To Montgomery Schuyler
30 July 1876 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: CtHMTH, UCCL 11917)
(SUPERSEDED)

Elmira, N. Y. July 30.

My Dear Schuyler:1

I don’t forget you & I ain’t ungrateful to you, neither; but I thought of a couple of things when I was casting about for a journal to jam that squib into. The main one, was, that as Mr. Marble was gone,2 I judged you had all been thrown out of the fifth story window after him. And the other was, that I being a Republican (if anything, politically—which I doubt), it would not be in good taste for me to slur th‸is‸ e miserable & entirely damnable administration through a Democratic paper.

I wrote a very elaborate squib for the World a month ago—& burned it, it not being satisfactory to me. That shows that I don’t forget you, dam you, & that I desire the prosperity of the paper, too, & am careful not to do things that might injure it. A man of less exquisite principle would have [ sent ] you the principle ‸article.‸

And whenever, in coming months, I shall chance to write a squib, a passing squib, I shall either send it to you or burn it——the former if it be worthy, the latter if not. A body couldn’t say fairer than that, I know. With my kindest to Wheeler 3 & the rest of you—

Yrs Ever

Samℓ. L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens answered Schuyler’s letter of 25 July (see 22 July to the Editors of the New York Evening Post, n. 6).

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2 Manton M. Marble (1834–1917) was owner and editor of the New York World from 1862 until 1876. Influential in Democratic politics, he wrote the New York party platform in 1874 and the national party platform in 1876 (“Manton Marble, Publicist, Dead,” New York Times, 25 July 1917, 11).

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3 Andrew Carpenter Wheeler.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Copy-text:

MS, CtHMTH.

Previous publication: MicroPUL, reel 1.

Emendations and textual notes:

sent • sent | sent [rewritten for clarity]