To Olivia L. Langdon
18 October 1868 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 02759)

My Honored Sister:

You have rebuked me. I sinned, against but it was in [hot-blooded ]heedlessness—not deliberate intent to do wrong. I You have treated my letter1 as it deserved, since it offended you wi —with silent - - - - - - - (not contempt—I cannot think of the proper word)—as it deserved, I say, for it is not a brother’s p right to offend a sister who has never harmed him. I accept the rebuke, severe as it was, & surely I ought to thank you for the lesson it brings. For it has brought me back to my senses. I walk upon the ground again—not in the clouds. It is hard to speak of one’s own humiliation—to see one’s pride brought low, & tell of it to another. I do not know that I could write these words to any one but you—& not to you but that I feel you will not ridicule them. It has taken me two days to master this false pride & make the reparation that is your due—shall I never be a man? But it is over—& now I come to you with all trust, all confidence—simply as a reproved, repentant brother seeking a sister’s pardon—& ask that you will forget & forgive my [fault. I ]have no fears, no doubts. I have confessed. I am sorry. I will not offend again. It is the easier to come to you so, because that I have not been criminal—only heedless. You will restore to me your respect & your esteem, which I have forfeited.

And so the clouds are gone, & I am cheerful again. I make no apology for writing this letter—for in word & spirit it shall be inoffensive—& more than that, who shall take away from the bro a brother his privilege of writing to his sister when the spirit moveth him?—yea, & even though she chooses to take her own time about answering? You are my sister, for you did not take me for a brother to cast me off the first time I went astray, but to bear with me when I am wrong, & forgive me when I right myself again. And to assist me [ som sometimes ]with the power that is in your good influence—you know too well how much I need it. But whatever may befall, you will always seem to me a sister, & Mrs. Fairbanks a mother, for between you you have made me turn some of my thoughts into worthier channels than they were wont to pursue, & benefits like that, the worst of us cannot forget.

I Set a white stone—for I have made a friend.2 It is the Rev. J. H. Twichell. I have only known him a week, & yet I believe I think almost as much of him as I do of Charlie. I could hardly find words strong enough to tell how much I do think of that [man. ‸(And ]his wife, too.)‸ 3 I met him at a church sociable., (where I made a dozen pleasant acquaintances, old & young & of both sexes.)4 He made me promise to spend Wednesday evening at his house5—it was not hard to do. On Tuesday his pretty, young wife walked three blocks by my side (I didn’t know who in the mischief she was, & she was not certain that I was myself,)—I would drop back, ‸now & then,‸ thinking it must annoy her to be elbow to elbow with a stranger so long—& behold, she would drop back alongside! I would march ahead—& she would just range up alongside again! It was the most absurd performance you ever saw. At last, [ y ]just as I was going to shout “Police!” ‸call the police,‸ she changed her course & left me. But she came into the publication office pretty soon & had them introduce me, & then the mystery was solved. She had simply wanted to tell me to come to tea, & then spend the evening—but not being sure that I was the right man she walked all that long distance with me without being able to make muster courage enough to introduce herself. I had a splendid time at their house. I had my “manners” with me, & got up to go at 9.30 PM, & never sat down again—but he said he was bound to have his talk out—& bless you I was willing—& so I only left at 11. And then he made me carry off the choicest books in his library. Splendid fellow! I went last night at 7 to carry them home—& I was in a hurry, for I was writing to Charlie & wanted to mail the letter before 9—but the clock struck 10 before I got away. He had his sermon to write, but he said never mind the sermon, it would be all the better for a little talk beforehand—([ it & ]it was good, too—I heard it this morning.) This man [ keeps apolog‸ed‸ izing ‸apologized‸ ]to me for talking so much about religion. He would not have done me that wrong if he had known how much I respected him for it & how beautiful his strong love for his subject made his words seem. When religion, coming from your lips & his, shall be distasteful to me, I shall be a lost man [indeed. This ]morning he ran out & [overtook ]me in Farmington Avenue, & walked a quarter of a mile. His eyes were flashing with pleasure—& he said: [ “Clem “I have ]just been visiting an invalid [parish[i]oner], who will never rise from her bed any more—& she says she prays for me every day! Clemens, you don’t know what limitless power there is in a woman’s prayers!—the prayers of a hundred men cannot lift me up like one prayer for ‸from‸ a woman!—I pity you from the bottom of my heart, for you do not know what it is to have a pure, sinless, noble Christian woman pray daily for you.” It is what he said—word for word. I said “I do know it—my sister.” “Ah, yes, but it is not so strong—your sister has to pray for you—it is not the generous tribute that comes uncompelled from the lips of another woman, for this has no dross of earth, no selfishness about [it.” You ]seem so much my sister that I could say naught against his argument, & so said nothing. But I was glad to hear him speak so. He & his wife are to drive me about the country tomorrow afternoon, & I am to sup with them & spend the evening, which is to last till midnight. He is about my age—likes my favorite authors, too, just as you do (except Mrs. Browning, whom I would like, if I could ever get that “string of lamp-posts” straightened out in my head.)6 After church, at noon to-day, I went with him to the alms house & helped him preach & sing to the inmates., (I helped in the singing, anyhow.) Heaven & earth, what a sight it was! Cripples, id jibbering idiots, raving madmen; ‸thieves, rowdies, paupers;‸ little children, stone blind; blind men & women; old, old, men & women, with that sad inward absent look ‸in their faces‸ that tells of thoughts that are busy with “the days that come ‸are‸ no more.”7 I have not had anything move my pity ‸touch me‸ so since I saw the leper hospitals of Honolulu & Damascus. As we came along the road—

