My address
is “Wailuku
Plantation.”
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26 April 1866 • Island of Maui, Sandwich Islands
(MS: Jacobs, UCCL 00098)
Wailuku,1 Apr. 26.
Messrs Kimball2—
Gentlemen—Don’t you think for a moment of going up on Haleakala without giving me an opportunity of accompanying you! I have waited for & skirmished after some company for some time without avail, & now I hear that you will shortly be at Haiku.3 So I shall wait for you.
Cannot you let me know, just as soon as you arrive, & give me a day or two (or more, even, if possible,) to get there in, with my horse? Because I am told the distance hence to Haiku is 15 miles—to prosecute which will be a matter of time, to my animal, & possibly a matter of eternity. His strong suit is grace & personal [ comi comeliness], rather than velocity.
Yours Very Truly,
Sam L. Clemens.
(Or “Mark Twain,” if you [ know m have forgotten ]my genuine name.)
‸
‸
(Original.)
I shall send two or three notes for by different parties, for fear one might miss fire—an idea suggested by my own native sagacity.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
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Previous publication:
L1, 335–336; Autographs and Modern Signed
Editions. Catalogue 70 (Bridgewater, Mass.: Paul C. Richards
Autographs, [1972]), item 174, with omissions.
Provenance:
Victor Jacobs acquired the MS from Paul C. Richards Autographs, which had
acquired it from Rodney C. Eaton, a great-nephew of the
Kimballs’. In 1971 Mr. Eaton sent a photographic facsimile of the
MS to the Mark Twain Papers.
Emendations and textual notes:
comi comeliness • comieliness [‘e’ over ‘i’]
know m have forgotten • [‘have for’ over ‘know m’]