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Add to My Citations To Orion Clemens
11 August 1872 • New Saybrook, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00791)
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Fenwick Hall,
em spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceSaybrook, Conn.,
em spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceAug. 11, 1872.

My Dear Bro:

I shall sail for England in the Scotia, Aug. 21.1

But what I wish to put on record now, is my new invention—hence this note, [ whch which ] you will preserve. It is this—a self-pasting [scrap-book ].—good enough idea if some juggling tailor does not come along & ante-date me a couple of months, as in the case of the elastic vest-strap.2

The nuisance of keeping a scrap book is: 1. One never has paste or gum [tragicanth ] handy; 2. Mucilage won’t stick, or stay, 4 weeks; 3. Mucilage sucks out the ink & makes the scraps unreadable; 4. To daub & paste 3 or 4 pages of scraps is tedious, slow, nasty & tiresome. My idea is this: Make a scrap book with leaves veneered or coated with gum-stickum of some kind; wet the page with sponge, brush, rag or tongue, & [ dap ] dab on your scraps like postage stamps.

Lay on the gum in columns of stripes, thus:

figure-il5058

Each stripe of gum the length of say 20 M’s, small pica, & as broad as your finger; a blank ‸about‸ as [ brs broad ] as your finger between each 2 stripes—so in wetting the paper you need not wet any more of the gum than your scrap or scraps will cover—then you may shut up the book & the leaves won’t stick together.

Preserve, also, the envelop of this letter—postmark ought to be good [evidence. ] of the date of this great humanizing & civilizing invention.

I’ll put it into Dan Slote’s hands & tell him he must send you all over America to urge its use upon stationers & booksellers—so don’t buy into a newspaper.3 The name of this thing is “Mark Twain’s Self-Pasting Scrap-book.”4

All well here. Shall be up 2 P M Tuesday. Send the carriage.5

Yr Bro.

S. L. Clemens

altalt

Orion Clemens Esq | Cor. Forest & Hawthorne sts | Hartford | Conn [return address:] From Samℓ. L. Clemens [postmarked:] new [saybrook conn. aug 1white diamond ] 1872 [docketed by OC:] Received and opened by M E Clemens, Aug 13, 1872. Read by me August 13, 1872.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 Joseph Blamire had written to Clemens on 9 August, replying to a letter of 7 August, now lost:

Of course it wd have been better if you cd have started a month earlier; still if you get there early in September, you will I think, see a good deal of country life, before the folks begin to return to Town; As far as my recollection goes they spend August & September mostly in the country; Parliament will I think be prorogued this year about the 12th inst. & then the flight to the country & sea side which had begun probably in July will be completed.

As to the Steamship line you will meet by all odds, the best class of People, in the Cunard Wednesday line, (they have 2 lines, one leaving New York on Wednesdays, the other on Saturdays; by the Wednesday line they charge $10000 or $12000 gold according to location of room; by their Saturday line they charge much the same as other less aristocratic lines of Steamships, say $80 gold); I wd by all means if you care for the best society, go by one of their Wednesday Steamers. In coming this way, I wd if I were you, take a different line; the Cunard line, leaving N. Y. on Wednesdays do not carry Steerage Passengers either way, all other English lines (including their‸Cunards‸ Saturdays line carry them both ways) & there is where the best fun of a westwardly voyage comes in; the steerage Passengers are obliged to keep their division of the ship, but the Cabin Passengers, go where they choose & I know that you wd enjoy some of the Evening Scenes amazingly. ...

I should say then go by a Cunard Boat leaving N. Y. on Wednesdays & return by a Cunard Boat of their other line, leaving Liverpool on Tuesdays. ...

I don’t think you wd see any thing particularly worth your while among the Steerage passengers from this side, but among the passengers coming here—elated as they often are, with their new & brighter prospects, there are sometimes rich scenes.

The Crack Steamer of the Cunard Line is the Scotia, to sail August 21st. If I can do anything for you about your passage command me.

I will either give to you in N. Y. or send you a letter of introduction to our folks, of the very simplest kind that I can write[.] (CU-MARK)

On 15 August Blamire assured Clemens that he had received his check for $150, with which he had “secured the best Room that was left on the Scotia” (Blamire to SLC, 15 Aug 72, CU-MARK).

