To Mary Mason Fairbanks
24 January 1868 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CSmH, UCCL 00183)

Hartford, Conn., Jan. 24.

Dear Mother—

Don’t abuse me on [ t ]account of that dinner-speech in reply to the toast to Woman, if you should see it floating around in the [papers.1 It ]had slang in it, but they had no business to report it so verbatimly. They ought to have left out the slang—you know that. It was all their fault. I am not going to make any more slang speeches in public. You will forgive me, now, won’t you?

I saw Dan as I came through New York, & I staid part of two days at Mr. Bee ach’s, in Brooklyn. That is a hospitable family, if there ever was one. Mr. Beach has been so liberal & so generous toward some of the cabin crew of the Quaker City, & has treated me so well, also, that I am ashamed to think I ever thought uncharitably of him.2 Mrs. Beach is a very fine woman, & certainly one seldom finds as good a girl as Emma, anywhere.

I am to do up the Excursion in a vast 5 or 600-page book, for the American p Publishing Company of Hartford. It is to be sold only by [subscription. They ]pay most liberally.—but then my newspaper & magazine contracts were worth six or eight hundred dollars a month, & as I would have to throw away half of them if I prepared the book I was not inclined to do it unless I saw more profit in the said book. I have a very easy contract. I have from now till the middle of July in which to get the manuscript ready. I shall use nearly all my old letters (revamped,) but still many a chapter will be entirely new. What would you call the book?—the “Modern Pilgrim’s Progress”—“Cruise of the Quaker City”—or what?

I am tired of writing [wishy-washy ]squibs for the Tribune, & have joined the Herald staff—2 impersonal letters a week. Mr. Bennett says I may have full swing, & say as many mean things as I please.3 Now don’t say a word Madam, because I just mean to abuse people right & left., in case the humor takes me to do it. There are lots of folks in Washington who need villifying. I expect I ‸shall‸ will shock you sometimes, anger you occasionally, provoke your motherly uneasiness often—but [ woul wound ]your feelings, never!

I have not sworn an oath since I wrote you last—& yet I have not a button on my clothes hardly. The fortitude I have shown under these exasperating circumstances fills me with admiration. I have a splendid opinion of myself, now—& I owe it all to you. Long may you lif live—& long may I live also, to sing your praises.

I am the guest of Mr. Hoop ker’s (Henry Ward Beecher’s brother-in-law) family here for a few days, & I tell you I have to walk mighty straight. I desire to have the respect of this sterling old Puritan community, for their respect is well worth having—& so I don’t dare to smoke after I go to bed, & in fact I don’t dare to do anything that’s comfortable & natural. It comes a little hard to lead such a sinless life, but then you know it won’t be for long—I can let myself out when I get to Washington. I have promised to be Mrs. Hooker’s special Washington correspondent, & so I shall have to be particular again. I am in a pretty close place—I can’t put my slang into your letters—I can’t put it into hers—I guess I shall have to deluge Charley Langdon with it.

But I guess I have written bosh enough for the present. [Good-bye]. I am ever so grateful to you for sending me those copies of the Herald. I see a good many ideas in your letters that I can steal.4 Remember me most kindly to Mrs. Severance & that good old husband of hers.

[Sincerly ]yr friend

Sam Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 See 14 Jan 68 to JLC and family.

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2 Beach had undertaken to help the unpaid crew of the Quaker City: see 12 Dec 67 to Fairbanks, n. 4. His defense of the Quaker City ladies in reply to Clemens’s critical remarks in the Tribune would have prompted uncharitable thoughts, but what further provocation occurred (if any) remains unknown (see 24 Oct 67 to Goodman, n. 2).

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3 In December and January 1867–68 Clemens published three signed sketches in the Tribune: “Information Wanted” on 18 December, “The Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation” on 27 December, and “Information Wanted” on 22 January (SLC 1867 [MT00597], 1867 [MT00600], 1868 [MT00616]). He may have considered these “wishy-washy” because they were politically neutral. On 9 February he wrote “The Facts Concerning the Recent Important Resignation” (SLC 1868 [MT00628]), which was more politically satirical, although still nonpartisan, ridiculing both Republican and Democratic congressmen. For Clemens’s “impersonal” letters to the Herald, see the previous letter, n. 1.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4 Mrs. Fairbanks’s twenty-seven Quaker City letters to her husband’s newspaper, the Cleveland Herald, which she signed “Myra.” Clemens wanted the letters to refresh his memory of the trip for his own account in what became The Innocents Abroad. The writing and publication dates of these letters are listed in the headnote to the Itinerary of the Quaker City Excursion.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH, call no. HM 14221).

Previous publication: L2, 165–167; MTMF, 13–16; Davis 1954, brief excerpt.

Provenance:see Huntington Library, p. 512.

Emendations and textual notes:

t • [partly formed]

papers. It • papers.—|It

subscription. They • subscription.—|They

wishy-washy • wishy-|washy

woul wound • woulnd

Good-bye • Good-|bye

Sincerly • [sic]