To Olivia L. Langdon
8 and 9 September 1869 • Buffalo, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00351)

Buffalo, Sept. 8, 1869.

Livy, my precious little darling, I am as happy as a king, now that it is settled & I can count the exact number of days that are to intervene before we are married. I am full of thankfulness, & the world looks bright & happy ahead. On the fourth day of February, one year after the date of our engagement, we shall step together out into the broad world to tread its devious paths together the till the journey of life is done & the great peace of eternity descends upon us like a benediction. 1 We shall never be separated on earth, Livy; & let us pray that we may not in Heaven. This 4th of February will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both—for it makes of two fractional lives a [whole; , & ]it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each to do it whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the [sunshine], a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & Livy it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world.2 Speed it!

I have written to Redpath that my lecture-tour must come to a permanent close a week or ten days before the end of January, & when I hear from him, if he has made no appointments after Jan. 15, I will not let him make any. I ought to have the whole month, if I can get it. I am booked for Newark, N. J., Dec. 29.

It seems a dreadfully long time till Feb. 4, dearie, but I am glad we are to have that day, for it will always be pleasant to keep our engagement & wedding anniversaries together. I would rather have that day than any in the whole 365, for it will be doubly dear to me, & be always looked forward to as one peculiarly & sacredly blessed—the day about which the most precious memories of my life have been concentrated. We can always prepare for it weeks ahead & keep it in state.

Livy darling, I ought not to have told you about Charlie’s trip, maybe, & yet after all, I ought, for we must begin to do something for that boy.3 It is nearly time for him to have finished his wild oats (though he will not cease to sow them for six or eight years yet unless he gets married sooner.) If he is to be married a year hence there is no great need of solicitude, but still there is some need. There is only one uncomfortable feature about him, & that is his disposition to [ do dishonor ]his father’s wishes under shelter of absence. Most boys do that, & so he is not worse [ that than ]his race—but most boys shouldn’t do it, for it is a bad foundation to build upon. I suspect that the most promising course will be to set Ida4 to reforming him. Judging by my experience, you re energetic & persistent little task-mistress, if [ anything anybody ]can change his style of conduct, it is the darling that has her nest in his heart. I gave Charlie a scorching lecture on this fault of his, two months ago, & he [ so seriously ]promised reform—but he needs a lecture a reminder every day, or else he is sure to drift backward.5 I am sorry I made my darling sad about it. Don’t be sad, dearie, Charlie will come out all right, yet. It would be an unnatural marvel if Charlie were a better boy than he is. Let us not expect extravagant things of the fellow. He is another sort better & manlier than ninety-nine out of a hundred boys in his situation in life. Now if you [ b ]knew boys as well as I do, sweetheart, you would know that as well as I do. Let us do the rascal justice, Livy. I suppose I was a better boy at his age, but then you know I—well I was an exception, you understand—my kind don’t turn up every day. We are very rare. We are a sort of human century plant, & b we don’t blossom in everybody’s front yard.6

* * * *. Since I wrote that last line I have read column after column of proof, & now it is so late that I must stop talking with Livy & go home to bed. It has rained all day & I suppose is raining yet, & I told Jo. Larned to stay at home after supper & be a comfort to his wife & I would sit up & do the work for both—though there wasn’t a great deal to do, for that fellow works straight along all day, day in [& a day ]out, like an honest old treadmill horse. I tell him I wish I had his industry & he had my sense.

Good-night my darling little wife, idol of my homage & my worship, & the peace of the innocent abide with you.

Sam

[in pencil:]

In the morning—(got your letter)—O the darling little [ goose ] ‸traducer!‸ when I said “the country,” I meant America. But it was natural for you to m think I was malicious, but I wasn’t, honey—I bear Ishmael not the least malice—certainly none that I would express in an undignified way. Now I kiss you & tell you you the mistake you made was perfectly natural to one who [knew ]Ishmael had abused me in print.7

Darling, I propose to start to Elmira Friday night at 11—& start back at same hour on Monday night. Is my sweetheart answered. I kiss my darling good-bye, now, till Saturday morning.

