To Joseph H. Twichell and Family
23 January 1869 • Cleveland, Ohio
(MS: Davis, UCCL 00240)

Cleveland, Jan. 23, 1869.

Dear J. H. & Tribe—

Hurrah!—because you do rise to the dignity of a Tribe, now, since this last accident. I am glad to hear it—don’t see why I should be glad, but I am—I should actually be dis appalled if I were to have a [ babby baby ].1 But I know you are glad, & so I go it blind. That you are glad, is enough for me—count me in. I am mighty glad, Twichell. I am, indeed. It must be awful—I mean it must be splendid—but then the whole subject is a little confusing & bewildering to me, be & I don’t really know whether this ecstasy of mine is gratitude or consternation—because—well, you know how it is with us fellows who have never had any experience—we mean well, but then we are so dreadfully off soundings in these waters. But I am glad, if I bust. And I’ll stick to it & take c the chances.

I’ll scratch out a suggestive sentence or two & send your letter to Livy—maybe she can raise a hurrah, & have sense enough to know what she means by it—[ [torn in order to cancel:] thou[h] I [d]’t [k]ow—I’[]

She must learn to rejoice when we rejoice, whether she knows what she is rejoicing about or not; because we can’t have any member of the family hanging fire & interrupting the grand salute merely because they don’t know. By George, I’m mighty glad. I wish there’d been six or seven. Wouldn’t we have had a time, though? You hear me.

Elmira? Why it just goes on like clock-work d. Every other day, without fail, & sometimes every day, comes one of those darling 8-page commercial miracles; & I bless the girl, & bow my grateful head before the throne of God & let the unspoken thanks flow out that never human speech could fetter into words.

If you could only see her picture! It came last night. She sat five ‸six‸ times for a mel 3 ferrotype—taking 3 weeks to it—& every picture was a slander, & I gently said so—very gently—& at last she tried a porcelaintype—& presto! when I opened the c little velvet case last night, lo! a messenger-angel out of upper Heaven was roosting there! I give you ‸my‸ word of honor that it is a very marvel of beauty—the expression is sweet, & patient, & so far-away & dreamy. What [respect], what reverent honor it [compels! ] Any man’s [unconscious ] impulse would be to take his hat off in its presence. And if he had not the impulse, I would give it him.

I have lectured about 30 times, so [far, ] & from the way the invitations keep coming in, I believe I could stay in the West & never miss a night during the entire season. But I must close with the West Feb. 13 & go forward to fill eastern engagements.4 I repeated here, last night & cleared for the Orphan Asylum 80700, over a & above everything. That is as far as heard from—it may reach $1,000.5

[Shall be in Hartford ] about March—& then [make ] a flying trip to [California ]. I swept Nasby’s dung hill [(Toledo,) ] like a Besom of Destruction—don’t know what a Besom of Destruction is, but it is a noble sort of expression.6 Came off with flying colors. Print the notices for me.7 Love to all four of you.

Yrs, always,

Mark.

[enclosure 1:]

[enclosure 2:]

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 On 9 January a second child, Julia Curtis, was born to Twichell and his wife, Harmony. Their first child, Edward Carrington, had been born in August 1867 (not 1868, as reported in L2, 269 n. 3). The Twichell tribe ultimately included nine children (“Hartford Residents,” Twichell Family, 1).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 Evidently Clemens removed a suggestive remark aimed at Olivia’s innocence about procreation. The first five words of the excised passage were probably “though I don’t know—I’ll.”

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 Clemens began to write “melainotype,” an early name for ferrotype.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4 Since beginning his tour on 17 November, Clemens is known to have lectured twenty-seven times. He did not “close with the West” until 15 February (see Lecture Schedule, 1868–1870).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

5 On the day of this letter the Cleveland Herald noted that the Cleveland Protestant Orphan Asylum “netted a liberal sum . . . as every dollar that was received went into the funds of the Asylum, the services of the lecturer, the hall rent, and all the incidental expenses having been generously donated by those concerned.” On 17 February, the paper reported $564 as the amount realized, according to the asylum’s board of managers (“Mark Twain and the Orphans,” 23 Jan 69, 3, clipping in Scrapbook 26:8, CU-MARK; “Cleveland Orphan Asylum,” 17 Feb 69, 3).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

6 “I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 14:23).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

7 The lecture reviews that Clemens enclosed do not survive, nor did Twichell succeed in having them reprinted—at least not in the Hartford Courant or the Hartford Times. (The city’s other daily, the Evening Post, was unavailable for search.) It seems likely, however, that the enclosures included reviews clipped from the Toledo Blade and from the Toledo Commercial, both of 21 January).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr. A typed transcription (TS), made for Dixon Wecter from the original MS, and checked and annotated by him, is in the Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). Where the MS has sustained minor damage, the TS reading is given in the table below. There are separate commentaries for the two enclosed reviews from the Toledo Blade and the Toledo Commercial, which do not survive with the letter.

Previous publication: L3, 66–68; LLMT, 57–58, and MTMF, 68, brief quotations.

Provenance:The letter was evidently returned to Clemens or his daughter Clara by Twichell or Twichell’s heirs. It survived in the Samossoud Collection at least until 1947: sometime between then and 1949 Wecter saw it there and had the TS made. Chester L. Davis, Sr., afterwards acquired the MS directly from Clara Clemens Samossoud (see Samossoud Collection, p. 586). In 1991 it was sold to an unknown purchaser (Christie 1991, lot 84).

Emendations and textual notes:

babby baby • babbyy

[torn ... away] • [Although the bottom fifth of MS page 2 was torn away by Clemens, presumably as the most complete method of cancellation, portions of some characters remain visible. For the reconstructed reading, see the illustration below (taken from the MS facsimile in CU-MARK) and p. 68, n. 2]

respect (TS) • []espect [trimmed]

compels (TS) • [c]ompels [trimmed]

unconscious (TS) • uncon-| []cious [trimmed]

far, (TS) • far[] [torn]

Shall be in Hartford (TS) • Shal[l] be in [Ha]tford [torn]

make (TS) • [ma] [torn]

California (TS) • Californi[] [torn]

(Toledo,) (TS) • ([]ledo,) [torn]