To
Olivia L. Langdon with a note to Charles J. Langdon
17 January 1869 • Chicago, Ill.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00234)
sherman house,
chicago, Sunday, Jan. 16, 186 9.
My Dearest Livy—
I am uncomfortably lame this morning. I slipped on the ice & fell, yesterday, in Iowa City, just as I was stepping into an omnibus. I landed with all my weight on my left hip, & so the joint is rather stiff & sore this morning.
I have just been doing that thing which is sometimes so hard to do—making an apology. Yesterday morning, at the hotel in Iowa City, the landlord called me at 9 o’clock, & it made me so mad I stormed at him with some little violence. I tried for an hour to go to sleep again & couldn’t—I wanted that sleep particularly, because I wanted to write a certain thing that would require a clear head & choice language.1 Finally I thought a cup of coffee might help the matter, & was going to ring for it—no bell. I was mad again. When I did get the landlord up there at last, by slamming the door till I annoyed everybody on my floor, I showed temper again—& he didn’t. See the advantage it gave him. His mild replies shamed me into silence, but I was still too obstinate, too proud, to ask his pardon. But last night, in the cars, the more I thought of it the more I repented & the more ashamed I was; & so resolved to make the repentance good by apologizing—which I have done, in the most ample & unmincing form, by letter, this morning. I feel satisfied & jolly, now.2
“Sicisiors” don’t spell scissors, you funny little orthographist. But I don’t care how you spell, Livy darling—your words are always dear to me, no matter how they are spelt. And [ I ] if I fancied you were taking pains, or putting yourself to trouble to spell them right, I shouldn’t like it at all. If your spelling is never criticised till I criticise it, it will never be criticised at all. I do wish I could have been at the birthday dinner.3 All that, & the paragraphs about your conversations were just as pleasant as they could be—& yet you thought it was foolish to write them. I am glad enough that you didn’t mark them out. It was a good, long, pleasant letter, & I thank you ever so much for it. I can easily see that Mr. Beecher was preaching upon a subject that was near his heart.4 People can always talk well when they are talking what they FEEL. ‸This is the secret of [ eloquence . ] —I wish you could hear my mother, sometimes.‸ In the cars, the other day I bought a volume of remarkable sermons—they are from the pen & [pulpit ] of Rev. Geo. Collyer, of Chicago. I like them very much. One or two of them will easily explain the Christian history of the sea Captain’s wife of whom you wrote me. These [sermon’s ] lack the profundity, the microscopic insight into the hidden secret springs & impulses of the human heart, & the searching analysis of text & subject which distinguish Henry Wards Beecher’s wonderful sermons, but they they are more polished, more poetical, more elegant, ‸more rhetorical,‸ & more dainty & felicitous in wording than those. I will send you the book before long.5
Now am I not going to get a letter at Norwalk, Ohio, (Jan. 21,) nor Cleveland, (Jan. 22.)? I do hope I wrote you of those appointments, but I am a little afraid I didn’t.6
Your Iowa City letter came near missing—it arrived in the same train with me.
It was just like Mr. Langdon in his most facetious mood, to say he would kill me if I wasn’t good to you—& it was just like you, you dear true girl, to say you’d never tell—for I believe you would go bravely on, suffering in secret from ill-treatment, till your great heart broke. But we shall circumvent Mr. Langdon, utterly—he never will have the satisfaction of killing me—because you & I will live together always in closest love & harmony, & I shall be always good to you, Livy dear—always. And whenever he needs a [a ] model married couple to mo copy after, he will only have to come & spend a few weeks at our home & we will educate him. He will see me honor you above all women, & he will also see us love each other to the utmost of human capability. So he can just put up his tomahawk & wash off his war-paint. He won’t have to kill me—will he, Livy?
So I am to be three days without a letter. I don’t like that much. It comes so naturall to get a letter from you every two days that I shall feel odd without one this evening. I am so bound up in you, & you are in my thoughts so constantly by day & in my dreams by night, & you have become so completely a part of my life—of my very flesh & blood & bone, as it were—that I shall feel lost, to-day while this temporary interruption of communication [lasts. ] —I shall feel as if the currents of life have ceased to flow in some part of my frame, having been checked in some mysterious way. Oh, I do love you, Livy! You are so unspeakably dear to me, Livy.
