Nov 7th 1877
slcfarmington avenue, hartford.Dear Mr Chatto
It is [a] right down generous offer you make & if the books didn’t cost much I accept with [pleasure. But] if they were expensive it would not be fair to let you [pay] the whole cost of a blunder which was not yours but a subordinate’s—in which case let us divide the expense, & shake hands across the bloody chasm.1
It was not about the Tom Sawyer act2 with me that I was inquiring, for that is all correct. I was simply anxious to know if Conway had paid himself his royalty or if you had paid it to him. The main thing was I wanted him to get it. I did not care anything about the details, I only wanted to know that he got it.
Have received your checks for 5.qs. and £7.10.0. Thanks, they are satisfactory, especially the latter. The larger a check is, the more I like it; & the more I honor & glorify the sender, & the more it stirs me up to high literary achievement in that man’s behoof.
Very truly yours.
Samℓ L.
Clemens.
Pr F. C. H
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Clemens answered the following letter, which Chatto had written in response to an earlier one of his that is now lost (CU-MARK): Bentley had complied with Clemens’s request to forward the proofsheets of “Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion” to Chatto, who published all four installments in Belgravia at the same time they appeared in the Atlantic Monthly
(see 15 Sept 1877 to Bentley; SLC 1877–78).
Source text(s):
Previous publication:
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Provenance:
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.
Emendations and textual notes:
a • a
pleasure. But • pleasure. bBut
pay • t pay