Elmira, Monday, July 4
(Which is the
5th.1
Click to add citation to My Citations.
Dear Mother=
I haven’t got up yet. It is an hour or two to breakfast. But I hate sluggards. I prefer to devote those precious hours to reading & study which some parties i waste in repose. All the bummers in town are busting fire-crackers & otherwise glorifying [ G ] Him to whom, above all others, we owe this precious Washington’s Birth-Day. And so I couldn’t sleep if I were to try.
I had expected to be with you before this—several days before this—but as I came booming along in innocent mirth, I unexpectedly got aground here. And so I have been “sparring off” ever since.2 They left Livy in New York,‸—up to Mrs. Brooks’s—‸& I brought her along, as I was coming this way. ‸, anyhow. ‸ She helps me spar. Been at it a week. But it is slow effort work, because I like sparring off better than going off—& besides, I am writing next winter’s lecture. It takes me every day to do it, & it isn’t finished yet. I write up on top of the house, where it is cool & solitary.3 I have written more than enough for a lecture, but it must be still [ i ] added to & then cut down. I shall have it ready for your inspection [in margin: over] in almost no time, maybe less, & then I shall advance out there & read it to you. I shall telegraph you first, so you cant be out if not receiving company that day.
I pray you remember me to Mr. Fairbanks, whose last note I did not answer because I intended to answer it in person before this date.4 Unto all my brother & sister cubs5 I send greeting, & great love. And Livy, the new cub—your cub-in law, so to speak—adds her love.
Good-bye—
Lovingly Yr delinquent son
Sam.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Click to add citation to My Citations. 1
Because the Fourth of July fell on a Sunday in 1869, most
celebrations in Elmira were postponed until Monday (Elmira Advertiser: “City and
Neighborhood,” 3 July, 5 July 69, 4; “No
Paper To-Morrow,” 5 July 69, 1).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
A riverboat term meaning to aid a vessel over a shallow bar by the use of
long, stout poles, or spars, and tackles (Whitney and Smith, 9:5795).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 3
Clemens was working on “Curiosities of California,”
which he eventually decided not to use, in the cupola of the Langdon
home (see the illustration, p. 505).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 4
Clemens had received Abel Fairbanks’s latest word concerning
the Cleveland Herald between 23 and 26 June (see
26 June 69 to JLC and PAM, n. 1). At Jervis
Langdon’s suggestion, before going to Cleveland he spent 13
and 14 July in Buffalo, presumably investigating the possibility of a
partnership in the Buffalo Express. While there,
staying at the Tifft House, he also toured the city. On 15 July he at
last went to Cleveland, where he doubtless stayed as usual with the
Fairbankses. It was during this visit that Abel Fairbanks
“astonished” and
“disheartened” him by proposing that he assume the
role of Herald political editor, and by asking
$62,500 for the one-third interest he wanted, a price
Fairbanks in effect raised with his next offer
(see 1 Aug 69 to Bliss, n. 2, and 14 Aug 69 to the
Fairbankses) (“Personal,” Buffalo Express, 14 July 69, 4; “City
Notes,” Buffalo Express, 15 July 69,
5; “Personal,” Cleveland Herald, 16 July 69, 3; 19 Aug 69 to OLL).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 5
Charles Mason Fairbanks (1855–1924), Alice Holmes Fairbanks,
and Mary Paine Fairbanks, the latter two previously identified (Fairbanks, 552;
“Charles M. Fairbanks, Newspaper Man, Dies,” New
York Times, 30 May 1924, 15).
Source text(s):MS, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH, call no. HM 14252).
Previous publication:
L3, 280–281; MTMF 99–100.
Provenance:see Huntington Library, pp. 582–83.
Emendations and textual notes:
G • [partly formed]
i • [partly formed]
