Elmira, N. Y. July 2.
Dear Jim:
I am here for a months visit, from Buffalo.1 I have only a minute to write in, but I can ask what I want to ask & say what I want to say in that time—to wit:
1. How are you?
2. How is splendid old Dick.?2
3. I have long ago sold out of the Express & so I suppose that worthless sheet has ceased to go to you3—but I am here, close to bookstores & newspapers, & you & Dick ain’t; & if you will send me your address (in case you have moved & this reaches you,) I’ll be proud & happy to send you any book or paper your solitude needs—for I am under large obligations to you & Dick for some pleasant old times.4 Indeed, I am under a Indeed, a suspicion comes over me that I owe you either $25 or $50. It was in this way. When I went up to your camp, I took $300 with me. We spent that for hash, & for expenses at Angels—which was correct; it about paid my board with you & old Dick. But when I went back to the Bay I was not able to pay all that I owed your [ Mother. 5
4. ]Say, old philosopher, would you like to read Darwin? If you would, let me know, & I will get the books & forward them to you.6
How many more New Year’s are going to roll round to us, in this life, & remind us of the night at Vallecito, Jim?7
Yr friend, just as of old,
Samℓ. L. Clemens
Love to old Dick!
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James N. Gillis Esq | Sonora | California [postmarked:] [elmira n.y. jul ] 5
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
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Previous publication:
L4, 428–429.
Provenance:
see Tufts Collection in Description of Provenance. Although the present
location of the MS is not known, two other facsimiles are known to
exist—one at CtY-BR, and one sold at auction in 1989, formerly in
the Estelle Doheny Collection at St. John’s Seminary in
Camarillo, California (Christie 1989, lot 1752).
Emendations and textual notes:
Mother. [¶] 4. • [MS page 2 ends here and page 3 begins. The canceled passage may have continued onto another MS page 3 which Clemens discarded when he wrote the present one.]
elmira n.y. jul
•
[ea]
n.y.
[jul]
[badly
inked]