To Olivia L. Langdon
20 January 1870 • Hornellsville, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00414)

Hornellsville, 20th.

My child, I am within sixty miles of you, & so I do feel that your unseen presentce is stronger about me than when you are away at the other side of a State—but further than this, your proximity does not benefit me, little one, but on the contrary is rather a matter to growl at, Because it only makes me want the more to see you, without giving me the opportunity. I cannot right truly say I haven’t the opportunity, either, for I could be with you at this moment, & remain with you half a day, & then run up here in time. But I am not going to have my Jubilee of joy at having finished the lectures for good & all, ta & my other Jubilee of joy in the reflection that I am with you never more to part again in life, marred & diluted by a little unsatisfying taste of the holiday & glimpse of you, my darling. No, sir—I want the enfranchisement from worry & work to be complete, & the joining company with you, to my child, to be just as complete., perfect & lasting.

I left Buffalo at 4 PM yesterday, & went to Dunkirk, & then‸ce‸ out to Fredonia by horse-car, ‸(3 miles)‸ rattled my lecture through, took horse-car again & just caught 9.45 t P.M. train bound east—sat up & smoked to Salamanca (midn (12.30,) stripped & went to bed in a sleeping car till two hours & a half, & then got up a & came ashore here at 3 o’clock this morning.—& had a strong temptation to lie still an hour or two longer & go to Elmira. But I resisted it. By coming through in the night, I saved myself 2 hours extra travel.1

Sweetheart, tomorrow you must go into the wardrobe in my room & burrow into those pasteboard boxes & get out a new shirt, & an undershirt & drawers, & put them on the bed I am to sleep in when I get home—provided I am to stay in Charley’s room or the front chamber. But if I am to occupy the room these clothes are now in, of course you need not bother with [them. And ] before you go to bed [tomorrow ] night you must write a note, telling me how to get into the house & what bed to take—& you must put that note in the newspaper [box ] at the side gate, so that I can get it when I arrive. Those are your orders, Livy darling, & you will be court-martialed if you don’t obey them.

We did have a most delightful audience at Fredonia, & I was just as happy as a lord from the first word of the lecture to the last. I thought it was about as good a lecture as I ever listened to—but some of the serious passages were impromptu—never been written.2

This, my precious Livy, is the last letter of a correspondence that has lasted seventeen months—the pleasantest correspondence I ever had a share in. For over two months of the time, we wrote every other day. During the succeeding twelve months we have written every day that we have been parted from each other. And no man ever did have a dearer, more faithful little correspondent than you have been to me, my heart’s [darling. Your ] letters have made one ray of sunlight & created a thrill of pleasure in every one of these long-drawn days, howsoever dreary the day was otherwise. And so I thank you & bless you now, once more, as I have thanked you & blessed you all these days. And I pray for you, even as I have done with the closing in of each night, ever since you moved my spirit to prayer seventeen months ago. This is the last long correspondence we ever shall have, my Livy—& now it on this day it ceases passes forever from its honored place among our daily occupations, & becomes a memory. A memory to be laid reverently away in the [ re ] holy of holies of our hearts & cherished as a sacred thing. A memory whose mementoes will be [ sacred ◇ ] precious while we live, & sacred when either one shall die.3

They4 have come for me, my sweet Livy.

Good-bye & God bless you,

Sam.

Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | N. Y. [return address:] osborne house, h. hunt, proprietor, hornellsville, n. y. first-class hotel. opposite depot. [postmarked:] [hornellsville n.y. jan 20] [docketed by OLL:] 184th

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Five letters that Clemens wrote to Olivia between 15 and 19 January (docket numbers 179–83) are lost. During that interval he lectured in Oswego (15 January), Baldwinsville (17 January), Ogdensburg (18 January), and Fredonia (19 January). Early on the morning of 19 January, he departed Ogdensburg for Buffalo, where he tried in vain to meet with John D. F. Slee, Jervis Langdon’s business associate, who had agreed to find a suitable boarding house for him and Olivia (see p. 45). He may also have looked in at the offices of the Buffalo Express before continuing on to Dunkirk, New York, on Lake Erie, and from there to Fredonia. By the time he reached Hornellsville at 3 a.m. on 20 January, he had lectured twice (at Ogdensburg and Fredonia) and traveled more than 350 miles, all within thirty-one hours. After lecturing in Hornellsville on 20 January, he had to travel 80 miles west to Jamestown, where he concluded his tour the following evening, then immediately made the 125-mile trip east to Elmira (L3, 480, 486).

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2 The Fredonia Censor praised the lecture and described the effect of its “serious passages”: “Mr. Clemens incorporated enough good sense and interesting information with the fun in his lecture on the Sandwich Islands to prevent any regrets over an evening spent merely for nonsense, and the jokes were consequently the more enjoyed.” Clemens again employed the “patient & silent” opening he had used on 14 January in Utica, for the Censor remarked: “Imagine a lean, cadaverous looking speaker, standing upon the platform for five minutes like a school boy who has forgotten his ‘piece,’ and then drawling out with ministerial gravity his own introduction, because the Chairmen of Lecture Committees never introduced him ‘strong enough’ ” (“Mark Twain’s lecture . . . ,” 26 Jan 70, 3).

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3 For a calendar of Clemens’s courtship letters, and the only letter from Olivia known to survive from that period, see L3, 393–94 n. 1 and 473–80.

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4 The Hornellsville lecture committee. Clemens’s performance was judged “a fizzle” (“Mark Twain’s lecture . . . ,” Hornellsville Tribune, 28 Jan 70, 3).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L4, 31–33; Wecter 1947, 72, with omission; LLMT, 140–41.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

them. And • them.—|And

tomorrow • to-|morrow

box • bo box [corrected miswriting]

darling. Your • darling.—|Your

re • re- |

sacred ◇ • [partly formed character]

hornellsville n. y. jan 20 • [r] nells [vil ] jan [20] [badly inked]