To
Charles Kingsley
13 February 1874 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS and MS facsimile: ViU and Schulson, lot 98, UCCL 01048)
slc
Feb. 13, 1874.
My Dear Mr. Kingsley:
Won’t you kindly name a day & hour that I may meet you & yours at the station here & bring you up to our house for a few days’ visit?1
Mrs. Clemens is a trifle scared, but no matter. You are neither ferocious nor sanguinary. I asked her what there was to be afraid of, & she said that meeting such a personage as a [Canon ] of Westminster is something like encountering a king or a colossal Grand Duke. Possibly she thinks a Canon of Westminster is a new & peculiarly desctructive sort of artillery. But if you will come, I will protect her. My wife (this long, long time a most appreciative & admiring reader of yours), is very anxious to have the visit, notwithstanding her honest terrors.2
Do try to come—& bring all of your family that are with you.
An earlier call to Boston (a dinner to Mr. Wilkie Collins on Monday)3 has debarred me from the pleasure of meeting you at the Lotos tomorrow night (which invitation only came this moment.) I am so situated that I cannot well be away from home on both occasions.4
Mem. The best train to come to Hartford by, is the one which leaves New York at 10 AM—but if you’ll send me a telegram or a postal card, I’ll be on hand at any train you come by.5
Ys Truly
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
Rev. Chas. Kingsley
Lotos Club
2 Irving Place
New York.
Please deliver.
“Mark Twain.”
[postmarked:] [hartford ct. feb 13 12m
]
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
received a select company of his most intimate
friends at the St. James Hotel. . . . The reception was under the
direction of Mr. William F. Gill, and, though informal in its
character, was an elegant and refined affair. The invited guests
were Messrs. Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Henry Wilson, Josiah Quincy, Samuel L. Clemens, T. W.
Higginson, E. P. Whipple and J. T. Trowbridge. The company met in a
private parlor early in the evening, and after due formality went
down to supper in one of the cosey little dinning halls to be found
at the St. James. Clemens’s contribution to the after-dinner
speechmaking was “a brief description of his reception in
England, saying that he thought he was very successful in the object of
his visit there, which was to teach the people good morals, and to
introduce some of the improvements of the present century”
(“Wilkie Collins,” Boston Evening Transcript, 17 Feb 74, 1). In addition to Collins and
the three eminent poets who headed the guest list, Clemens’s
dinner companions were United States Vice-President Henry Wilson
(1812–75); author and historian Josiah Phillips Quincy
(1829–1910); Unitarian minister and author Thomas Wentworth
Higginson (1823–1911); lecturer and literary critic Edwin
Percy Whipple (1819–86); journalist, novelist, and poet John
Townsend Trowbridge (1827–1916); and Boston author, editor,
and publisher William F. Gill, who in 1875 became one of
Clemens’s nemeses (see 12–28 Feb 75 to
Bliss; “Departure of Steamer Parthia,”
Boston Evening Transcript, 7 Mar 74, 1; Boston Directory, 384; L5, 402, 405 n. 7).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L6, 31–33; University of Virginia, 72, letter only; Sotheby 1925, lot 200, brief excerpt;
Parke-Bernet 1945, lot 158, brief
excerpt.
Provenance:When offered for sale in 1945 the MS was part of the collection of James B.
Clemens; in May 1949 it belonged to H. George Bloch. It was deposited at ViU
by Clifton Waller Barrett on 15 May 1962.
Emendations and textual notes:
Canon • Can Canon [corrected miswriting]
hartford ct. feb 13 12m
•
[ hartf]o[r]d
[
] 13 [12]m
[badly inked]
