To Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
8 January 1868 • Washington, D.C.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00175)

My Dear Mother & Sister:

And so the old Major has been there, has he? I would like mighty well to see him. I was a sort of a benefactor to him, once. I helped to snatch him out when he was about to ride into a Mohammedan Mosque in that queer old Moorish town of Tangier, in Africa. If he had got in, the Moors would have knocked his venerable old head off., for his temerity.1

I have just arrived from New York—been there ever since Christmas day, staying at Dan Slote’s house—my Quaker City roommate, & having a splendid time. Charlie Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, & Dan & I, had (all Quaker City [night-hawks],) had a blow-out at Dan’s house & a lively talk over old times. We went through the Holy Land together, & I just laughed till my sides ached, at some of our reminiscences. It was the unholiest gang that ever cavorted through Palestine, but those are the best boys in the world. We needed Moulton badly.2 I started to make calls, New Year’s Day, but I anchored ‸for the day‸ at the first house I came to—Charlie Langdon’s sister was there (beautiful girl,) & Miss Alice Hooker, another beautiful girl, a niece of Henry Ward Beecher’s. We sent the old folks home early, with instructions not to send the carriage till midnight, & then I just staid there & deviled the life out of those girls.3 I am going to spend a few days with the Langdon’s, in Elmira, New York, as soon as I get time, & a few days at Mrs. Hooker’s, in Hartford, Conn., shortly.4

Henry Ward Beecher sent for me last Sunday to come over & dine (he lives in Brooklyn, you know,) & I went. Harriet Beecher Stowe was there, & Mrs. & Miss Beecher, Mrs. Hooker & my old Quaker City favorite, Emma Beach.5 We had a very gay time, if it was Sunday. I expect I told more lies than I have told before in a month. We had a tip-top dinner, but nothing to drink but cider. I told Mr. Beecher that no dinner could be perfect without champaign, or at least some kind of Burgundy, & he said that privately he was a good deal of the same opinion, but it wouldn’t do to say it loud. I went back, by invitation, after the evening service, & finished the blow-out, & then staid all night at Mr. [ Beech ]Beach’s. Henry Ward is a brick.6

I found out at 10 oclock, last night, that I was to lecture to-morrow evening & the next, & so you must be aware that I have been working like sin all night to get a lecture written. I have finished it, but don’t think a very great deal of it. I call it “Frozen Truth.” It is a little top-heavy, though, because there is more truth in the [title ]than there is in the lecture. But thunder, I mustn’t sit here writing all day, with so much business before me.7

Good bye, & kind regards to all.

Yrs affℓy

Sam L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Major James G. Barry (1800–1880) was born in Ireland and moved to St. Louis in the early 1830s, where he conducted a real-estate business and served in the municipal government—as an alderman in 1839–40, 1842, and 1845–46, and as mayor in 1849–50. Barry and his wife, Elizabeth, had one daughter, born in 1842. (His title of “Major” was evidently honorary, since no record of any military service has been found.) Barry was a member of Clemens’s party on the trip to Tangier (see 21 and 29 June; 1, 3, and 5 July 67 to JLC and family); Clemens recorded the incident he mentions here in his notebook, in one of his Alta letters, and in chapter 9 of The Innocents Abroad (Jensen, 76–77; Scharf, 1:680, 720–21; N&J1, 358; SLC 1867 [MT00559]).

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2 The date of this “blow-out” has not been determined. Clemens arrived in New York on Christmas day, whereas Charles Langdon had been there since about 20 December, when he was reported at the St. Nicholas Hotel with his father and sister (“Hotel Arrivals,” New York Evening Express, 20 Dec 67, 4; “Personal,” New York Evening Telegram, 20 Dec 67, 2). Although Charles attended the party, he had not in fact been a member of Clemens’s “unholiest gang” on the trip through Palestine. Van Nostrand had two addresses—one in Greenville, New Jersey, and the other in New York City, at 19 Ferry Street (Denny, entry for 10 Sept). Julius Moulton apparently remained at home in St. Louis.

