To Olivia L. Clemens
25 December 1871 • Chicago, Ill.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00693)

Chicago, Christmas, 2 AM

Joy, & peace & the be with you & about you, & the benediction of God rest upon you this day!

It must have been about this hour, when a brooding stillness lies like a healing sleep upon all nature, & the passions are dead in tranced in human hearts & the good impulses take holiday & visit with the gentle strangers that come in dreams from some happy country beyond our ken, that ‸that‸ marvelous vision, that diminishing milky-way of white wh wings, stretched its long course out of the firmament & from the heights of Bethlehem the angels sang Peace on Earth, good will to men!

There is something so beautiful about all that old hallowed Christmas legend! It mellows a body—it warms the torpid kindnesses & charities into life. And so I hail my darling with a great big, whole-hearted Christmas blessing—God be & abide with her evermore!—Amen. And God bless the boy, too—our boy.

And now to bed—for I have worked hard all day yesterday—& till late last night—& all day again & till now—on my lecture—& it is re-written—& is much more satisfactory. To-morrow I shall memorize it.1

Get vaccinated—right away—no matter if you were vaccinated 6 months ago—the theory is, keep doing it—for if it takes it shows you needed it—& if it don’t take it is proof that you did not need it—but the only safety is to apply the test, once a year. Small pox is everywhere—doctors think it will become an [epidemic. Here] it is $25 fine if you are not vaccinated within the next 10 days. Mine takes splendidly—arm right sore. Attend to this, my child.2

With a whole world of love & kisses.

Samℓ.

[in ink:] Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Cor. Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn [postmarked:] chicago [ill] dec 26

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 Subsequent reviews do not suggest that this revised version of the “Roughing It” lecture differed much in content from the earlier one.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Like many other American cities, Chicago was seeing an increase in small-pox cases, threatening an epidemic. The Chicago Board of Health responded on 21 December by announcing that “each person who has not been vaccinated or revaccinated within the last six months should have the operation performed immediately” (“Small-Pox,” Chicago Tribune, 21 Dec 71, 2).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L4, 521–522; MFMT, 53, excerpt (includes as part of text an excerpt from 21 Nov 73 to OLC).

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

epidemic. Here • epidemic.—|Here

ill • [ill] [badly inked]