inhospitable host (nothing is known of Henry). Frank Ames had been educated at the Leicester and Andover Academies before entering his family’s lucrative shovel-manufacturing business. At present he was a chief owner of the Kinsley Iron and Machine Company in Canton, had extensive business interests elsewhere, particularly in railroads, and was active in Republican politics (“Address of the Republican State Committee,” Boston Advertiser, 26 Oct 69, 4; “Hon. Frank M. Ames,” Boston Evening Transcript, 25 Aug 98, 5).

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3 Clemens wished to be rested for his lecture in Hudson, Massachusetts, on the evening of 21 December (no reviews have been located). His sponsor there was the Reverend H. G. Gay. An incident Clemens recalled in 1907 must have occurred in Gay’s home, although Clemens’s account disguised the actual time and place:

Once I was a hero. I can never forget it. It was forty years ago, when I was a bashful young bachelor of thirty-two. I lectured in the village of Hudson, New York, & was the guest of the village parson, there being no hotel in the place. In the morning I was summoned to the parlor for family worship. It began with a chapter from the Old Testament,. Seated elbow to elbow around the walls were the aged clergyman’s family of young folks, along with twenty-one maidens & youths from neighboring homes. I was pleasantly wedged between two young girls—sweet & modest & diffident lassies. The preacher read the first verse; a youth at his left read the second; a girl at the youth’s left read the third—& so on down, toward me. I ran my finger down to my verse, purposing to familiarize myself with it, & so that I could read it acceptably when my turn came ‸should‸ come. I got a shock! It was one of those verses which would make a graven image blush. I did not believe I could read it aloud in such a company, & I resolved that I would not try. Then I noticed that the poor girl at my left had put her finger on that same verse & was showing signs of distress. Was it her verse? Had I miscounted? I counted again, & found it really was her verse, & not mine. By this time it was my turn was come. I saw my chance to be a hero, & I rose to the occasion: I braced up & read my verse & hers too! I was proud of myself, for it was as fine & grand as saving her from drowning. (SLC 1907, 4–6)

Entries in an 1879 notebook of Clemens’s indicate that the embarrassing biblical verse was 2 Kings 18:27—“But Rab-shakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?” (N&J2, 302–3).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L3, 433–435; LLMT, 128–29.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.

Emendations and textual notes:

boston mass. • [bosn] mass [.] [badly inked]

8.p.m. • [8].[p].[m.] [badly inked]