To Olivia L. Langdon
with a note to Charles J. Langdon
8 March 1869 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00271)

Hartford, 8th—

Livy dear, I am only going to r write a page,—simply to be talking to you though it be for only a moment. I have been hard at work all [day. I ] do wish I had you here to help me, sweetheart. I wrote a long newspaper article last night, & it kept me hard at it till 11 o’clock. It was Sunday & I ought not to have been at work—had resolutely [foreborne ] to glance at page or proof of the book—but then this was one of those that must be written instantly, while the fever is on, for it can never be resurrected again.1 I went to bed, then, & read the Testament now & then, & now & then the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, till [3 ] in the morning2—but the excitement of writing so furiously (26 pages in a very few hours) & so interestedly, had made me permanently wide-awake, & I couldn’t conjure up the faintest shadow of sleepiness. Then I turned down the gas, & for two hours I lay still & thought—thought of—. Well, you know the subject of my thoughts as well as I do. But do you know, I found that you were just as sleepless a subject as any other, & I couldn’t [have any] success. But finally, about daylight I dropped off, & never woke again till 9.30, when I got up & have been at work ever since. [in top margin Translucence.] 3 When I went out to after breakfast to see if there was a letter from you (none, my love, but I was not really expecting one, from what you had said, though inwardly wishing that I might be pleasantly disappointed,) I met ‸saw‸ Mrs. Burton4—was approaching her from behind, & arrived just in time to receive her in my arms as she lost her balance & fell backwards when climbing into her carriage. She was surprised to find it was not a stranger. She invited me to come up to dinner at 6, & now in the course of 5 minutes I am going to start. Saw M And I’ll call on the Hookers or die. Saw Mr. Hooker a moment after I left Mrs. B. He was the very man I wanted to see. Because I like him, in spite of prejudice & everything else.

With a kiss & blessing, [Good-bye ], Livy darling.

‸For all time‸ ‸Yrs‸

Sam

[uncanceled three-cent stamp:] 5

‸Charlie, please tell those tailors6 to make me a vest & pants like those they have made for me before. The rest of this letter is for Livy.

Sam

Miss Olivia L. Langdon.

Elmira

New York.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 See the next letter, n. 2.

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2 At Olivia’s request, Clemens annotated a copy of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s well-known collection of humorous essays (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1858), making it their “courting book” (see 30 Sept 69 to Holmes). Clemens’s marginalia are preserved on microfilm in the Mark Twain Papers and have been transcribed and published in Booth, 459–63; the present location of the original annotated volume is not known.

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3 Evidently in order to demonstrate translucence in the paper he was using, Clemens wrote the word on the back of his third page, then added the period on the front, so that both are readily visible from either side, but only close examination reveals where each was inscribed.

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4 Mary Hooker Burton.

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5 Clemens explained this stamped but unpostmarked envelope in his letter of 10 March to Olivia and Charles (see also 8 and 9 Mar 69 to OLL, n. 6).

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6 Cyrus Fay’s establishment in Elmira.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L3, 148–149; LLMT, 83, 358, excerpts and brief paraphrase.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.

Emendations and textual notes:

day. I • day.—|I

foreborne • [sic]

3 • 3 3 [corrected miswriting]

Good-bye • Good-|bye