To Orion and Mary E. (Mollie) Clemens
7 June 1871 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00613)

c

Elmira, 7th

Dear Bro & Sister:

I forgot to explain to you that the reason I left you so abruptly at the church door Sunday, was because I wanted to see Gov. Jewell & tell him why I did not go to the hotel ‸in Buffalo‸ & offer him the hospitalities of our house, when he sent up his card, after having been so hospitably treated by him & his brother in Hartford—& after all, the talk fell on something else & I forgot it. I forgot it again at dinner Sunday evening, & left his house at last without mentioning the matter or even inquiring after his brother’s [health. However] it is no difference. [It] will “keep.”1

Did not go on the hill today & have not seen Pamela & Sammy.2

Livy is much stronger & the baby is flourishing.

I will try & recollect to enclose in this the brass chain I took from you. Livy thinks it is wonderful perseverance. I think the invention is marvellously ingenious & I hope it will be a great success. But I want the Anti-Sun-Stroke hat invented—it is possible, & useful, & worth a thousand wheels. It would have an enormous sale. Go at it at [once. Mind,] the hat must not weigh perceptibly more [ that than] it does now.3

Yrs

Samℓ.

Livy is much obliged for your dispatch but thinks you should not have paid for it.4

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 Marshall Jewell, whom Clemens had known at least since mid-June 1869, was a prominent parishioner of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church. After a close and contested election, he had just begun his second of three terms as governor of Connecticut (1869–70, 1871–72, 1872–73). At least two of his six brothers—Pliny and Charles A.—also lived in Hartford, and were connected with the family firm of P. Jewell and Sons, “Hide and Leather Dealers, and Manufacturers of Leather Belting, Fire Engine and Factory Hose” (Geer 1871, 168). Which brother offered hospitality to Clemens (possibly when he spent “a pleasant day & a pleasant evening” in Hartford in late November 1869: see L3, 404) is not known. Marshall Jewell had subsequently come to Buffalo when the Clemenses could not receive visitors, perhaps while Emma Nye or Olivia was ill with typhoid fever (Mansfield, 20; “Gov. Jewell . . . ,” Fredonia Censor, 17 May 71, 2; Geer 1871, 248; Sobel and Raimo, 1:180; L3, 269, 385).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Pamela and Samuel Moffett had arrived from Fredonia for treatment at the Elmira Water Cure, which was on East Avenue at the bottom of East Hill, on the road to Quarry Farm (11 June 71 to JLC; Cotton, 36–37).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 In addition to his duties on the American Publisher, Orion was continuing to work on his inventions, one of them a project that had occupied him for a number of years, a paddle boat apparently employing a wheel and a chain mechanism. During the next several months, this project was inconvenienced by a Hartford clock-maker who was slow in manufacturing the chains necessary for a working model (OC to SLC, 8 Mar 71, 4 July 71, 18 Sept 71, 22 Sept 71, and OC to MEC, 14 Sept 71, all in CU-MARK). See also 12 June 70 to PAM, n. 6.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4 Orion may have telegraphed the time of Clemens’s projected arrival in Elmira.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L4, 395–396.

Provenance:see Moffett Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

health. However • health.— | However

It • [It] ‸It‸ [torn]

once. Mind • once.—|Mind

that than • thatn