To
Orion Clemens
14 May 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, on printed form postal card, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01430)
mr. clemens has gone away on a sea voyage of uncertain duration, but will answer your letter as soon as he returns to this country.
[written across printed message:]
Profanity is more necessary to me than is immunity from colds.
S L C
To take your remedy “by & large,’’ I should say death, will would be easily preferable to it.1
us postal card.
write the address on this side—the message on the other
Orion Clemens, Esq
Keokuk
Iowa
[postmarked:] hartford conn. may 14 6pm
Explanatory Notes
Clemens wrote his note on one of the printed postcards he intended to use while in Bermuda, in reply to the following advice from Orion (CU-MARK): Keokuk, May 10/77. My Dear Brother: Thank you heartily for the three drafts—$42 each. For your cold, abstain from eating, drinking, and profanity for 24 hours, (except water); then bathe in hot water half an hour to the knees, keeping the water ‸as‸ hot by ex as you can bear by expedients that will readily suggest themselves to a person of your mental resources; then put on woolen socks and go to bed. In the early stages, warranted. Love to all. Your Brother, Orion.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MicroML, reel 4.
Provenance:
See Moffett Collection in Description of Provenance.
