To Olivia L. Clemens
5 December 1871 • Auburn, N.Y.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00686)

Auburn, Dec. 5.1

Old Darling, I thank you very very much for so loving me & so missing [& me] & remembering my birthday & wishing for me there2—& I do reciprocate—I love you with all my heart & long to be with you again.

Dr Merrill came again this morning3 & we had a real good talk about all the folks—& his hearty loving gratitude to father,4 & his [ gener genuine] appreciation of father’s grand character & great heart quite touched me deeply. Then I wanted to go to his house, but felt that I must go & see my two old playmates5 instead, & he granted that my impulse was right. I spent a delightful hour with them. The Dr. sent me [some] excellent cigars. Ever, Ever so lovingly,

Saml.

Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn [postmarked:] auburn n.y. dec 6

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 After lecturing in Geneva on 4 December, Clemens probably spent the following morning there before departing for the adjacent town of Auburn. His 5 December Auburn audience numbered over a thousand, and possibly included his Nevada friend Robert M. Howland (20 Nov 71 to Howland). The Auburn Advertiser remarked that the Artemus Ward talk, “even had it been divested of all the embellishment of humorous anecdote, would have still been decidedly interesting” (“The Lecture,” 6 Dec 71, 3).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Olivia’s birthday letter of 30 November—which she apparently directed to Auburn—has not been found. Her letter of 2 and 3 December, filled with love and longing for Clemens, has survived, however (CU-MARK). She directed it to Fredonia, which Clemens reached on 8 December:

UCCL00683

Click to add citation to My Citations.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 That is, to Geneva, before Clemens’s departure.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4 Jervis Langdon.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

5 See the previous letter, n. 5.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L4, 509–11; LLMT, 362, brief paraphrase.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

& me • [sic]

gener genuine • generuine

some • soeme