To Olivia Lewis Langdon
5 December 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, in pencil: CtHMTH, UCCL 01509)

‸Dec. 5.

Mother Dear,—‸1

We are getting along about as usual. All hands pretty well. The shaving-stand you got for me is just the needed thing. It suits exactly. It compels the morning shave. Consequently, I have not missed shaving on any morning since I have possessed it. I thank you very much—& you may believe easily Livy does also.

We vastly enjoyed Mr. Slee’s visit—but you knew that before. We have had a letter from Mrs. Slee, & I hope she will come, too, next time.2

Love to you & all the [rest. —& punch] up The about the telephone. I will sing you to sleep, nights, from the farm.3

Lovingly

Saml.

‸Livy disapproved of the other sheet of this letter, so I tore it up. She’s awful particular!‸

I wish I could have been at your telephone exhibition. Your account gave me a very vivid appreciation of the marvels of the instrument—the most vivid of any I have had yet, I think.4

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1As Clemens explained in the comment he inserted below his signature, he tore up the original first page of this letter. He then inserted the date and “Mother Dear,—” at the top of the remaining page.

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2John D. F. Slee, a partner in the Langdon family’s coal business, was a close friend and financial advisor of Clemens’s. He had married Emma Virginia Underhill in 1862 (27 Feb 1869 to OLL, L3, 119 n. 4).

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3“The” was Clemens’s brother-in-law, Theodore Crane. Clemens wanted him to have a telephone line installed between Quarry Farm, on the hill above Elmira, and Mrs. Landon’s house in the city proper.

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4On 29 November 1877 a telephone connection was made between the Elmira Opera House and an office elsewhere in the city. The Elmira Advertiser reported on 1 December: “The music as it came through the telephone was indescribably beautiful, but perhaps that which gave the most satisfaction . . . was the cornet solo, and its encore, ‘The Sweet Bye and Bye’” (“Gilmore’s Concert by Telephone,” 4). Mrs. Langdon’s account of the exhibition, in a letter not known to survive, probably mentioned the song and prompted Clemens’s remarks at the end of the preceding letter.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, in pencil, CtHMTH.

Previous publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.

Emendations and textual notes:

rest.—& punch • [deletion of dash implied]