Apl. 29.
Dear Sir:1
I thank you very much for the compliment of the offer, but I am not a capable person for the work, even if I had the time. There is probably not another man in Connecticut who is so besottedly ignorant of Hartford as I am. I have lived here 3 or 4 years (in the fringe of the city) & I only go down town when it is necessary to abuse my publisher.
In the absence of Chas. Dudley Warner, I would suggest his first‐assistant, Chas. Clark, of the Courant, as the best man.2
Very Truly Yrs
Samℓ L. Clemens
Explanatory Notes
On the envelope Clemens noted, “From Dr. J. G. Holland,
(‘Timothy Titcomb’) poet & editor of Scribner’s Monthly.” Holland alluded to
Armsmear: The Home, the Arm, and the Armory of Samuel Colt. A Memorial, by Henry Barnard (New York: Alvord,
1866). Only one city had as yet been covered in Scribner’s illustrated series: “The
Liverpool of America” (Baltimore), by Edward King, in the April issue. Later in 1875, two more articles appeared:
“The City of the Golden Gate,” by Clemens’s San Francisco Evening Bulletin
friend Samuel Williams, in July, and “Chicago,” by J. W. Sheahan, in September (9:681–95;
10:266–85, 529–51). Clemens was not favorably disposed toward Holland: in 1872 he had written a scathing
rebuttal—which he never published—to Holland’s attacks on platform humorists (see L5, 77–78 n. 1, 122–24 n. 5; L2, 209).
Source text(s):
Previous publication:
L6, 470–71.