1 The “Modoc,” Susy Clemens, would be two years old on 19 March. Moulton, the Boston literary correspondent of the New York Tribune, had a daughter, Florence, and had lost a son in infancy. She was among the first to express sympathy after the death of Langdon Clemens on 2 June 1872 (L5, 108–9, 409 n. 19; NAW, 2:595). No photograph survives with the letter, but Clemens’s enclosure may have been a print of the image reproduced here. The only copy located is inserted in Olivia’s photo album (CSmH). Clemens wrote “Susie” on the photograph itself; Olivia wrote “About 2 years old” on the album page. The imprint of the photographer, if any, is obscured by the album page, but he may have been Isaac White, at 15 Pratt Street in Hartford, who took the only other known photograph of Susy at age two, also preserved in Olivia’s album, possibly about the same time (see p. 683).

Susy Clemens, 1874. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (CSmH). See 13 Feb 74 to Moulton, n. 1.

2 Clemens’s friendship with Moulton apparently began when he sent her a review copy of Roughing It and then thanked her for praising it in her column. He also sent her The Gilded Age, which she did not review (L5, 90–91, 108–9, 462, 467 n. 18).

3 Clemens hoped to have Olivia and Susy accompany him to Boston when he lectured there in early March, but they did not do so (1 Feb 74 and 28 Feb 74, both to Redpath).