Sherman House, 
Chicago, Jan. 7.
To
Mary Mason Fairbanks and Others on the Board of Managers of
the Cleveland Protestant Orphan Asylum
7 January 1869 • Chicago, Ill.
(Transcript and MS: Cleveland Herald, 12 Jan 69, and CSmH, UCCL 00222)
Click to add citation to My Citations.
[ Mesdames: ] On several accounts I shall take a genuine pleasure in complying with your request. 1 First, because I shall be glad—[& ] who would not?—to do what in me lies, in aid of so generous a charity as that which you represent. Secondly, because I regard your invitation as a compliment & one to be greatly esteemed. And finally, because it was a Cleveland audience that took the responsibility of launching me upon this section of the world as a lecturer, & I am naturally curious to know if another Cleveland audience can be found to endorse the kind treatment which I received at the hands of the first. 2
Therefore, hoping the date will meet with your approbation, I appoint the 22d of the present month for the delivery of the lecture. I also beg leave to specify a repetition of “The American Vandal Abroad” as the lecture to be delivered upon that occasion. I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
Sam’l. L. Clemens,
(“Mark Twain.”)
To the ladies of the Cleveland Orphan Asylum.
[new page:]
There you are, Mother. I got the shirts 3—but never a letter from Livy. I just know that old Vandal, your honored husband, has been opening her letters & answering them. He said he would.4
Go up to my room & take another whiff—it does you good, mother mine—it softens you—it makes you “drop into poetry” like Silas Wegg. 5
What can you say that Livy will [enjoy? Why ] anything you say, she will enjoy. If she didn’t, I would give her a curtain lecture. You write to her—that’s [all. I ] won’t “be satisfied with anything short of the highest Christian attainment”—is that strong enough?
And don’t you be afraid of being considered “officious” in the matter of suggestions, of advice of or the exercise of maternal authority toward me. Suggest—I listen; advise—I heed; command—I obey. For you will never suggest, advise or command anything that will not be for my good. I know that well enough.
I wrote you last night, from Rockford. I continue to have good houses & give satisfaction. I am tired & used up, Mother, & look for rest when I get back home. I got Mr. Fairbanks’ dispatch & replied. 6 Love to all.
Mark.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Both this text and the text of Clemens’s formal reply survive only in the Cleveland Herald, where Mrs. Fairbanks, a member of the board of managers since 1866, published them on 12 January
(“Cleveland Orphan Asylum,” 3; Lorch 1936,
453–54). She directed attention to them with the following paragraph (3):
The Orphan Asylum and “Mark Twain.”—As will be seen by the correspondence
published to-day the managers of the Protestant Orphan Asylum have succeeded in enlisting the assistance of the celebrated humorist
and lecturer “Mark Twain,” who will address a Cleveland audience on the 22nd instant, for the benefit of the
Asylum. When to the acknowledged merits of the lecturer are added the claims of the orphans upon the sympathies of the public, there
can be no reasonable ground for doubt as to the utmost capacity of the largest hall in the city being tested for that occasion. The
Cleveland public have never been appealed to in vain for this beneficent charity, and in addition to aiding in a good cause, those
who attend the lecture get their money’s worth in a lecture of more than ordinary merit. One original page of Fairbanks’s 5 January letter also survives: after replying to it here, Clemens enclosed it in the
next letter.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 1
Clemens replied to the following invitation, which was the first part of the letter he received on this day from Mary Mason
Fairbanks:
Click to add citation to My Citations.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
Clemens had opened his current tour with a successful lecture in Cleveland’s Case Hall on 17 November (L2, 280–81). For his report of the lecture he here agreed to give, see 23 Jan 69 to Twichell and family.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 3
Mrs. Fairbanks reported that her husband “sent your shirts to Chicago Monday,” 4 January. Clemens presumably
left them behind for the Fairbankses’ servants to launder or mend when he departed Cleveland for Fort Wayne on 2 January.
On the Quaker City excursion, he earlier recalled, Mrs. Fairbanks herself had “sewed my buttons
on” and “kept my clothes in presentable trim” (L2, 130).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 4
Finding that Olivia’s letters to him often arrived after he had departed an appointed place, Clemens temporarily
changed his instructions to her, asking that she send them instead “to reach Cleveland on the 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, of Dec.,
& 1st of Jan.,” the period of his recent stay with Mrs. Fairbanks (L2, 346). He nevertheless expected that Abel Fairbanks would have to forward some letters from her that arrived after he
left.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 5
The wooden-legged, rascally “scholar” of Our Mutual Friend (1864–65).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 6
This exchange of telegrams has not been found, but may have concerned Clemens’s effort to buy into the Cleveland Herald.
Source text(s):“Cleveland Orphan Asylum,” Cleveland Herald, 12 Jan 69, 3, is copy-text for ‘SHERMAN ...
Asylum.’ (15.1–16.13); and MS, pages 3–4, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH, call no. HM 14237), is copy-text for the remainder. The MS consists of two torn
half-sheets of blue-lined off-white wove paper, 4 15/16 by 8 inches, and inscribed on the rectos only in black ink.
Previous publication:
L3, 15–17; MTMF, 67, brief quotation of Herald text, and 65–66, MS text.
Provenance:Pages 1 and 2 of MS are not known to survive; for pages 3 and 4, see Huntington Library, pp. 582–83.
Emendations and textual notes:
Mesdames: • Mesdames:
& • and [also at 16.1,3] [MS is copy-text for ‘There . . . Mark.’ (16.15–34)]
enjoy? Why • enjoy?—|Why
all. I • all.—|I
affectionately • [‘ly’ conflated]
