To Olivia L. Clemens
23 April 1877 • New York, N.Y.
(MS, correspondence card, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01414)

St James,

Early Bedtime.

slcLivy Darling, I am tired out—pretty completely fagged. So I’ll only write a line. Since I reached here at 6 I have been talking with people all the time—Charley, Dan, Kingman, Fuller & others1—& now at 9 oclock, am dreadfully sleepy. I am ashamed that a trifling little railway trip should have so much effect upon me. But I had a delightful afternoon. I left behind me those 2 men who have not been absent an instant from my thoughts (& my hate) for months—Raymond & Harte2—so I read Dumuas3 & was serene & content. I move on in the morning. I love you darling—I love you all the time.

Saml

Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] new-york e apr 24 7am

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1Clemens’s companions at the St. James Hotel included Charles J. Langdon, his brother-in-law; Dan Slote, his 1867 Quaker City excursion cabin mate and the publisher of Mark Twain’s Self-Pasting Scrap Book; Frank Fuller, his 1867 New York lecture manager and now proprietor of a New York health food company and an investment speculator; and, probably, Hector J. Kingman, who had been a close companion during his 1866–67 trip from San Francisco to New York (L2: link note preceding 15 Jan 1867 to Hingston, 5–6; 20 May 1867 to Crane, 47–48; L6: 31 Jan 1874 to Fuller, 23 n. 3; 8–10 July 1874 to Fuller, 182–83; 6 Sept 1874 to Fuller, 228–30; N&J1, 38–99).

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2John Raymond had irritated Clemens recently while negotiating a revised Colonel Sellers contract. At about the same time, the friendship between Clemens and Bret Harte had eroded as a result of their collaboration on Ah Sin (27 Oct 1876 to Raymond, 11 Dec 1876 to Perkins, and 27 Feb 1877 to PAM, n. 3).

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3The work by Alexandre Dumas (1802–70) that Clemens was reading has not been identified with certainty, but he told Mollie Fairbanks in August that he had recently read The Taking of the Bastille (6 Aug 1877 to Mary P. [Mollie] Fairbanks, n. 5).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, correspondence card, in pencil, CU-MARK.

Previous publication:

LLMT, 194; MicroML, reel 4.

Provenance:

See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.