Wooster, Jan 7.1
Livy darling, did these clothes ever come? If so you ought to have informed me. If they did, forward the enclosed note to the tailors, along with the bill (have Orion get you a check for $89 & enclose that, too—I am out of money.) If they didn’t come, write & tell them so Redpath so (36 Bromfield st) & enclose [ th ] my letter & the draft to him & let him see the tailors.2
I hired a locomotive for $75 yesterday, to keep from having to get up at 2 in the morning;3 then I gave away $50 to a sick & needy poet, 4 & so I am about out of cash.
I enclose a couple for Theodore—but both of them put together ain’t as good as that child’s-trumpet story.5
I have been figuring. My lecture business, up to the end of January, yields about $10,000—& yet, when I preach Jan. 30, it is [ wh well ] I am so close to Hartford, for I would not have money enough to get home on.6 It has all gone & is going, for those necessaries of life—debts. Every night the question is, Well, who does this day’s earnings belong to?—& away it goes. I do hate lecturing, & I shall try hard to have as little as possible of it to do [hereafter ]. The rest of my earnings will go to Ma & Redpath, principally7—& then what are we going to do, I don’t reckon? You gave that $50 to the poet, honey, for that was the money I was going to buy you a Christmas present with. How do you like such conduct as those?
Lecturing is hateful, but it must come to an end yet, & then I’ll see my darling, whom I love, love, love.
Love to all that jolly household & that dear old Susie.8
Samℓ.
Mrs. S. L. Clemens | cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn [postmarked:] [wooster ] o. jan 10
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Whenever he paused, placed his left arm akimbo and his right
elbow in his left hand and began to gesticulate slowly with his
right hand, the next word or words he uttered was the funny
point toward which all that he had been saying just before
tended, and which forced the audience into convulsions. It is
impossible to imitate on paper his gestures and manner of
speaking. One must hear him to realize the effect of what he
says. (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,”
Columbus Ohio State Journal, 6 Jan 72,
4) The Ohio State Journal also reprinted (without
attribution) a synopsis of the lecture from the Chicago Tribune of 20 December, slightly altered and
updated, as if it were a transcription of the Columbus lecture.
“If the report don’t correspond with the
lecture,” the Journal quipped,
“it is the fault of the lecturer” (Columbus
Ohio State Journal:
“‘Mark Twain’” and
“Notes and Comments,” 6 Jan 72, 1;
“‘Mark Twain,’” Chicago
Tribune, 20 Dec 71, 4; L4, 519).
Failing to make connection at Crestline {forty miles west
of Wooster} he hired an engine to bring him to Wooster.
He introduced his subject, “Roughing It,” by a
very humorous description of his trip from Crestline to Wooster. The
gentleman from Wooster, of regal appearance, who accompanied him and
is said to have palmed himself off as the Grand Duke, enjoys the
joke immensely, but denies its foundation in fact.
(“Lecture of Mark Twain,” 11 Jan 72, 2) The “gentleman from Wooster” was very likely
Clemens’s official host there, attorney Charles M. Yocum
(Redpath and Fall,
11–12; “Attorneys,” Wooster Republican, 11 Jan 72, 1).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L5, 10–12; MFMT, 46, excerpt, mistakenly as part of 9 Nov 71 to OLC; LLMT, 171–72.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
th • [‘h’ partly formed]
wh well • whell [‘h’ partly formed]
hereafter • here-|after
wooster • w [oo] ster [badly inked]