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3 The occasion was the second or third time Clemens had met Olivia Louise Langdon. He recalled that she originally came to his attention in early September, when he saw her photograph in “an ivory miniature in her brother Charley’s stateroom in the steamer Quaker City in the Bay of Smyrna” (AD, 1 Feb 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:26). In 1906 he stated that their first meeting occurred when he accepted an invitation from the Langdons to dine with them at the St. Nicholas Hotel: “That first meeting was on the 27th of December, 1867, and the next one was at the house of Mrs. Berry, five days later. Miss Langdon had gone there to help Mrs. Berry receive New Year guests” (AD, 13 Feb 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:103). If Clemens first met Olivia on 27 December, his 1906 reminiscence failed to mention their second meeting, which demonstrably occurred on 31 December when he and the Langdons heard Charles Dickens read in Steinway Hall. In 1907 Clemens recalled that “on that day I called at the St. Nicholas Hotel to see my Quaker City Excursion shipmate, Charley Langdon, and was introduced to a sweet & timid & lovely young girl, his sister. The family went to the Dickens reading, and I accompanied them” (AD, 12 Oct 1907, CU-MARK, in MTE, 213). Clemens described this performance for his Alta readers, mentioning that Dickens read from David Copperfield; the only evening Dickens read from that book when Clemens was in New York City was 31 December (the performance he described began at 8:00 p.m., so the only other possibility, an afternoon matinee on 28 December, is ruled out). It remains possible that Clemens first met Olivia and dined with the Langdons on the same evening they heard Dickens (“Mr. Dickens’ Readings,” New York Times, 31 Dec 67, 4; Moss, 331). The very next day, 1 January, Clemens saw Olivia again at 115 West Forty-fourth Street, the home of Thomas S. and Anna E. Berry, friends of the Langdons’. There he found Olivia, her good friend Alice Hooker (visiting New York with the Langdons), and the “old folks” mentioned here (presumably one or more of Olivia’s and Alice’s parents). In 1906 he vividly recalled the day: “I had thirty-four calls on my list, and this was the first one. I continued it during thirteen hours, and put the other thirty-three off till next year” (“Langdon Guest Book,” 1; Wilson 1867, 87; AD, 13 Feb 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:103; see also SLC to OLL, 7 Jan 69, CU-MARK, in LLMT, 42–46, and Anna E. Berry to SLC, 29 Nov 1905, CU-MARK).

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4 Clemens did not visit the Langdons in Elmira until August, but he stayed at the Hookers’ home for several days in late January. Alice B. Hooker (1847–1928) was the daughter of Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822–1907)—half-sister of Henry Ward Beecher—and John Hooker (1816–1901), a lawyer. The Hookers were original residents of the Nook Farm community in Hartford, Connecticut, and had become good friends of the Langdons’ through Mrs. Hooker’s full brother, Thomas K. Beecher, pastor of the Park Congregational Church in Elmira, to which the Langdons belonged (Andrews, 3, 16–18; “Nook Farm Genealogy,” 6, 16; Jerome and Wisbey, 20).

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5 Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) lived with her husband at Nook Farm, where she also provided a home for her unmarried sister, Catharine Beecher (1800–1878), an educator and author; both women were sisters of Henry Ward Beecher. He had been married to the former Eunice White Bullard (1812–97) since 1837 (“Nook Farm Genealogy,” Beecher Addenda, iii; Andrews, 16–18).

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6 Beecher was a temperance reformer who advocated laws prohibiting the sale of liquor, which he claimed was a major cause of poverty, vice, and crime. As recently as 5 December he had delivered one of his “stirring speeches” against the evils of drink (Clark, 126; “A large and enthusiastic temperance meeting ...,” New York Times, 6 Dec 67, 4). Clemens attended the evening service at Plymouth Church on 5 January 1868, presumably accompanying Emma Beach and her parents, Moses S. and Chloe Buckingham Beach.

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7 Clemens made his Washington debut on 9 January at Metzerott Hall with a lecture entitled “The Frozen Truth,” an account of the Quaker City voyage. According to Paine, “The arrangement for his [lecture] appearance had been made by a friend during his absence—’a friend,’ Clemens declared afterward, ‘not entirely sober at the time.’” In another account, Clemens said that he “had not been in Washington more than a day or two before a friend of mine came to my room at the hotel early one morning, wakened me from a sound sleep, and nearly stunned me by asking if I was aware of the fact that I was to deliver a lecture at Lincoln Hall that evening.” Clemens described his would-be agent as “an old theatrical friend of mine” who “thought he would do me a favor” by arranging and advertising the lecture, but who “started out by getting drunk.” The friend has not been further identified (MTB, 1:356; Will M. Clemens, 26). The Washington National Republican reported that

the lecture embraced a general review of the excursion.... The state-room accommodations on the steamer, the various sensations and stages of sea-sickness, the sociability of the passengers and their peculiarities, were inimitable, and elicited uncontrollable bursts of laughter from the audience, while his reminiscences of the noble cities of to-day and those of the past, visited by the voyagers, were given with all the genuine freshness of a traveler who has seen with observing eyes and a reflective mind all that he reproduces to his hearers.... Mark Twain possesses that rare but happy combination of talking as well as he writes; and if any of our readers may be laboring under a fit of the “blues,” we recommend to them a speedy relief in the brief advice, “Go and hear Mark Twain.” (“Amusements,” 10 Jan 68, PH in CU-MARK)

Part of a manuscript draft of “The Frozen Truth” has survived, and a deleted passage in it suggests Clemens intended to repeat his lecture “on Saturday evening,” 11 January, not on 10 January as he says in this letter (SLC 1868 [MT00608], 75). He was obliged to cancel the second engagement: see 9 Jan 68 to JLC and PAM, and 10 Jan 68 to the editors of the Washington Morning Chronicle.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).

Previous publication: L2, 144–147; MTB, 1:352, 355, excerpts and paraphrase; MTL, 1:142–43.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 512–14.

Emendations and textual notes:

night-hawks • [possibly preceded by a canceled partly formed ‘h’]

Beech • [‘h’ partly formed]

title • tiltl title