I am to start for Sparta, Wisconsin, at 4 PM., to-day. And I am to talk in Franklin, Pa., Feb. [14, ] & in Titusville, (Pa., I suppose,) Feb. 15—the New York appointment is changed.7
Give my loving duty to your father & mother,—please, & tender my savage regards to Miss Lewis & Charlie. And I wish that you would remember me most kindly to Mr. & Mrs. Crane when you write. I like Mr. Crane—I never have seen anything whatever about him to dislike—& you know one can’t help liking Mrs. Crane.8
Have you got a good picture yet, Livy?—because I want it so badly. Good-bye. Reverently & lovingly I kiss your forehead & your lips, my darling Livy, & wish you rest, & peace, & happy dreams.
For all time, devotedly,
Sam ℓ . L. C.
[on wrapper, front panel:]
Miss Olivia L. Langdon
Present.
Politeness of R the Right Reverend
Bishop Chas. J. Langdon.
[on back panel:] ‸Charlie, this makes about twenty-five letters I have directed to you—& you have been faithful in answering in the same way—that is, in directingMiss Olivia L. Langdon.
letters to me written by other people—& a little more interesting than if you had written them yourself, my boy.‸
9 [docketed by OLL:] 28thExplanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
The Vandal in Iowa
City.—A splendid audience
turned out to hear Mark Twain discourse about “The Vandal
abroad,” and we fear were generally disappointed. As a
lecture it was a humbug. As an occasion for laughter on very small
capital of wit or ideas it was a suc[c]ess. There were
one or two passages of some merit. His apostrophe to the Sphinx was
decidedly good, as was also his description of the ruins of the
Parthe[n]on, and of Athens by moonlight. Some touches
of Venice did very well, but it was impossible to know when he was
talking in earnest and when in burlesque. It was amusing and
interesting to see such a crowd of people laughing together, even
though we knew half of them were ashamed that they were laughing at
such very small witticisms. We were very much disappointed that
there was so little substance to his lecture. We would not give two
cents to hear him again. But, lest he might not have succeeded with his
“Vandal Abroad,” he illustrated the character
at the Clinton House, where he stopped. The morning after the
lecture nothing was seen of him up to nine o’clock, and
the landlord, in his kindness, went to his room to see if he might
not be in want of something, but received a storm of curses and
abuse for disturbing him. Of course the landlord retreated and left
him. After a while a terrible racket was heard and unearthly
screams, which frightened the women of the house. The landlord
rushed to the room and there found a splendid specimen of the vandal
and his works. There, before him, was the veritable animal, with his
skin on at least, but not much else, and in a towering rage. He had
kicked the fastenings from the door, not deigning to open it in the
usual way—that would have been too much like other folks.
He poured upon the landlord another torrent of curses, impudence and
abuse. He demanded to know where the bell-pull was. The landlord
told him they were not yet up, as they had not yet got the house
fully completed. His kicking the door open and his lung performance
were his substitute for a bell. At two o’clock P.M. he
had not dressed, and whether he did before he left on the five
o’clock train we did not learn. The Y.M.C.A. were
wretchedly imposed upon by Mark Twain, and so of course were the
audience. He is the only one engaged for the course whose personal
character was unknown. (20 Jan 69, 3) The same newspaper, in another column, reported that
“Mark Twain netted the Y.M.C.A. $130 and yet they did not
re-engage him.” The Iowa City State
Democratic Press, also on 20 January, confined its remarks to
his lecture performance, calling it a success and declaring that his
humor was “quite original and his sentiment, though mostly
borrowed from [Alexander Kinglake’s]
‘Eothen’ a work published in 1845, was yet well
rendered. The attendance was good and the Y.M.C.A. realized
handsomely” (“Twain’s lecture . . .
,” 3; Lorch 1929, 513–17). A later review in
the monthly University Reporter, although
generally favorable, concluded: “We came away feeling a
satisfaction that we had heard and seen the man whose fun we have read,
but dissatisfied in this, that we had heard so much that we never care to hear again. It is
sad to know that so much power and genius as he possesses are not the
instruments for accomplishing a holier purpose than is exemplified by
the man’s life” (1 [Feb 69]: 74).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 45–49; Wecter 1947, 38, with omissions; LLMT, 52–55.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
Emendations and textual notes:
I • [partly formed]
eloquence . • [deletion implied]
pulpit • pulputit
sermon’s • [sic]
a • a a [rewritten for clarity]
lasts. • [deletion implied]
14 • [doubtful ‘154’; ‘5’ partly formed]
