To Dean Sage
22 April 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: Craven, UCCL 01221)

Hartford, Apl. 22.

My Dear Mr. Sage:

I should have written before this to make my thanks to you & Mrs. Sage for what was simply a perfect visit.1 There is no stronger term in the dictionary than that, I believe, & a weaker one would not describe the good time we had. The reason I now have not testified my appreciation sooner, is, that I found a telegram here from Mr. Howells when I got back, asking for [the] June article (which I supposed was already in his hands)2—so I was busy enough for two men (though it was a mere matter of revising, & re-writing passages & paragraphs,) up to my leaving for Boston on Saturday.

Twichell & I were to do the Centennial together; but he had a remorseful streak after his loose career & indecent conversation in Brooklyn & while under the spell of it he concluded to stay at his post on Sunday. He preached twice that day, left here at [midnight], took an early breakfast in Boston, infested Concord & Lexington all day & reached Hartford after [midnight] that night, so as to be on hand early next day—for he had an opportunity to bury a Chinaman with some Congregational orgies & would h not have missed it for the world.3

Howells & I fooled around all day & never got to the E Centennial at all, though we made forty idiotic attempts to accomplish it. As our failures multiplied he strongly recalled your Indians to me & I kept observing to myself that he was a “dam fool.” I learned afterward that he was clandestinely making the same remark about me all the time—& if you could have heard his wife ridicule us when we got home, you would have judged that each of us “in his rude untutored way, had approximated the truth.”

Which reminds me that Howells had not yet read your MS., but was enjoying a lively hope that it would fill an aching void in the Atlantic which he has long been praying might be supplied by somebody who could write about wood & water sports without being dreary.4

Mrs. Clemens joins me in cordial remembrances & regards to you & Mrs. Sage, & she hopes you will ignore those Twichells & give us a visit the next time you can get away from home—& I heartily hope the same. With kindest remembrances to your father’s & brother’s households,5 I am

Yrs Truly

Samℓ. L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Sage had married Sarah Augusta Manning, the daughter of a Brooklyn merchant, in 1865. For Clemens’s visit, see pp. 446, 448.

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2 Installment six of “Old Times on the Mississippi.”

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3 Twichell wrote to Clemens on Sunday night, 18 April: “Perhaps I shall not see you at Concord to-morrow, and so I write to tell you—and I grieve to do it—that you will in vain expect me in Cambridge Tuesday. I must return by the earliest train Tuesday morning” (CU-MARK). One of the reasons for his change of plans was the death of twelve-year-old Ts’au Kia Tsioh, a student of the Chinese Educational Commission in Hartford (often called the “Chinese Mission”). “Poor little fellow,” Twichell wrote, “he’s a long way from home, and I feel a tender kindness for him.” The Chinese Educational Commission, established in Hartford by the Chinese government in 1872, brought more than a hundred boys to the city for a fifteen-year program of Chinese and Western studies intended to prepare them for government service. Twichell was asked to officiate at the funeral on Tuesday, 20 April, by his good friend Yung Wing, the commissioner who handled the details of the mission. He carefully avoided offense to Chinese sensibilities by suppressing his desire to “preach the Gospel,” instead making “the occasion a text on which to expound our common brotherhood in these mortal conditions and experiences” (Twichell, 1:90–93; Wing, 173, 183–90).

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4 On 23 April Twichell noted in his journal: “Received from Mr. W. D. Howells a note saying that the article on Salmon Fishing by Dean Sage which was forwarded through me a fortnight since was accepted and would soon appear in ‘The Atlantic Monthly.’ I sent the note to Dean” (Twichell, 1:94). The article, “Ten Days’ Sport on Salmon Rivers,” appeared in the August issue; it recounted Sage’s adventures on a fishing trip to New Brunswick, Canada. In the previous paragraph of this letter Clemens alluded to a passage about two Native American guides:

On one occasion when Peter had made several futile attempts to gaff a fish, André, who was standing near me, remarked as though to himself, “Peter dam fool.” Not five minutes later André, despite my remonstrances, allowed the canoe to drop down directly through a part of the pool where we had seen a fish jump, when Peter, turning around to me, said in a whisper, “Dat André dam fool.” Both, in their rude, untutored way, had approximated to the truth. (Sage, 147)

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5 Henry W. Sage (1814–97) and his wife, the former Susan E. Linn, had one son besides Dean, William Henry (1844–1924), who in 1869 married Jennie Gregg Curtin; by 1875 they had at least two children: Katherine Curtin and Henry Williams (1872–1938). Dean and Sarah Sage had three children at this time: Susan Linn, Henry Manning (1868–1933), and Sarah Porter. According to the New York directory effective 1 May 1875, Dean and William lived at 770 St. Mark’s Avenue, in Brooklyn, while Henry W. Sage lived on the same street at number 755 (Wilson 1875, 1158).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which was owned in 1969 by Mrs. Robin Craven, who provided a photocopy to the Mark Twain Papers.

Previous publication: L6, 452–454.

Provenance:previously owned by Mrs. Meredith Hare and later by Sidney L. Krauss, Mrs. Craven’s father.

Emendations and textual notes:

midnight • mid-|night

midnight • mid-|night