Elmira, Apℓ. Something, 1869.1
My Dear Sister=
I wrote yesterday, & I surely did not expect to write again today—but Livy is taking a nap & I have an hour to [myself. She ] is wise. We are going out to dinner, & it’s a fearful bore, & she is getting up strength for the occasion, through sleep. I have been outraging her feelings again. She is trying to cure me of making “dreadful” speeches as she calls them. In the middle of winter when I was here, we had a “run” on the hot house for a day or [ m ] two—which is to say, an unusual lot of people died & their friends came to get roses & things to decorate the coffins with, & at the end of a week there was hardly a dozen flowers of any kind left. Charley & I made a good many jokes about it, & thus horrified. But a while ago I came in with a first-rate air of dejection on, & heaved a vast sigh. It trapped Livy into a burst of anxious solicitude, & she wanted to know what the matter was. I said, “I have been in the conservatory, & there is a perfect world of flowers in bloom—& we haven’t a confounded corpse!” I guess Orion will appreciate that. I don’t like to fool Livy this way, & don’t do it often, but sometimes [ th ] her simplicity is so tempting I can’t resist the inclination. I wish you could see that girl—the first time I ever saw her I said she was the most beautiful creature in the world, & I haven’t altered my opinion yet. I take as much pride in her brains as I do in her beauty, & as much pride in her happy & equable disposition as I do in her brains.
Haven’t got anything to write about, so I will enclose one of Livy’s letters—don’t read it to anybody but the family & Margaret. 2—but M. is one of the family, I suppose. Livy is a sensible girl, & don’t go into any hysterics in her letters—but I do when I write her. Her letter will help you to know her.
Affectionately—
Sam.
‸Mr. &‸ Mrs. Langdon asks me to send [ her their ] regards.—& Livy also.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 189–190; MFMT, 14, with omissions; LLMT, 85–86.
Provenance:The MS was evidently returned to Clemens by Pamela Moffett, for it survived
in the Samossoud Collection at least until 1947: sometime between then and
1949 Dixon Wecter saw it and had a typescript made (now in CU-MARK). 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 87).
Emendations and textual notes:
myself. She • myself.—|She
m • [partly formed]
th • [partly formed]
her their • their‸ r ‸
