Davenport, Jan. 14.
Livy, darling, I greet you. We did have a splendid house tonight, & everything went off handsomely.1 Now I begin to fear that I shan’t get a chance to see your loved face between Jan. 22 & Feb. 13 as I was hoping & longing I should. Because I have just received some new appointments by telegraph—the ones I expected. Please add them to your list—carefully, & don’t make any mistake: Thus:
 Marshall, Mich., |
{underline} |
Jan. 25. |
| Batavia, Ill., |
{underline} |
Jan. 26 |
| Freeport, Ill., |
{underline} |
Jan. 27 |
| Waterloo, Iowa, |
{underline} |
Jan. 28 |
| Galena, Ill |
{underline} |
Jan. 29 |
| Jacksonville, Ill., |
{underline} |
Feb. 1. |
Others are to come, the dispatch says. {Did I tell you I am to lecture in Norwalk, Ohio, Jan. 21, & in Cleveland, Jan. 22? Put those down too, Livy.[}] If they don’t send me the names of the Secretaries of these added societies, you will have to tell Charlie to direct your letters to my nom de plume, & then the Secretaries will get them anyhow. Will you try to remember that, dear? And now, since misfortune has overtaken me & I am not to see you for such a long, long time, won’t you please write me every day? I wish you would try, Livy. I don’t think you can, & I don’t expect it, either, for it is a great labor—but still I do wish you could, if it wouldn’t interfere with your duties or pleasures, or tire you too much. I find it next to impossible to get the opportunity to write to you every day, though I would most certainly like to do it—& being forced, as I am, to devote to it simply such time as I can snatch from sleep, my letters can’t naturally be anything more than mere hasty, chatty paragraphs, with nothing in them, as a general thing. [in margin: I wrote Charlie from Ottawa—did he get it?]
Where was I on Sunday, Jan. 3? In Fort Wayne. Had my breakfast brought up, & lay in bed till 1 P.M. I did want to go to church, & the bells sounded very inviting, but it seemed a plain duty to rest all I could. {Besides, I don’t like to see people nudge each other when I enter a church, & call attention to me. Funny things happen sometimes, though. In Tecumseh, Mich., the preacher got to talking about the mysterious grave of Moses—& there was a broad smile all over the house in a moment—they thought of “Moses Who?” The [ poor ] preacher was not at the lecture, & could not understand why his well-delivered & w [ er earnest ] pathos should provoke mirth.}2
Yes I lay abed till 1 P.M, & read your Akron & Cleveland letters several times3 —& read the Testament—& re-read Beecher’s sermon on the love of riches being the root of evil4 —and read [ G ] Prof. Goldwin Smith’s lecture on Cromwell5 —& a most entertaining volume containing the Grecian & other Mythologies in a condensed form6 —& smoked thousands of cigars, & was excessively happy—that is, as happy as I could [ b ] well be, without you there to make it complete. Then I got up & ate dinner with some friends—& went to bed again at 4 in the afternoon & read & smoked again—& got up long, long before daylight [in bottom margin: {See back of page 3}}] 7 & took the cars for the endless trip to Indianapolis via & Chicago. That is the history of Jan. 3, Livy dear, & I remember it ever so pleasantly.
I have seen your young gentlemen women-haters often—I know them intimately. They are infallibly & invariably unimportant whelps with [ vest vast ] self-conceit & a skull full of oysters, which they take a harmless satisfaction in regarding as brains. They are day-dreamers, & intensely romantic, though they would have the world think otherwise. They Their pet vanity is to be considered “men of the world”—& they generally know about as much of the world as a horse knows about metaphysics. They are powerfully sustained in their [woman-hating ] & kept well up to the mark by the secret chagrin of observing that no woman above mediocrity ever manifests the slightest interest in them—they come without creating a sensation, & go again without anybody seeming to know it. They are coarse, & vulgar, & mean—these people—& they know it. Neither men or women I admire them much or love them—& they know that, also. [in margin: I wish I could see you, Livy.] They [thirst ] for applause—any poor cheap applause of their “eccentricity” is manna in the desert to them—& they suffer in noticing that the world is unc stupidly unconscious of them & exasperatingly indifferent to them. When sense dawns upon these creatures, how suddenly they h discover that they have been pitif pitiable fools—but they are full forty years old, then, & they sigh to feel that those years & [their ] pleasures they might have borne, are wasted, & lost to them for all time. I do pity a woman-hater with all my heart. —even The spleen he suffers is beyond comprehension.
Why yes, Livy, you ought to have sent me Mother Fairbanks’ letter, by all means. Send it now, won’t you, please?8 She’s a noble woman. It will be splendid for her to have you & me both to bother about & scold at, some day. [ W ] She will make a fine row with me when she sees me coming back on the 22d with a new lot of baggage after all her trouble convincing me that I needed nothing more than a valise to travel with. I shall find my ‸lost‸ baggage again at Toledo, I think.
