Jump to Content

Add to My Citations To Olivia L. Clemens
12 November 1874 • Ashford, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01149)
Click to add citation to My Citations.

Grant’s Hotel
em spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceem spaceNear [Westford ]

Livy darling, this hotel is 28 miles from Hartford—& here we tie up for the night. We got here at 7—an hour or more after dark. Westford is 2 miles further on.1 Our last 3 or four miles found my knee-joints aching fit to give me the [lock-jaw ]that is one reason why we didn’t go along to the town.

We have had supper & a smoke, & now (8 oclock) we are about to go to bed. It is bitter cold, & I question if we shall sleep warmly enough —but no matter, we shall sleep.

Good night my child—you & the babies.

Sanml

altalt

[addressed by OLC, in ink:] Mrs S. L. Clemens | Farmington Avenue | Hartford | ct. [postmark: illegible]

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Add to My Citations

Click to add citation to My Citations.
1 Clemens and Twichell had stopped in Ashford. In his journal, Twichell recalled the “hotel” as

a low tavern, but the best that was to be had. Mark was pretty lame (the distance was 28 m.) but we went to bed early expecting to be in shape for a big days work Friday—We arranged to be off at 6 white diamond o’clock. I saw some characters at this tavern, notably a sublimely profane hostler whom you couldn’t joggle with any sort of mild remark without bringing down upon yourself a perfect avalanche of oaths.— (Twichell, 1:15)

In a notebook entry of May 1878, Clemens wrote, “The funniest scene I ever saw was when my poor parson struck up a talk with the hostler at Ashland.” He planned to “try the whole story, with dashes to represent swearing & obscenity” (N&J2, 87). In 1882 he did try it, calling the village “Duffield” in a nineteen-page account of the hostler’s “crimson lava-jets of desolating & utterly unconscious profanity,” which he included in, and then excised from, the manuscript of chapter 34 of Life on the Mississippi (SLC 1882, 431, 437).



glyphglyphSource text(s):glyph
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyph L6, 278–279.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphsee Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

glyphglyphEmendations and textual notes:glyph


Westford • West- | Westford [rewritten for clarity]

lock-jaw • lock-|jaw