However, enough of a thing is too much, I take it. Never mind my writing so much—I am always diffusive—& please don’t say that I persecute you with letters. You must consider the circumstances that called this one forth. When you can find an idle moment pray write—& if you haven’t but a page to write, why let it be a page—I hope I have not grown selfish & exacting in my old age. Do not say anything that is unkind, please. Give me back your trust again—for I know that in a larger measure than before, I am worthy.

Good-bye. (My sense of shame is back again—& yet it does seem that I am punished enough. Shall I never learn anything?) Happy dreams visit you, & peace abide with you always.” I will not scratch that out, anyhow.

Your affectionate Brother,

Samℓ. L. Clemens.

Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | New York. [postmarked:] [[hartfor]d ]conn. [oct ]18 [docketed by OLL:] 1868 | 4th

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens’s 4–5 October letter to Olivia.

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2 Setting a white stone has been understood “from classical times as an expression for commemorating any piece of good fortune or any lucky day” (Hazlitt, 2:568).

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3 Joseph Hopkins Twichell (1838–1918) was pastor of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church at 814 Asylum Street in Hartford. Born in the nearby town of Southington, Twichell—the oldest son of a prosperous factory owner—was graduated from Yale College in 1859 and entered the Union Seminary in New York, which he left in 1861 to serve for three years as chaplain in the Seventy-first New York Volunteers. In 1865 he completed his divinity studies at Andover Seminary in Massachusetts and was offered the Asylum Hill pastorate upon the recommendation of Horace Bushnell (1802–76), a prominent Congregational minister and theologian, whom he had met while on furlough in Hartford. The cornerstone of the Asylum Hill Church was laid in May of 1865, and its new minister was installed in December of that year. Julia Harmony Cushman Twichell (1843–1910) was born in Exeter, New York, but was living in Orange, New Jersey, when she and Twichell were married on 1 November 1865. They had been introduced by her cousin Diodate Cushman Hannahs, a classmate of Twichell’s at Yale. In August 1868 Harmony gave birth to a son, Edward Carrington, the first of nine children (Strong, 11, 45–47, 52; Mansfield, 10–11).

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4 Paine reported that Elisha Bliss’s wife introduced Twichell to Clemens, who

was at an evening reception in the home of one of its [the Asylum Hill Church’s] members when he noticed a photograph of the unfinished building framed and hanging on the wall.

“Why, yes,” he commented, in his slow fashion, “this is the ‘Church of the Holy Speculators.’”

“Sh,” cautioned Mrs. Bliss. “Its pastor is just behind you. He knows your work and wants to meet you.” Turning, she said: “Mr. Twichell, this is Mr. Clemens. Most people know him as Mark Twain.”

And so, in this casual fashion, he met the man who was presently to become his closest personal friend and counselor, and would remain so for more than forty years. (MTB, 1:370–71)

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5 The Twichells lived in the parsonage at 125 Woodland Street, a few blocks from Asylum Street (Strong, 52; Geer, 24, map facing 25).

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6 Evidently an allusion to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh (1857), one of Olivia’s favorite poems (OLL to Alice B. Hooker, 7 June 67, CtHSD):

. . . . His breath against my face

Confused his words, yet made them more intense,—

As when the sudden finger of the wind

Will wipe a row of single city-lamps

To a pure white line of flame, more luminous

Because of obliteration. . . .

(Browning, 395)

On 12 January 1869 Clemens again mentioned this poem to Olivia: “You will translate Aurora Leigh & be gentle & patient with me & do all you can to help me understand what the mischief it is all about” (CU-MARK).

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7 The Hartford Almshouse—on Huntington, near Asylum Street—was built in 1851, within the walls of its predecessor, which had been gutted by fire: some form of the institution had existed on this eight-acre site since 1822. The present building served as a workhouse for paupers as well as a hospital for the old and infirm (Geer, map facing 25, 27; Trumbull, 1:362–64). Clemens quoted from part 4 of Tennyson’s Princess (1847):

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

(Tennyson 1847, 66)

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L2, 266–270; LLMT, 22–23, excerpts.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, pp. 515–16.

Emendations and textual notes:

hot-blooded • hot-|blooded

fault. I • fault.—|I

som sometimes • [possibly corrected miswriting]

man. (And • man.— ‸(And

y • [partly formed]

it & • [‘&’ over ‘it’]

keeps apolog‸ed‸ izing ‸apologized‸ • [revision with a corrected miswriting: ‘ed’ mistakenly inserted following ‘g’ instead of ‘z’]

indeed. This • indeed.—|This

overtook • over-|took

“Clem “I have • “‸I have‸ Clem

parish[i]oner • parish-|oner

it.” You • it.”—|You

[hartfor] d • d [first seven characters stamped off edge of envelope]

oct • [] ct [badly inked]