To Olivia L. Clemens
11 and 12 December 1873 • London, England
(MS, damage emended: CU-MARK, UCCL 01000)

Dec. 11.

Livy my darling, I am just starting to the lecture hall, & O the dreadful fog still continues. The cattle are choking & dying in the great annual Cattle Show, & today they had to take some of the poor things out & haul them around on trucks to let them breathe the outside air & save their lives. I do wish it would let up.2

If I’m not [homesick ]to see you, no other lover ever was homesick to see his [sweetheart. And ] [when ]I get there, remember, [“Expedition’s ]the word![”] 3 Most lovingly,

Samℓ.

[new sheet:] 4

slc/mt

2 A M.

Dec. 12.

My own dear little darling, it is 2 in the morning, & I had gone to my bedroom, but I thought, I will just go back to the parlor & look at Livy’s picture once more before I go to bed. And so I am here, & your picture is before me (the same I have carried in my pocket so many many months) & I simply love it & I love you, Livy, my darling.5

Tonight, after my lecture, I went [to ]the Scotch Morayshire dinner,—the lord Viscount MacDuff was in the chair6—& I made a speech which was received with prodigious applause—but I thought “if L L Livy were only here, I would enjoy it a thousand times more.7 I do love you, Livy darling, & my last word is, (when I come) “Expedition’s the word!”

Most Lovingly

Saml.

Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens
Hartford
Conn.
[rule] [in upper left corner:] America. | [flourish] [on flap:] slc/mt [postmarked] london-w 7 de 12 73 [and] l 12 12 1873 [and] [new york dec 26 paid all]

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 This is the first of several letters written on this stationery, evidently printed in anticipation of the Clemenses’ move to their new home, which did not occur until the fall of 1874. Olivia had probably sent a sample of the stationery for her husband’s approval.

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2 The “peculiar fog which has prevailed for an almost unprecedented number of days in succession has inflicted a loss of thousands of pounds upon the owners of animals” at the Smithfield Club Show at Agricultural Hall, the London Times reported (“Machinery at the Cattle Show,” 13 Dec 73, 6). By the evening of 11 December, the fourth day of the show, ninety-one cattle had been removed from the hall. Some of them were “saved by being carried quickly into the clearer air of the country; but a very considerable number have been slaughtered, while several died before it was discovered that they were being poisoned by the smoke-laden atmosphere” (“Smithfield Club Show,” London Times, 12 Dec 73, 5).

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3 This sentence is very heavily canceled in the manuscript, which remained in the Clemens family until it came to the Mark Twain Papers in 1952 as part of the Samossoud Collection. The cancellation was made with Clemens’s typical looping line, but in an ink of a slightly different color and density from that used to write the letter. (The ink used to cancel the sentence was so thickly applied that it soaked through the paper and caused it to disintegrate in two places.) The last six words of the letter—“(when I come) ‘Expedition’s the word!’”—were canceled in similar fashion. Although it is possible that Clemens made both cancellations before he sent the letter, the greater likelihood is that he did so only later, after it was received and reacted to by Olivia, who saved his letters with great care. “Expedition’s the word!” is an unidentified quotation that Clemens is known to have used at least three times before, once in early 1867 and twice in late 1870 (N&J1, 272; L4, 251, 262). The present letter suggests, however, that the phrase had acquired a private significance for the Clemenses, perhaps one that they were unwilling, on reflection, to allow posterity even to guess at. The second cancellation in particular shows evidence also of a different hand (a distinct departure from Clemens’s usual looping mark). On balance, therefore, it seems unlikely that Clemens canceled these phrases before he sent the letter, and they are therefore transcribed as he sent them. For a facsimile of the manuscript, see Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles.

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4 Clemens’s usually clear handwriting became notably less clear and distinct by the time he wrote the following addition to this letter, perhaps the result of alcohol consumed at the Morayshire dinner, from which he had just returned.

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5 This picture has not been identified, although it may be one of those reproduced in Photographs and Manuscript Facsimiles.

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6 Alexander William George Duff (1849–1912), known as Viscount Macduff (one of the lesser titles of his father, Earl Fife), was educated at Eton, and served as lord lieutenant of the county of Elgin (1872–1902) and as member of Parliament for Elgin and Nairnshire (1874–79). As of 1883 his estates totaled nearly one-quarter of a million acres, making him the fifth largest landowner in the United Kingdom. In 1889 he married Princess Louise, daughter of the Prince of Wales, and was created duke of Fife (Cokayne, 5:379–80).

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7 Clemens responded to the toast to “The Visitors.” According to the Elgin (Scotland) Courant,

He said he did not exactly know the wording of the toast, but he rather understood it to be a health drunk to the foreign visitors, and, with his name coupled with it, and he was never so surprised at anything in his life, for he did not feel like a foreigner. ... He was going up into Scotland next week or the week after to lecture, and he was learning the language now—(laughter). He was only a small sort of a scholar, but he tried to learn, and he had mastered six or eight of the words. However, he had got such a strong foreign twang on him that he could not really understand the words himself. But he did wish that when he was expected to respond to a toast, and it would be a great kindness to him, if some one would tell him beforehand, because when he had to make an impromptu speech, he liked to have a week to think about it—(loud cheers). (“London Morayshire Club,” 16 Dec 73, no page)

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L5, 508–510; LLMT, 185–86.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

homesick • home-|sick

sweetheart. And • Sweetheart.—|And

when • []hen [damaged]

“Expedition’s • ”[]pedition’s [damaged]

to • to | to

new york dec 26 paid all • [] ew yo[] de[c 6] p[a] a[] [badly inked]