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2 See 20 July 72 to Bliss, n. 2. The wording of Clemens’s oblique reference to Lockwood (“some juggling tailor”) has not been explained.

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3 Since leaving his position as editor of the American Publisher in March 1872, Orion had been unemployed, but his brother had apparently agreed to underwrite a new career. In May, Orion had suggested that Clemens set him up in a law practice in Hartford. Then in late July, Orion left on a week-long trip to investigate buying into a country newspaper. On 26 July he wrote to Mollie from Vermont:

The Rutland Independent man wants to start a daily, and wants an editor; but I am afraid the Daily would die at the end of the presidential campaign.

The best thing I have seen on my whole route is the Rutland Herald. It has a daily of 900, and a weekly of 2500 circulation, and a net income of about $7,000, and no job office—just one press and the material for the paper. The weekly is 79 years old, and the daily 7 years old. It has is owned by a smart business man. I look upon an a purchase of an interest in it by Sam in his own name as an investment as sure as bank stock, and as certain as investment can be to bring him his 7 per cent. One person told me the owner asked $15,000, and another that he asked $30,000 for it. If I could get a third interest, and a salary of a hundred dollars a month, I could pay Sam his interest, and still have a nice income left. The owner took the names of Davis & McKee to write to them. (CU-MARK)

Davis has not been identified. William McKee was a former employer of Orion’s on the St. Louis Missouri Democrat. On 2 August, after his return, Orion reported to Clemens, “I wrote Thursday morning to the Vergennes man to ask him the lowest he would take for his office—if $1600; and to Pittsfield Sun to know the lowest he would take—if $2,000. I am going down to the Churchman this afternoon to seek work till the matter is settled” (CU-MARK). Orion’s inquiries about the Vergennes Vermonter and the Pittsfield (Mass.) Sun (both weeklies) came to nothing, nor is there any indication that he found work at the Churchman, an Episcopal weekly published in Hartford. His visit to Rutland, however, would lead to a job offer in the spring of 1873 (7 Mar 72 to OC, n. 1; 15 May 72 to OC and MEC, n. 6; L2, 198 n. 1; 5 May 73 to OC and MEC, n. 1; Rowell, 14, 48, 109; Mott 1938, 69).

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4 Several months would pass before Clemens was able to apply for a patent on his “Improvement in Scrap-Books”: he signed a descriptive statement on 15 April 1873, filed the application on 7 May, and was granted patent number 140,245 on 24 June (SLC 1873). Although he deferred manufacture for several years, he ultimately placed the scrapbook in the hands of his friend Daniel Slote. The first extant statement from Slote, Woodman and Company is dated 12 January 1878 and covers the last six months of 1877. It shows domestic and foreign sales of 26,310 scrapbooks, with Clemens’s profit totaling $1,071.57 (Scrapbook 10:33, CU-MARK). The scrapbook—known as “Mark Twain’s Patent Self-Pasting Scrap Book,” “Mark Twain’s Adhesive Scrap Book,” or simply “Mark Twain’s Scrap Book”—proved to be Clemens’s only profitable patent, providing a modest but steady income. Albert Bigelow Paine stated that it was still being sold in 1912 (“Slote, Woodman & Co.,” New York Herald, 19 July 78, 8; “Daniel Slote,” New York Tribune, 14 Feb 82, 2; Daniel Slote and Company to Charles L. Webster and Company, 21 Dec 89, CU-MARK; MTB, 1:457).

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5 The purpose of Clemens’s trip to Hartford on Tuesday, 13 August, has not been discovered.



glyphglyphSource text(s):glyph
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). Clemens’s drawing is photographically reproduced.

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyph L5, 143–146; MTB, 1:457, paraphrase; MTL, 1:196–97; Davis 1977, 1; Davis 1987, 3; Clemens’s drawing omitted from all.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphEither Mark Twain Papers or Moffett Collection (see Description of Provenance).

glyphglyphEmendations and textual notes:glyph


whch which • whchich

scrap-book • scrap-|book

tragicanth • [sic]

dap • [‘p’ partly formed]

brs broad • brsoad

evidence. • [deletion implied]

saybrook conn. aug 1white diamond • sa [ywhite diamondwhite diamondwhite diamondwhite diamondk] conn. [awhite diamondwhite diamond] i [white diamond] [badly inked]