Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

From Olivia L. and Samuel L. Clemens
to Orion and Mary E. (Mollie) Clemens
24 December 1871 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00692)

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Hartford 1871
Christmas Eve.

Dear Orion and Mollie

I enclose our Christmas gift to you and I shall quote literally from Mr Clemens letter to me, he says “Say something like this in your note, ‘Mr Clemens instructs me to put our Christmas remembrance in this form and says he is moved to do it for several reasons; if it were simply a sign and token of our love we were sending we could freight any article with it, and it would do its errand and do it well—but in the case of every Christmas token we have yet projected, we have given the cold shoulder to nonsense and tried to make the remembrance useful along with its loving mission—but we don’t know and we can’t imagine what would be best in your case—(we know perfectly well in Orions and would go straight and buy some wheels and pulleys for his machine1 if we knew the sizes needed,—but we don’t know where in Mollie’s pleasure may be) so without any nonsense and foolishness (we are all too old for that) wont you just recieve our fraternal love, and our loving wishes for your Christmas and future happiness—and put this money with something that you want and want in dead earnest, and with all our hearts we can then say—“that is the very thing that I wanted to get for your Christmas present but could not think of the name of it’”

So we send to you our love and Christmas greeting, hoping that we may spend many happy years in Hartford together—

If Mr Clemens was here we would spend this Christmas together—

Wishing you both a merry Christmas and very Happy New Year

I am your loving sister

Livy L. Clemens