Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

To Mary E. (Mollie) Clemens
12? September 1861 • Carson City, Nev. Terr.
(MS, damage emended: NPV, UCCL 02715)

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. . . .

well, although I believe I never had the [ pleasure of her ]acquaintance,) and left for [ California the same day; ] and I told him plainly that I [ did not believe ] it, and wouldn’t, if he [ w swore ]it—[ for I didn’t, Mollie ], and did[n’t] think Billy could be [ as stupid as ] that. On the contrary, I thought he [ was the most ] talented boy that Keokuk had [ ever produced ]. But when I got back, Orion confirmed Billy’s statement—so, you see, I am forced to believe that—(that they are both liars.) If I [ ever ‸were to‸ ] marry, I [ should ] would certainly stay at home a week, even if the Devil were in town with a writ for my arrest.1

Why don’t Ma and Pamela write? Please kiss Jennie for me2——

(P. S.—And tell her when she is fifteen years old, I will kiss her myself——)

(P. S.—If she is good-looking.)

P. S.—Don’t get “huffy.”

P. S.—Write.

Thine,

Sam. L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens knew William Horace Clagett (1838–1901) while Clagett was studying law in Keokuk in 1856 and 1857. Admitted to the bar in September 1858, Clagett “practiced law in Keokuk and made his first political speeches for [Stephen] Douglas in the campaign of 1860. In the spring of 1861 he was married to Miss Mary E. Hart. . . . On the day of his marriage he, with his brother George, started across the plains for California. . . . He had a hard trip across the plains, and finding nothing better to do, went to work cutting and hauling wood near Dayton, Nevada” (Dixon, 249–50; see also Andrew J. Marsh, 698). Clagett briefly practiced law in Carson City before accompanying Clemens to the Humboldt district in December 1861, eventually settling in Unionville. Mary Clagett (b. 1840 or 1841) was the daughter of a Keokuk merchant. In the fall of 1862 she accompanied Mollie Clemens to Nevada when both women came to rejoin their husbands (Keokuk Census [1860], 48; MEC to OC, 1 Sept 62, CU-MARK). Clemens’s remarks on marriage may have been evoked in part by a 2 August letter in which Mollie informed Orion of her sister’s imminent wedding (see the next letter, n. 6). Mollie’s letter reached Carson City on 9 September, and Clemens could have seen it on the twelfth, the estimated date of his return from Aurora.

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2 Jennie Clemens’s sixth birthday, on 14 September 1861, presumably was the occasion for Clemens’s “kiss” and the joking that follows.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV). Only the last leaf of the MS survives. As the illustration shows, a piece has been torn out of the leaf at the upper right corner, affecting seven lines; the missing text has been conjecturally supplied by emendation. Accompanying the MS facsimile is a type facsimile of the same lines with the emended readings in place.

glyph Previous publication: L1, 123–124.

glyph Provenance:See McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.

{graphic group: 1 horizontal squiggle inline overlay}

12? September 1861 to Mary E. (Mollie) Clemens. Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV). The type facsimile of the same lines, including the missing text supplied by emendation, is marked to show where the leaf was torn. Because the regularity of type only approximates the handwriting, the curve of the torn MS edge appears somewhat distorted in the type facsimile. To avoid unnecessary misalignment of the text, the type facsimile does not report the ‘w’ overwritten by ‘swore’ in the fourth line and shows the MS reading ‘did’ in the fifth line rather than the interpolated correction ‘did[n’t]’ that appears in the text.

glyph Emendations and textual notes:

pleasure of her • ple[ white diamond ] |her [torn]

California the same day; • California [ white diamond ] |day; [Although the available space would also permit ‘the next’, external evidence rules out ‘next’ and supports at least the sense of ‘the same’; see p. 123, n. 1.]

did not believe • did [n white diamond ] |lieve [torn]

w swore • [‘s’ over ‘w’]

for I didn’t, Mollie • fo[ white diamond ] |Mollie [torn]

as stupid as • as [ white diamond ] |as [torn]

was the most • w[a white diamond ] |most [torn]

ever produced • ever [p white diamond ] |duced [torn]

ever ‸were to‸ • [‘were’ inserted over ‘ever’ and ‘to’ interlined]

should would • [‘would’ over ‘should’]