To Whitelaw Reid
22 April 1873 • (1st of 3) • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: DLC, UCCL 00905)

Apl. 22.

My Dear Reid:

Cheque received for $121—for which this is acknowledgm’t

All right! You go [ahead ] & give us that other [notice. Bilious? ] I was more than bilious—I was scared. When a man starts out in a new role, the public always says he is a fool & won’t succeed. So I wanted to make every knife cut that could help [ up ] us succeed, anyway.2

Why of course the Tribune would make Hartford talk,—& the rest of the country, for that matter—else why would I be so solicitous about what the Tribune said? That is just the point—I want the Tribune to say it right & say it powerful——& then I will answer for the consequences.

The consequence will be that all other papers will follow suit—as ‸which‸ you know, as ◇ well as I do. And then our game is made & our venture launched with a fair wind instead of a baffling one.

Ys

Clemens

[enclosure:] 3

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 On 21 April Reid had forwarded a check “for your life-raft letter” (Whitelaw Reid Papers, DLC; see 9 Apr 73 to Reid).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Reid evidently responded (probably in a telegram, now lost) to Clemens’s “bilious” letter of 20 April by offering to publish another, more satisfactory, notice of The Gilded Age.

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3 This enclosed clipping was cut from the Springfield (Mass.) Republican of 22 April 1873 (7) by Warner, who wrote “Springfield Rep.” on it and gave it to Clemens. Clemens added his own comment before sending it to Reid. The item seems to be based on the Tribune notice of 19 April to which Clemens took exception.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Whitelaw Reid Papers, Library of Congress (DLC), is copy-text for the letter. Warner cut the enclosure from the Springfield Republican for 22 Apr 73 (7) and forwarded it to Clemens; it survives with the letter, glued to the top of the first page—probably not by Clemens—and is photographically reproduced.

Previous publication: L5, 351–352; Cortissoz, 1:274.

Provenance:The Whitelaw Reid Papers (part of the Papers of the Reid Family) were donated to DLC between 1953 and 1957 by Helen Rogers Reid (Mrs. Ogden Mills Reid).

Emendations and textual notes:

ahead • ahean dd

notice. Bilious? • notice.—|Bilious?

up us • ups [‘p’ partly formed]