To Olivia L. Langdon
4–5 October 1868 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 02770)

. . . .

P.S. 1—I suspect that I have unsettled Mrs. Fairbanks’ mind, somewhat, concerning her Elmira visit, by telling her how much more prostrated in health I found Mr. Langdon than I had expected, & how inopportune I feared my late visit was, for that reason—for I could not be blind to the truth that he needed quiet & repose more than anything else, & I don’t carry much quiet among my baggage. And so you must mend this matter if you have n it in your power. You must write her that Mr. Langdon is a great deal better—that is, if you can do it & still approximate to the [truth.] 2 Of course you needn’t go & tell the whole truth, as I have done, my dear contrary, obstinate, wilful, but always just & generous sister—I can’t help telling the whole truth, (being similar to young George Washington,) but you must. Otherwise I m will muss your hair again. I am afraid to write any more, because you were just a little severe the other day, you know. Good-bye, & God give you His peace.

Yr affectionate Brother.

Mark L Clemens.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens’s third letter to Olivia, to which this postscript must have belonged, has been lost. But on 5 October Clemens alluded to having written her “a little while ago,” and one week later he suggested the letter’s import by saying “I’ll bet I have written a letter that will finish me. I wish I had it back again—I would tone it down some” (5 Oct 68 and 12 Oct 68 to Mary Mason Fairbanks). Presumably, then, he had broken his promise to express only fraternal affection toward Olivia, which may explain why only this playful postscript survives. In his next (18 October) letter to her (which she numbered “4th”), he apologized for having written “in hot-blooded heedlessness.”

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2 By the time Clemens left Elmira on 29 September, Langdon was feeling well enough to travel, for on that day Olivia wrote to a friend, “Father and Mother go this afternoon to Baltimore where they will be for a few days” (OLL to Alice B. Hooker, 29 Sept 68, CtHSD). According to a letter seen by Dixon Wecter but now lost, the Fairbankses did in fact postpone a fall visit to Elmira because of Langdon’s condition (Olivia Lewis Langdon to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 17 Nov 68, paraphrased in MTMF, 48 n. 1).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). The surviving MS is a postscript only and consists of a single torn half-sheet of ruled paper, unnumbered and inscribed on one side. The page was folded up and sealed with glue, evidently after it had become separated from the body of the letter, which is lost.

Previous publication: L2, 255–256.

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

Emendations and textual notes:

truth. Of • truth.—|Of