morning express $10 per annum.
office of the express printing company
evening
express $8 per annum.no. 14 east swan
street.
weekly express $1.50 per annum.
buffalo, Sept 27 186 9.
My Dear Mammy—
I’ll love you, & reverence you, [both. And ]I will try & be as dutiful & tractable a “child” as any you have got in your collection. I don’t wonder you are a trifle uneasy about the Saturday articles, for I am. You see, I am worried about getting ready to lecture, & so I fidget & fume & sweat, & I can’t write serenely. Therefore I don’t write Saturday articles that are satisfactory to me.1 I’m not [ v ] settled yet. My partners wanted me to lecture some this winter, though, & it seemed necessary anyhow, since I could not get all my engagements canceled.
You have about made me give up the “pictures.” I hate pictures like these, myself. But as they cost nothing, my partners thought we might as well have them. I am to leave, next week, to begin to cook up my lecture, & so we’ll not have any [more], I guess.2
Me “getting cross over your talk?” No—bang away—I li enjoy it. No, I don’t mean that—I mean I don’t mind it—or rather, I mean that I like [it. Now ]I have got it. I like your criticisms, because they nearly always convince me—always, I guess, is nearer the truth. And because I love you, I would like the criticisms, even if they didn’t convince me.
Well, I’ll let Death alone. I will, mother—honest—if I won’t bother him if he don’t bother me. No, but really, I will be more reverential, if you want me to, though I tell you it don’t jibe with my principles. There is a fascination about meddling with forbidden things.3
I can’t come to see you till spring., because on account of lecturing & such things—but if Livy invites you you will come to our wedding, won’t you? I think she’ll either invite both of my [ not mothers] 4—I would invite hers, if she had a million. And then we’ll get a chance to see you. Feb. 4 is the wedding-day—the anniversary of the engagement. I chose that date on the score of economy—shan’t have to buy another ring—shall simply put add “Feb. 4, 1870” on the inside of the engagement ring. No—that is Livy’s idea, & I think it is good, & neat, & sensible. The lecturing caused the postponement. Can’t tell yet, whether we are going to keep house, but I have made up my mind that it has got to be one or the other. I’m not particular. Suppose we shall board till spring.
Did Charley write you that he is going around the globe? Prof. Ford is sent along with him as tutor & traveling companion. They start next Thursday & go overland to California & Denver & Salt Lake & Nevada mines & Big Trees & Yo Semite,—then a 25-day voyage to Japan—then China—then India,—Egypt & away up the Nile—the Holy Land all over again—Russia & the Emperor all over again—& we are all to meet them in Paris 12 or 13 months [months ]hence & make the tour of [England, ]Germany, &c., with them. They are to travel leisurely, & take the world easy. {I feel a sort of itching in my feet, mother—& if my life were as aimless as of old, my trunk would be packed, now.}5
But really & truly I must write to that girl to-night before ever I go to bed—& in order to do it I must cut this note short. Goodbye. I embrace the [household].
Lovingly,
Your Eldest,
Sam
[on different paper:]
PS.
Dear Mother—
In [writting ]you last night,6 I forgot to ask you to thank the Herald reviewer for his handsome notice of my book, & Frank or Mr Fairbanks for sending me copies. They just came in good time, for I was compiling a few notices to make up into an advertising supplement.7
We had Prince Arthur in town a little while this afternoon, but he never called on me, & so I threw myself back on my dignity & never called on him. He is too stuck-up, altogether. I am on too familiar terms with his betters in Russia to go browsing around after mere princes. I let him shin around town as long as he wanted to, & shin out of again when he got ready. ‸But I wrote him up.‸ 8
Lovingly
Sam.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
MARK TWAIN
in
SATURDAY’S EXPRESS.
a voyage
AROUND THE WORLD,
by proxy.
first of a series of
letters. The initial letter, published on 16 October, began with a
note to the reader dated “New York, October 10,” in which Clemens
said in part: “I am just starting on a pleasure trip around
the globe, by proxy. That is to say, Professor
D. R. Ford, of Elmira College, is now making
the journey for me, and will write the newspaper account of his (our)
trip. No, not that exactly—but he will travel and write
letters, and I shall stay at home and add a dozen pages each to each of
his letters. One of us will furnish the fancy and the jokes, and the
other will furnish the facts. I am equal to either department, though
statistics are my best hold” (SLC 1869 [MT00842]). Eight such letters, all
written entirely by Mark Twain, were published in the Express between 16 October 1869 and 29 January 1870: their
subjects were nearly identical to what Clemens had earlier told James
Redpath he would cover in “Curiosities of
California.” Ford published two letters, both initialed by
him, on 12 February and 5 March 1870 (10 May 69 to Redpath;
SLC 1869 [MT00842], 1869 [MT00845], 1869 [MT00849], 1869 [MT00856], 1869 [MT00857], 1870 [MT00871], 1870 [MT00873], 1870 [MT00874]; Ford 1870 [bib00366],
1870 [bib00367]). Langdon
and Ford were called home in late June 1870, when Jervis
Langdon’s stomach cancer became critical, so that the planned
family meeting in Paris never occurred.
He made no remarks to us; did not ask us to dinner;
walked right by us just the same as if he didn’t see us;
never inquired our opinion about any subject under the sun; and when
his luncheon was over got into his carriage and drove off in the
coolest way in the world without ever saying a word—and
yet he could not know but that that was the last time he might ever
see us. But if he can stand it, we can. Prince Arthur looks pleasant and agreeable,
however. He has a good, reliable, tenacious appetite, of about
two-king capacity. He was the last man to lay down his knife and
fork. This is absolutely all that England’s
princely son did in Buffalo—absolutely all! We shall go
on and make all the parade we can about it, but none of his acts in
Buffalo were noisy enough for future historical record. It was Veni, Vidi, Vici, with him. He
came—he saw that lunch—he conquered it. (SLC 1869 [MT00836]) In fact, after lunching at the Tifft House, Arthur made a quick tour of
the city. Among his stops was the local headquarters of the Fenians. The
Irish revolutionary movement had launched one abortive invasion of
Canada in 1866 and was to launch another, which the prince helped repel,
in 1870 (“Prince Arthur,” Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, 28 Sept 69, 3; DNB, 16–17). For Clemens’s acquaintance with
Arthur’s “betters in Russia,” see L2, 80–85.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 358–361; MTMF, 106–9.
Provenance:see Huntington Library, pp. 582–83.
Emendations and textual notes:
both. And • both.—|And
v • [possibly partly formed ‘w’ or ‘m’]
more • m more [corrected miswriting]
it. Now • it.—|Now
not mothers • [possibly miswritten ‘mot’; ‘t’ partly formed]
months • mon months [rewritten for clarity]
England • En England [corrected miswriting]
household • house-|hold
writting • [ ‘t’ partly formed]
