To Olivia L. Clemens
8 September 1871 • Washington, D.C.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00650)

Livy darling, the invention business looked dark enough this morning (& the clouds are not all gone yet.) By a small stretch of the law which says “The Patent Office cannot respond to inquiries as to the [novelty ] of an alleged invention in advance of an application for a patent,” the Patent officers have thrown open everything to me and shown me every document & drawing that bears any relationship to my invention.1 (But that you may keep to yourself, honey.) Therefore, I know what to claim as my idea, & what to leave unclaimed as having originated with somebody else. It makes plain sailing. Been at work at this ferreting business all day long in the Patent Office. At first it seemed that not less than six different people had already patented my invention (one man 33 years ago;) but by closely scanning all the documents we found that not one of them had got a patent for the chief virtues claimed in mine. So I may possibly get a patent, but it will not be so broad & general in its nature as I had hoped for. But still I may get none at all; because access cannot be had to European patent records yet awhile, & so, a few weeks or months hence it may transpire that some foreigner is ahead of me.

But I’ll have to run, or I’ll get no dinner. Am so glad to hear you & the cubbie are improving.

Ys Lovingly

Samℓ.

Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Care Langdon & Co. | Elmira | N. Y. [return address:] return to j. langdon & co., elmira, n. y., if not delivered within 10 days. [postmarked:] [washington] d.c. sep 8 2

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 “Mark Twain’s Elastic Strap” (see 6 Oct 71 to Leggett). The Washington Morning Chronicle of 8 September reported that “Mr. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) arrived in the city yesterday afternoon and had an interview with General Belknap and General Leggett. Mr. Clemens has forsaken all literary labor on newspapers and magazines, and is concentrating all his talent on a new book he intends soon to lay before the public” (“Personal,” 8 Sept 71, 1). General Mortimer D. Leggett (1821–96), whose Civil War service included participation in Sherman’s march to the sea, had taken up his post as commissioner of patents in the Grant administration on 16 January 1871. Clemens’s business with General William W. Belknap (1829–90), who had also served with Sherman and had been Grant’s secretary of war since 1869, has not been determined. He may have hoped Belknap could facilitate access to the patent records.

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2 After filing his patent application on 9 September, Clemens left Washington that day or the next, first stopping over in New York at the St. Nicholas Hotel on 10 or 11 September, and then in Hartford for about two days before his return to Elmira on 13 September. He returned to Washington on further patent business on 19 or 20 September (“Morning Arrivals,” New York Evening Express, 11 Sept 71, 3; SLC 1871; OC to MEC, 14 Sept 71, CU-MARK; RI 1993, 868).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L4, 453–454; LLMT, 361, brief paraphrase.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

novelty • novlelty

washington • wash [ig]ton [badly inked]