slc/mt
Xmas, 1880.
Dear Mrs. Susie:
I beg to enclose to you one of my works, along with the compliments & good wishes of the season.
This work is not as satisfactory a success as I had hoped to make it—it fails of exactness in places. I have thrown a Japanese cast around the Sphinx, in deference to the art-taste of the day. ‸Brer‸ Joseph was very difficult to do. I did as well as I could, with him but am dissatisfied with him, because he does not lay still enough. He interrupts the repose of the picture. I was obliged to hump up the mule that way in order to get him in; but if I had had room I could have made him better. Would you mind explaining to friends that the Sphynx is neither a gorilla nor a Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, but only just a simple Sphinx?
Merry Christmas!
Truly Yours
S. L. Clemens
[the enclosed drawing depicts one man sitting at feet of Sphinx and another reclining at the foot of the monument next to a donkey-like animal; the picture is entitled:]
(Study from still life)—Le Repos en Egypte.
par S. L. C.
xmas, 1880.
For. Mrs. C. D. W.
Source text(s):
