To Olivia L. Clemens
22 December 1873 • (1st of 2) • London, England
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01014)

Dec. 22.

Livy my darling, this is Monday. Yesterday I said it had been more than a week since I had heard from you; Stoddard said, no, just a week; but that letters would come today. When I woke this morning & was going to turn over & take another nap, I remembered that there would doubtless be letters. So I got up at once & dressed. There were two, my child—one about Dr Browne’s “Margaret”1 & the other about Mrs. Cowan2 & the private theatricals at the ladies club, & all that gossip—which is exactly what I like. I have always contended that Ma3 was the best letter-writer in the world, because she threw such an atmosphere of her locality & her surroundings into her letters that her reader was transported to her, & by the magic of her pen moved among creatures of living flesh & blood;, talked with them, hoped & feared & suffered with them.

I’ll look up the Thackeray & Dickens.4 And as Finlay leaves for Belfast tomorrow he shall take the order for the dragon, & then I will get it when I lecture there.5

I’ve got 7 razors all in one box, with the days of the week marked on them. That is to give each razor a week’s rest, which is the next best thing to stropping it. Stoddard, Finlay & I are to dine with the Dolby to-night at the Westminster Club & I reckon we’ll have a pretty good time (now here’s that Punch & Judy devil just struck up on his [drum ]over by the church railings—but it is a dark, rainy day & he won’t take a trick.)

Another Tichborne case—no, I mean a case of mistaken identity. Finlay & I started out for a walk yesterday afternoon—met a very young & very handsome [man] within [5 ]steps of the door, who looked at me as if he knew me, & I looked at him, not expecting to know him, but instantly recognizing the fact that I had seen the face somewhere before.

Very well. I kept telling Finlay I knew that face—& by & by, when we were well up Portland Place, I said “Now I’ve got it!—it is the young Lord MacDuff pre who presided at a Morayshire Banquet in r Regent street the other night.”6

Very good again. Half an hour later, in Regent’s Park we met a lady whom Finlay knew,—she was giving 3 or 4 of her children an airing. We walked with her an hour, then went to her house in Harley street (the “Long, unlovely street” of Tennyson In Memoriam)7 to drink a glass of wine—sat there half an hour, when in comes that same man we met before the hotel (Finlay nodded to me as much as to say, “Here he is again”) & then, lo & behold you he was introduced to us as The “Lord Arthur Hill,” (and, in a whisper, “heir to the Marquis of Downshire.”) I studied the fellow all over for more than half an hour, & there was no difference between the two men except that the hair of one was wavy & that of the other was not. The Mac Duff is a Scotchman, but this chap is Irish, born close to Belfast & is heir to one of those mighty estates there that Finlay tell told us of, with 40 miles extent & 60,000 population.8 It was a curious case, all around, considering the exceeding scarcity of lords.

I love you, my child.

Samℓ.

Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens
Hartford
Conn [in upper left corner:] America. | [flourish] [on flap:] slc/mt [postmarked:] london-w 5 de 22 73 [and] [new york jan due 13 u.s. currency] [and] insufficiently stamped [and] 13

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 John Brown, in a letter to Olivia not known to survive, may have asked for help in locating a copy of Sylvester Judd’s Margaret: A Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom, first published in 1845. Clemens owned an 1871 edition of this work (Boston: Roberts Brothers) (Gribben, 1:361). In January 1874, shortly before leaving England, he sent Brown a volume of drawings inspired by the book, Compositions in Outline, by Felix O. C. Darley, from Judd’s Margaret (first published in 1856), and in February, from Hartford, he forwarded a copy of the novel itself (28 Feb 74 to Brown, CtY).

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2 Mrs. Sidney J. Cowen was president of the Union for Home Work, a charity founded in 1872 “for the purpose of improving the condition and, in particular, the home life of the poorer women and children of the city” (Trumbull, 1:538–39; Geer 1873, 52, 296).

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3 Jane Lampton Clemens.

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4 Since Olivia’s letters do not survive, nothing is known of her request regarding these authors.

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5 The “dragon,” possibly an item of bric-a-brac for the Clemenses’ Hartford house, has not been identified.

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6 See 11 and 12 Dec 73 to OLC, n. 6.

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7 “In Memoriam” (1850), canto 7. Clemens owned an 1871 edition of Tennyson’s complete works (Boston: J. R. Osgood) (Gribben, 2:693).

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8 Clemens must have been mistaken, since the heir to the marquess of Downshire was only two years old at this time. Clemens evidently met his father, the present marquess, Arthur Wills Blundell Trumbull Sandys Roden Hill (1844–74). Both were born in London, not “close to Belfast.” As of 1883 the family estates encompassed 114,621 acres in Ireland (in five different counties), as well as 5,568 acres in England. In all they yielded £96,691 a year, the eighth largest income from land in the United Kingdom (Burke 1904, 500–501; Cokayne, 4:460–61).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication: L5, 529–531; LLMT, 187–88.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

drum • dr◇ drum [corrected miswriting]

5 • 5 5 [corrected miswriting]

new york jan due 13 u.s. currency • [n ] due 13 u.s. curren[] [badly inked]