[first 2 MS pages (about 150 words) missing]
Livy says—& I endorse it—that you cannot have our mother1 at any price—but you can have an interest in her for nothing—which is cheap enough. But if you want to negotiate for our baby, any suggestion ‸proposition‸ (addressed to me) will meet with prompt attention. I am offered two twins & a cow by an English gentleman in Stratford & on Avon with whose family we have been staying a day or two,2 & I am ready to trade but Livy continues to consider & is a good deal of an obstruction.
For goodness sake let no artist make of Sellers anything but a gentleman—he is always genial, always gentle, generous, hospitable, full of sympathy ies with anything that any creature has at heart—he is always courtly of speech & manner & never descends to vulgarity. Even his dress (vide the scene where Washington first visits him at [Hawkeye]) is carefully kept & has the expression about it of being the latest charm in excellency of that kind. He always wears a stovepipe hat. He is never awkward in attitude or gesture, & is never ill at ease even in the company of the illustrious. He must not be distorted or caricatured in any way in order to make a “funny” picture. Make him plain & simple.3 ‸(The [original] was tall & slender.)‸ 4 [in margin: However, I believe we have hinted that Sellers is portly, in one place—which is just as well.]
I have not lectured here & do not think I shall. One has no time to prepare. We only dine. We do nothing else.
Joaquin Miller & I are going to prowl through rural England “unbeknowns” to anybody, leaving Livy & the child in London.5 However, Livy & I will “do” Scotland first. One can accomplish absolutely nothing when one is known.
With stores of love for Susie6 & all of you.
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
By the evening of 10 July the Clemenses had returned to London (11 July 73 to unidentified; for details of the
Stratford visit see 25 June 73 to Conway, n. 2; 14 July 73 to Flower; and Clemens’s dictated remarks in N&J1, 561–64). It is possible that Clemens wrote this letter to Warner while still in
Stratford, since he was vague about the length of their stay. It seems somewhat more likely, however, that he wrote it soon after
returning to London, where he would have found Warner’s letter reporting on the progress of the Gilded
Age illustrations (see the next note).
The Colonel’s “stovepipe” hat was napless and shiny with much polishing, but
nevertheless it had an almost convincing expression about it of having been just purchased new. The rest of his clothing was napless
and shiny, too, but it had the air of being entirely satisfied with itself and blandly sorry for other people’s clothes.
(SLC 1873–74, 78) Several months after The Gilded Age was published, Clemens complained that it was
“rubbishy looking” because it suffered, like Roughing It, from the “wretched
paper & vile engravings” typical of subscription books (24 Mar 74 to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, MH-H, in MTLP, 81).
The real Colonel Sellers, as I knew him in James Lambton, was a pathetic & beautiful spirit, a manly
man, a straight & honorable man, a man with a big, foolish, unselfish heart in his bosom, a man born to be loved;
& he was loved by all his friends, & by his family worshiped. (SLC 1897–98, 21–22) Lampton was also a kinsman of Henry Watterson’s (see 29 May–15 June? 73 to Watterson, n. 1). Watterson recalled: Just after the successful production of his play, The Gilded Age, ... I received a letter from him [Clemens] in which he told me he had made in Colonel Mulberry Sellers a close study of one of these kinsmen and thought he had drawn
him to the life. “But for the love o’ God,” he said, “don’t whisper it, for
he would never understand or forgive me, if he did not thrash me on sight.” ... The original Sellers had partly brought him up and had been very good to him. A second Don Quixote in
appearance and not unlike the knight of La Mancha in character, it would have been safe for nobody to laugh at James Lampton, or by
the slightest intimation, look or gesture to treat him with inconsideration, or any proposal of his, however preposterous, with
levity. He once came to visit me upon a public occasion and during a function. I knew that I must introduce him, and
with all possible ceremony, to my colleagues. He was very queer; tall and peaked, wearing a black, swallow-tailed suit, shiny with
age, and a silk hat, bound with black crepe to conceal its rustiness, not to indicate a recent death; but his linen as spotless as
new-fallen snow. Happily the company, quite dazed by the apparition, proved decorous to solemnity, and the kind old gentleman,
pleased with himself and proud of his “distinguished young kinsman,” went away highly gratified. (Watterson 1919, 1:121–22) Clemens had thought of using Lampton as a character as early as August 1870, when he wrote to his sister, Pamela
Moffett, asking her to get all the gossip you can out of Mollie [Clemens] about Cousin James Lampton & Family, without her knowing it is I that want it. I want
every little trifling detail, about how they look & dress, & what they say, & how the house is
furnished—& the various ages & characters of the tribe. (L4, 185)
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L5, 411–13.
Provenance:The MS, which lacks the letter’s first two pages, is laid in a first edition copy of The Gilded
Age (American Publishing Company, 1874). Sinclair Hamilton (1884–1978) donated much of his collection (primarily
woodcuts and wood engravings) to NjP in 1945, and continued to supplement his gift until shortly before his death (Dickinson, 148–49).
Emendations and textual notes:
Hawkeye • Hawk-|eye
original • originale
