To Louisa I. Conrad
March 1873 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00878)

‸For Miss Louise Conrad.1~

With the kindest regards of‸

‸ “Mark Twain.” ‸

[RECIPE FOR MAKING A SCRAPBOOK

UPON THE CUSTOMARY PA PLAN].

Some rainy afternoon, get out the pasteboard box you keep your scraps in, & look over your collection. This will occupy some hours. Next day, buy a handsome folio scrap-book, with leaves of all shades & varieties of color—also get a bottle of mucilage. & Now work an hour & cover two or three pages with choice selections; & then be called suddenly away. After a day or two, prepare to resume. You will now find that the pages are hopelessly warped; ‸that‸ the mucilage has soaked through & made the print almost illegible, & that colored leaves are a hateful thing in a scrapbook.2

Now buy a new whi book, with pure white, stiff leaves—& get one ounce of good gum [tragicanth]. Leave a dozen flakes of the gum soaking in a gill of water over night; in the morning, if the gum is too thick & stiff, add water, but precious little of it, for the paste should not be thin. Paste in a page or two of scraps, & then iron them dry & smoothe, or else leave the book under pressure.

You will be satisfied with your work this [time. Now] work labor with enthusiasm for three days, heaving in poetry, theology, jokes, obituaries, politics, tales, recipes for pies, poultices, puddings,—shovel them in helter-skelter, & every-which-way, first-come-first-served—but get them in. During the next few days, cool down a little; during the next few, cool down altogether & quit.

While the next six months drift by, cut out scraps occasionally & throw them loosely in between the leaves of the scrap-book, & say to yourself that some day you will paste them. Meantime, mislay your gum tragicanth & lose your brush.

By & by that scrapbook will begin to reproach you every time your eye falls upon it; it will accuse you, it will deride your indolence; it will get to intruding itself with studied & offensive frequency & persistence; it will rob you of your peace by day & your rest by night. It will haunt your very dreams, & say: “Look at me & the condition I am in.”

And at last that day will come which is inevitable in the history of all scrap-books—you will carry it up to the grave-yard of musty, dusty, discarded & forgotten literature in the garret; & when next you see it you will be old, & sad, & scarred with the battle of life, & will say, “Ah, well-a-day, it is but the type of all the hopeful efforts & high ambitions of the morning & the noontide of my pilgrimage—each so gallantly begun, & each in turn so quickly humbled & broken & vanquished!”

Yr friend,

Samℓ. L. Clemens.

Hartford, March 1873.3

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens became acquainted with Louisa Conrad during his visit to St. Louis in March 1867. In January 1869 he described her to Olivia as “a most estimable young lady. ... She was [a] near neighbor of ours, & my mother & sister are very fond of her, & of all her family” (L3, 19).

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2 Clemens was granted a patent for an “Improvement in Scrap-Books” on 24 June 1873 (11 Aug 72 to OC, n. 4).

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3 Mollie Clemens had evidently solicited Clemens’s contribution on Conrad’s behalf, and then forwarded it to her, with a letter that is not known to survive. On 7 July 1873 Conrad wrote to thank Mollie:

Your letter was a real treasure, and Mr. Clemmens’ contribution to my scrap-book an exquisite tribute, for which I am a thousand times grateful. I esteem it a high honor that his signature should adorn my book, and his beautiful composition places it with my choicest jems. (CU-MARK)

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). A bow of blue ribbon, now preserved with the letter, was almost certainly not part of the original letter. If the letter was preserved in Conrad’s scrapbook, as seems likely, it had been removed by 1977, when it was donated as part of the Appert Collection.

Previous publication: L5, 303–304.

Provenance:see Appert Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

RECIPE ... PA PLAN • Recipe for Making a Scrapbook upon the Customary Palan [underscored with three short lines like a literary title]

tragicanth • [sic; also at 303.32]

time. Now • time.— |Now.