[in ink:] Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N.Y. [postmarked:] [buffalo ]n.y. [sep ] 9 [docketed by OLL:] 117th

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 In fact the wedding took place on 2 February 1870.

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2 Acts 9:18: “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.”

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3 On 4 October 1869 Charles Langdon—accompanied by Elmira College professor Darius Ford, previously Olivia’s tutor—was to begin a lengthy study tour of the world. The family had not told Olivia about the trip, probably because they knew she would be upset to learn that Charles would not be on hand for her wedding. As she later remarked: “We all dislike very much to have Charlie absent when I am married, but if he waited six months, it would bring him into the Southern countries in the wrong time of year, and a year he did not want to wait, as he desired to get back to Ida before that time. So there seemed no other way but for him to go this Fall” (OLL to Alice Hooker Day, 1 Nov 69, CtHSD). For further details of the world trip, see 26 and 27 Sept 69 to Fairbanks, n. 5, and 9 Oct 69 to Colfax, nn. 2, 5.

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4 Ida Clark, Charles’s fiancée.

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5 According to Langdon family tradition, Charles’s heavy drinking, which continued through most of his life, was the “fault” that his parents hoped he would reform while under Darius Ford’s tutelage.

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6 On 23 August 1869 the Buffalo Express had reported on a century plant that had bloomed in Rochester, becoming such a public attraction that it was to be placed on exhibit in Chicago (“The Century Plant on Its Travels,” 4). The Langdons were not yet receiving the Express, but Clemens might well have enclosed a clipping in a letter to Olivia on or soon after the twenty-third. Three letters written around then (docket numbers 105, 106, and 107) are missing.

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7 Clemens here acknowledged writing “More Byron Scandal,” an editorial in the Buffalo Express of 7 September. The editorial excerpted the Elmira Advertiser’s 3 September “Friday Miscellany,” in which the Reverend Thomas K. Beecher rebuked Ausburn Towner (Ishmael) for his 28 August column in the Elmira Saturday Evening Review. There, Beecher charged, Towner had directed “coarse words of discourtesy” at Harriet Beecher Stowe for “The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life,” her recent Atlantic Monthly article accusing Lord Byron of incest with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. In the 4 September Review Towner conceded the justice of Beecher’s rebuke. Three days later, probably without having seen Towner’s admission, Clemens endorsed Beecher’s remarks: “What Mr. Beecher says to ‘Ishmael’ will apply equally well to many another writer in the country who has deemed the flinging of inelegant personalities at Mrs. Stowe legitimate ‘argument,’ where materials for refuting her testimony were not to be had” (SLC 1869; Thomas Kinnicut Beecher 1869; Towner 1869 [bib11571], 1869 [bib11572]; Stowe). In a letter of 8 September (now lost), Olivia evidently assumed that Clemens intended to ridicule Towner for his provincialism, in revenge for Towner’s previous “abuse” of him (see 8 May 69 to OLL from Hartford, n. 2, and 15 Aug 69 to Bliss, n. 1). Clemens abandoned at least one attempt to satirize “the Byron business” (see 7 Oct 69 to Unidentified), although he may have written about it more than once for the Express. For an argument that he wrote and published six editorials on the subject, including “More Byron Scandal,” between 24 August and 17 September, see Baender; for an account of the furor caused by Stowe’s charges, see Lentricchia.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L3, 348–351; MFMT, 17–18, excerpt; Wecter 1947, 69; LLMT, 109–11.

Provenance:See Samossoud Collection, p. 586.

Emendations and textual notes:

whole; , & • [semicolon mended from comma]

sunshine • sun-|shine

do dishonor • doishonor

that than • thatn

anything anybody • any-| thing body

so seriously • soeriously

b • [partly formed]

& a day • [sic]

goose • [heavily canceled]

knew • [‘w’ malformed; doubtful ‘knews’]

buffalo • [bu]f[al]o [badly inked]

sep • [se]p [badly inked]