The lady you wrote of was singularly unfortunate—judging at a first glance—but considering that it brought such Christianity, & such happy content in doing good, it seems only rare good fortune after all. Ten millions of years from now she will shudder to think what a frightful calamity it would have been, not to have lost her wealth.9 Did it never occur to you what a particularly trifling & insignificant breath of time this now long & vastly important earthly existence of ours will seem to us whenever we shall happen accidentally to have it called to our minds ten awful millions of years from now? Will not we smile, then, to remember that we used at times to shrink from doing certain duties to God & man because the world might jeer at [us?—& ] were so apt to forget that the world & its trifling opinions would scarce [rise ] to the dignity of a passing memory at that distant day? Brainless husbandmen that we are, we sow for time, seldom comprehending that we are to reap in Eternity. We are all idiots, much as we vaunt our wisdom. Good-bye. I kiss you good-night, darling. I do love you, Livy!
Always Yours,
Samℓ. L. C.
[on wrapper:]
Miss Olivia L. Langdon
Present.
Politeness of Hon. Chas. J. Langdon.
Elmira, New York.
[docketed by OLL:] 27thExplanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
We are not to understand that money is the root of all evil; but the love of it—bestowing that which we have a right
to bestow only on undying and immortal qualities, upon God, and
angels, and men—bestowing love, idolatrously, upon
material gain. It is not true that all evil in the world springs, in
some way, directly or indirectly, from money; but it is true that there is no evil to which at one
time or another love of money has not tempted men. ... If God calls you to a way of making wealth, make
it; but remember do not love money. (Henry Ward Beecher 1869, 171,
179)
Elmira Jan 15th
1869 Dear Mrs Fairbanks Your very welcome letter reached me the 9th—I was very glad of the
little visit from you which it gave me—Two or three times
during the last six weeks, I have been strongly moved to write you,
then I did not know quite how to express with pen and paper, the
thoughts that were in my heart
‸mind‸, I longed rather for the opportunity to speak with
you face to face, to talk with you as only women can talk together,
and as it is the blessed privilege to of a young woman to
talk with an older one— I felt proud and humble, both at the same time
by your letter—proud that you did not consider me
unworthy to receive the love of a strong, noble man, (I remember how
very slight a knowledge you have of me)—proud that you
should feel that I might help Mr
Clemens—Humble when I remembered how much I must strive
to do, as a Christian woman, in order to accomplish what you believe
me capable of accomplishing, humbled, even painfully humbled, when I
remembered how weak I was, and how utterly and entirely
‸helpless‸, unless there comes into my soul a strength
from above—Then I was again raised up, remembering the
power and willingness of Him in whom m I put my
trust— I believe that two people who are to unite their
lives should feel as sanguine about their future, as you feel about
ours—so I do not think that you are too
sanguine—I cannot understand,
how, their chief aim in life being the same, a christian
walk and conversation, knowing the uncertainty of human effort, the
liability to stumble and fall, how it can be otherwise, than that
they shall help and strengthen each other— I quite envy you the sight that you are to have
of Mr Clemens next week, but then a month from now I hope that he
will be with us—Mother and I have been wondering whether
we could not have the “Quaker City” reunion at
that time—Could you and your husband, with Allie and Mr
Stillwel come to us about the 18th of
next month? Mother will try and write Mrs Severance, regarding it,
before many days—We look forward with a great deal of
pleasure to that meeting of Charlie’s friends— I want to thank you for persuading Mr C. to put
that extract from your Christmas letter in print, I want the public,
who know him now, only as “the wild humorist of the
Pacific slope”, to know something of his deeper, larger
nature—I remember being quite incensed by a ladie
ys asking, “Is there any thing of Mr Clemens,
except his humour”, yet as she knew of him it was not an
unnatural question— Cousin Hattie Lewis, rec’d a letter
two or three days ago from Mr Clemens telling her the truth with
regard to his feelings, he came out frankly with her and
“broke her heart”, I think that she will find
it a great relief ‸to have it done,‸ now that she has lived
through it— We had heard of Mollies accident, and were very
glad to learn that she was doing well—Give my love to her
please, also to Allie, and kind regards to the rest of your
family—Hoping that I shall see you next month, I am
lovingly Your friend Livy L. Langdon
[in Charles J.
Langdon’s hand:] I am well too. The Quaker City reunion, repeatedly postponed,
never took place. Olivia may have found the phrase “Wild
Humorist of the Pacific Slope” in Charles Henry
Webb’s prefatory “Advertisement” to
Clemens’s first book, The Celebrated
Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And other Sketches (New York:
C. H. Webb, 1867), which, much to Clemens’s dismay, she had
been reading in December (L2, 369–70; for the text of Webb’s
“Advertisement,” see ET&S1, 429).
oll
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 38–42; LLMT, 357, brief paraphrase; MTMF, 66, brief quotation.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
Emendations and textual notes:
poor • [false ascenders/descenders]
er earnest • erarnest
G • [partly formed]
b • [partly formed]
vest vast • ve ast
woman-hating • [doubtful ‘womean-hating’]
thirst • thirst thirst [rewritten for clarity]
their • [‘r’ partly formed]
W • [partly formed]
us?—& • us?—|—&
rise • risse
