To James Redpath
11 December 1871 • Toledo, Ohio
(MS: MH-H, UCCL 00689)

Toledo, Dec. 11.

Dear Red—

My new lecture is perfectly bully, now—lays over all my others lectures that I have ever delivered yet, I think. I rewrote & remodeled it entirely yesterday & last night. So it has never really been delivered yet—the germ of it I talked at Warsaw & made a splendid success—& at Fredonia & made a splendid failure—so tired out I came near going to sleep on the platform. I shall open up with these “Passages from ‘Roughing It’” about day after tomorrow night—& shall talk without notes the first dash—or bust.1

Now say, with this new lecture I’m not afraid of N. Y. or London or any place—but I’m not going to talk in N. Y unless ‸1.‸ that is a regular course & I am on it; 2—& they sell season tickets & can give me a season ticket audience. Will the infallible2 please ascertain these things at once, & if they don’t fit 1 & 2 as above, just cross N Y out? Because I will not fill the appointment.3 I said I would fill no private speculation appointments—& those sham courses without course tickets are a hundred times the meanest private speculations. I warned you, begged you, entreated you to look out for Syracuse==that I feared a private speculation, there—but you paid no attention, & thrust me into the meanest, lousiest, filthiest lecture course with no course [tickets. ] 4—& wherever I find another one on my list, so help me God I will not deliver the lecture. Lecture me for nobody but courses with course tickets—& pray don’t let another nasty thieving private speculation like Newark creep in? Did it never suggest itself to you that a man may be in ‸ on ‸ a lecture course without being in the course & having the benefit of the course tickets? I would not have had Newark happen for $500.5

Ys

Mark

P.S. Try to overlook my huffiness. If you knew what suffering a devilish private speculation can inflict, you would excuse a little latitude of speech in the sufferer.

Mark.

[letter docketed:] boston lyceum bureau. redpath & fall. dec 14 1871 [and] Clemens Sam’l. L. | Hartford—Conn | Dec 14th ”71.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Meanwhile, on 11 December, Clemens delivered the Artemus Ward lecture in Toledo. The Toledo Blade, which printed a lengthy synopsis, reported that “Mr. Clemens’ lecture at White’s Hall last night was one of the most remunerative of the course, the gross receipts reaching a trifle beyond $332, leaving, after all expenses were paid, a balance of $105. . . . The lecture was frequently applauded” (“Entertainments,” 12 Dec 71, 3).

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2 George L. Fall.

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3 The sponsor of Clemens’s 24 January 1872 New York engagement—the Mercantile Library Association—was able to satisfy his demands. His lecture was the sixth and final of its course, which had included such speakers as Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass (New York Evening Express: “Lectures,” 11 Dec, 22 Dec 71, 3; “Mark Twain,” 22 Jan 72, 3).

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4 Clemens had consistently denounced “private speculations” (L3, 418; 8 Jan 70, 28 June 71, both to Redpath). In Syracuse on 6 December he had lectured on Artemus Ward for the Y.M.C.A. The lecture was well advertised in the Syracuse Standard in the preceding days and reportedly satisfied an “immense audience” that “responded unanimously” (“Mark Twain,” Syracuse Standard, 7 Dec 71, 4).

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5 Clemens had previously held a high opinion of his regular Newark lecture sponsors, the Clayonians (10 June 71 to Redpath and Fall). The 29 November Newark lecture was advertised with an “Extra Announcement for Thanksgiving Eve,” an indication that it was not part of the regular Clayonian course and did not have the “benefit of the course tickets” (“Amusements,” Newark Advertiser, 23–25 Nov 71, 3). The Newark Advertiser remarked on the “many empty seats” and called the Artemus Ward talk “about the dullest entertainment ever given here” (“Mark Twain on Wednesday Night,” 1 Dec 71, 2).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).

Previous publication: L4, 514–515.

Provenance:bequeathed to MH in 1918 by Evert J. Wendell.

Emendations and textual notes: The top left/right corners of every leaf were pasted together in the MS covering some portions of words; the top leaf has been torn away, leaving fragments of the corner pasted to the next leaf. All characters transcribed can be seen either in the fragments or through the pasted paper.

tickets. • [deletion implied]