To Shirley Brooks
12 December 1873 • London, England
(MS: ViU, UCCL 1002)

The Langham Hotel
Dec. 12.

My Dear Mr. Brooks:

The fog got so thick, & so depleted my audiences, that I got [desperate. I ] can’t talk to thin houses; I would so cheerfully have paid half a crown to every man who would come—but I couldn’t say that, & so I had to talk, & go on suffering.

Then I thought maybe I was not advertised enough. So I wrote the accompanying squib—the one which is not in my handwriting—& sent it to all the morning dailies, hoping that maybe one out of the lot would print [it. But ]no—the first line was too plainly & sadly an advertisement, & then the gentle satirical vein—touching both the Prince & the people—was a thing they were a bit afraid of, I fancy.

It is no longer an advertisement, because my lecturing will be at an end a week & a day from now—& I have ‸just‸ written 10 pages of remarks purposely to get in, very quietly & unobtrusively, the fact that I mean no [disrespect ]to the Prince, & that I believe he would appreciate & smile at the joke as soon as anybody.

Still, you may not be favorably impressed, & if not, will you send it back to me? There is nothing but good-nature in it—so I could send it to America, & it would run there very well.1

Yrs Very Truly

Samℓ. L. Clemens.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 Clemens evidently enclosed two brief manuscripts with his letter—neither of which survives. It is possible, however, that the one “not in my handwriting” was a copy, made by Stoddard, of his 10 December letter to the Morning Post (published on 11 December), which Clemens may not yet have seen in print. The other, comprising “10 pages of remarks,” has not been identified. Brooks did not print it (or anything else by Clemens) in Punch, nor has a likely article been found in any American newspaper. For Brooks’s response, see the enclosure with 13 and 15 Dec 73 to OLC.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).

Previous publication: L5, 510–511.

Provenance:deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.

Emendations and textual notes:

desperate. I • desperate.—|I

it. But • it.—|But

disrespect • disrespetct