Hartford, Dec. 14, 1879.
My dear Ingersoll:
Thank you most heartily for the books—I am devouring them—they have found a hungry place, and they content it & satisfy it to a miracle. I wish I could hear you speak these splendid chapters before a great audience—to read them by myself & hear the boom of the applause only in the ear of my imagination, leaves a something wanting—& there is also a still greater lack, your manner, & voice, & presence.
The Chicago speech arrived an hour too late, but I was all right anyway, for I found that my memory had been able to correct all the errors. I read it to the Saturday Club (of young girls) & told them to remember that it was doubtful if its superior existed in our language.
Truly yours,
S. L. Clemens
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MTL, 1:373–74; Rogers 1927, 265–66.
Provenance:A transcript, apparently the one now in CU-MARK, was sent to Bernard DeVoto on 15 October 1941 by
Sherman D. Wakefield, whose wife was Ingersoll’s granddaughter.
Another transcript is in the Papers of Robert Green Ingersoll at DLC.
