‸ Private. ‸
Hartford, Sep. 27.
My Dear Pond:1
My lawyer has been examining things, & says it will not do for me to go to Philadelphia, Washington, or any place in that region.2
I told him to go to work & buy a compromise if possible. He will try to-day, & can give me an answer probably within a week.
Meantime, I want you ‸to‸ manage so as to have me released from those southern engagements if the compromise fails. If the compromise succeeds I’ll go to those places. If it fails I’ll have to be released. Will you ask Pugh & Washington to promise me release if the compromise fails?3
Ys Truly
S. L. Clemens
Explanatory Notes
As one of James Redpath’s successors in the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, Pond (1838–1903) was Clemens’s lecture agent.
Charles E. Perkins had advised Clemens to exclude this part of the East from a planned reading tour because of his legal entanglement with an old Baltimore adversary, Henry C. Lockwood (see 11 Oct 1876 to
Saunders, n. 2).
Thomas B. Pugh was the Philadelphia impresario and lecture manager who usually handled
Clemens’s appearances there (14 Nov 1870 to Pugh, L4, 239–40; 21 Dec 1874 to Pugh, L6, 328 n. 1). Clemens did read in Philadelphia, on 14 November , but no evidence has been found that he fulfilled any engagements in Washington, or elsewhere in that area (see 19
Oct 1876 to Saunders, n. 2).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Provenance:
It is not known when the MS became part of the Berg Collection, given by Dr. Albert A. Berg to NN in 1940, but continuously enlarged since then.
