Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

To Jane Lampton Clemens and Family
20 November 1867 • (2nd of 2) • New York, N.Y.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00156)

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New York Nov. 20.

Dear Folks—

I am ashamed to go to the Tribune office, almost—they have treated me so well & I have not written them a third of the letters I promised.1

I had a fine row with the Herald people this morning because they left out my signature—however, I went to dinner with the whole editorial corps & they explained & we settled it without bloodshed. It looked shabby to me, but the foreman was innocently to blame in the matter, not the editors.2

In consequence of that dinner & meeting a lot of old friends & new acquaintances, I did not get off for Washington today, but I think I shall to-morrow.

I went up My old [room-mate’s ] mother (Dan Slote, who left the ship in Egypt,) sent her carriage this morning, & I went up & kissed the whole family for Dan, from his mother straight through aunts, cousins, sisters-in-law & everything, down to his youngest sister. I guess they think I am a [ sociable sociable ]cuss.3

The Quakers are all howling, to-day, on account of the article in the Herald. They can go to the devil, for all I care.4

Drop a note in the Postoffice directed to Julius Moulton, St. Louis,& ask him to call on you. He & I traveled together in Palestine. He is a splendid fellow—just as good a boy as ever lived. I know it because I always called him a nigger & told him niggers were not allowed in the ‸after‸ cabin after eight bells—& he never got mad.

I will move Heaven & earth for Orion.5

The reason I brought nothing from any of these was because it was a bore, & when I did, I lost it, which were it not considering to inefficiency of things, notwith[stand]ing in Europe they do & sometimes even in Asia, withal.

[no signature] 6

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 By his own account, Clemens agreed to write the New York Tribune “two letters a month ... till we reach Egypt” (June–October), at which point he expected to write “oftener” 7 June 67 to Bowen). But by the time the Quaker City set out across the Atlantic from Cádiz on 25 October, he had sent only six letters to the Tribune, the last of which was written, in September and appeared on 9 November.

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2 Because Clemens signed his articles in the Tribune, he could not also sign those he published in the rival Herald—an arrangement he took care to confirm when the trip was over (see 25 Nov 67 to Young). “The Cruise of the Quaker City,” his fourth and last Quaker City article in the Herald (SLC 1867), differed only in that he tried several times, without success, to give it to the Tribune, as the next letter shows, and therefore expected to sign it wherever it appeared. Evidently the distinction was not made clear to the Herald’s foreman (not further identified), who therefore made certain that it appeared as Clemens’s three previous articles had—unsigned and unattributed (Ganzel 1964, 270–73). The next morning the Herald published an editorial identifying the previous day’s article as “a most amusing letter from the pen of that most amusing Africal genius, Mark Twain.” It continued:

We are not aware whether Mr. Twain intends giving us a book on this pilgrimage, but we do know that a book written from his own peculiar standpoint, giving an account of the characters and events on board ship and of the scenes which the pilgrims witnessed, would command an almost unprecedented sale. There are varieties of genius peculiar to America. Of one of these varieties Mark Twain is a striking specimen. For the development of his peculiar genius he has never had a more fitting opportunity. Besides, there are some things which he knows and which the world ought to know about this last edition of the May Flower. (“The Quaker City Pilgrimage,” New York Herald, 21 Nov 67, 6)

The specific members of the “editorial corps” who were present at the reconciliation dinner have not been identified, but they may have included James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841–1918), managing editor; William H. Chase (1831?–81), who since 1866 had written the Herald’s art criticism, as well as some book reviews and dramatic notices; and Samuel R. Glen (1818?–80), foreign-correspondence editor, who had joined the Herald staff in 1845 (“Death of William H. Chase,” New York Times, 24 June 81, 8; “Death of Samuel R. Glen,” New York Times, 14 May 80, 3).

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3 Slote had left the ship in order to travel for several more months in Europe ( N&J1, 446 n. 128). Clemens had met Slote’s mother and sisters before the Quaker City departed (see 7 June 67 to JLC and family, n. 4). Dan’s “sisters-in-law” were probably the wives of his two brothers, Alonzo (aged about thirty-five) and John (aged about twenty-four) (New York Census 1860, 920–21).

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4 These “howling” passengers are not known to have published their feelings, and they themselves remain unidentified. It is apparent, however, that Mrs. Fairbanks, Charles Langdon, and possibly Moses and Emma Beach were among those who felt injured by the Herald letter (see 5 Dec 67 to Beach). In her last letter to the Cleveland Herald, published on 14 December, Mrs. Fairbanks wrote:

There have been various comments upon “the Holy Land Expedition.” There have been some criticisms. I shall attempt to answer none of them.... I have read all the “squibs” and the “flings” at the “Pilgrims” and the “Quaker City.” I have listened to more, but notwithstanding all I still aver that the agreeable features of the voyage far outweigh the disagreeable. In every community there are some elements of discord. Seventy passengers have not always been of one mind. There have been some errors in the “administration of affairs,” but they have been oftener errors of the head than the heart.

“Mark Twain” may have ridiculed our prayer-meetings and our psalm-singing—that is his profession—and his newspapers expected it of him; but the better man, Samuel L. Clemens, I believe in his heart reverences the sacred mission of prayer, and will, I am sure, often recall with satisfaction the evening hours when his voice blended with others in the hymns of the “Plymouth Collection” (Mary Mason Fairbanks 1867)

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5 Clemens still hoped to secure a political appointment for his brother.

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6 Clemens wrote this and the previous letter on leaves subsequently torn from his notebook, now numbered 10 (N&J1, 453–95). The bibliographical evidence cannot exclude the possibility that the present letter, consisting of two leaves, originally had a third (now lost), on which Clemens completed and presumably signed his letter. But this physical evidence is nevertheless equally consistent with his concluding without a third leaf. The absence of a normal signature must be weighed against the evidence that, while he wrote on both sides of the first leaf, on the second he left blank the last (ruled) line of space as well as all of the verso. The letter has therefore been judged complete as it stands.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV). The MS was written in pencil on two sides of one leaf, but only the first side of a second, both subsequently torn from Clemens’s notebook and sent (Notebook 10, CU-MARK; see N&J1, 453–95). The second leaf has room for a signature but is unsigned. The likelihood of a third, now-missing leaf, presumably with a signature, has therefore been examined in light of physical evidence from the notebook itself. The two extant leaves of the letter prove to be the conjugate halves of two folders in a gathering, originally consisting of five folders (ten leaves), from which Clemens also tore the single leaf used for the previous letter. The conjugate half of that leaf is the only leaf now missing and unaccounted for from the original gathering: the surviving evidence would permit it to fall in any of four different positions, only one of which might have allowed its use as a third leaf of the letter. But even if the missing leaf fell in that position, it would be unusual for Clemens to use it as such before he used the last (ruled) line and the whole second side of the second leaf, both of which are blank. More likely than a missing third leaf, therefore, is that he intentionally left the second leaf partly blank and unsigned.

glyph Previous publication: L2, 105–107; MTBus, 95–96.

glyph Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 512–14.

glyph Emendations and textual notes:

room-mate’s • room-|mate’s

sociable sociable • sociable | sociable. [Since the cancellation marks run off the torn edge of MS page 2 and onto the corresponding page stub left behind in Notebook 10, Clemens clearly wrote his letter before tearing out the notebook leaves.]