Here you are again with your customary annual lecture temptations! Your offers have been prodigal before; but this time you surpass yourself when you say you will pay me whatever I ask. At first I thought I would take you up [& ] go into the lecture field once more, charging you a million or perhaps two million dollars a week. But I consulted with friends of mine, & they said, with strong profanity, that it was too much. Now that comes from people trying to talk about a thing they do not know anything about. If these persons had ever gone lecturing a whole horrible winter, through mud & slush, they would have known that my terms were not only reasonable but almost divinely cheap. However, the violent remarks of these ignorant friends have decided my course; I will not lecture at all at any price. I will stay at home & sulk. But, joking aside, Redpath, I really cannot go upon the platform the coming season. All last winter I sat at home drunk with joy over every storm that howled along, because I knew that some dog of a lecturer was out in it. I am expecting to have just as good a time next winter, & do not think it is noble in you to want to deprive me of it.
Mark Twain].
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L6, 520–521; “Mark Twain to Stay at
Home,” Hartford Courant, 3 Aug 75, 2;
“Mark Twain writes . . . ,” New York Evening Post, 3 Aug 75, 2; “Mark Twain to Stay at
Home,” New York World, 6 Aug 75, 2.
Emendations and textual notes:
Dear Redpath • Dear Redpath
& • and [here and hereafter]
affection, •
affection[
]
[ink
blot]
Mark Twain • Mark Twain
