148 Asylum st.
Hartford, 10th
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.
Dear Mother—
I wrote you some ten days ago, but I discover, now, that I failed to mail the letter. I judge that that is the reason why you have been so dilatory about replying to it. I confess that I have felt a little hurt about it, & said as much to Livy—but I do not feel so much injured, now.
You drove me away from Elmira at last. Your first shot staggered me, & your second “fetched” me. You made me feel meaner & meaner, & finally I absolutely couldn’t stand it—& so I surprised them all by suddenly packing my trunk. Livy spoke right out, & said that to leave was unnecessary, uncalled-for, absurd, & utterly exasperating & foolish—but I smoothed her feathers down at last by insisting that your [ jug judgment ] in this matter, just as usual, was solid good sense—I smoothed her plumage down but I never convinced her. However, when And I never convinced Mr. Langdon, or Mr. or Mrs. Crane, or Hattie Lewis—but when Livy fancied that her mother did not coincide with the others quite cordially enough, her pride took fire & she spiked her guns & said Go. !——and come back in fourteen days by the watch! Such are her orders. So you see what you have done, Mother. You have filled with sorrow two loving hearts. {Now you weep—& by geeminy you ought to.} But if it will comfort you, I will say that my other mother, there in St Louis, kept writing me to vamos the Langdon [ranche ], too.
[ I ] So I have vamosed it,—& if it were to do over again I wouldn’t. And now that I am [away, ] I am afraid I shall [disobey ] Livy’s orders & not return on the 19th. She was in dead earnest [about ] it, & so was her mother—but I will write & say I will return if [ she they ] will pack up & go to Cleveland with me—provided you want us—I believe it is a good while since you said you did.
Have read 500 pages of proof—only about 200 more to read—& so the thing is nearly done. It is gotten up regardless [of ]expense, & the pictures are good, if I do say it myself. There is a multitude of them—among them good portraits of Dan, Duncan, Beach, Sultan of Turkey, [Viceroy ] of Egypt, Napoleon (I think,) & a poor picture of Queen of Greece—& above all, a rear view of Jack & his [half-soled ] pantaloons.1 Dan’s & Duncan’s portraits are very good. I was sorry they put Beach in, simply because the letter-press did not seem to call for it—but then he was at a deal of trouble making house-room for the artists while they sketched his foreign pictures, & so they wanted his photograph in. So it is all right.2
I wrote Mr. Fairbanks tonight, after many days’ delay. I had hoped that Livy & I would nestle under your wing, some day & have you teach us how to scratch for worms, but fate seems determined that we shall roost elsewhere. I am sorry. But you know, I want to start right—it is the safe way. I want to be permanent. I must feel [ thou thoroughly ] & completely satisfied when I anchor “for good & all.” Is it not what you would desire of any other son of yours?3
I have no news to tell you, except that Livy is no stronger than she was six months ago—& it seems hard, & grieves me to have to say it. I cannot talk about it with her, though, for she is as sensitive about it as I am about my drawling speech & stammerers of their infirmity. She turns crimson when it is mentioned, & it hurts her worse than a blow.
Mrs. Crane seems better from her southern life, but is not. The doctors cut her throat again the other [day. [paragraph indention deleted] Charley ] says, (I do not know his authority,) that her days are numbered, & are few.4 Charley is just arrived at the St Nicholas to stay a month & be doctored, & Hattie Lewis was to leave [to-day ] for her home in Illinois. Livy, Hattie, Charley & I, all gone [within ] 5 days of each other5—don’t you suppose the house seems a little bit solemn after just such a cleaning out? Mr. Langdon says he ain’t going to [ say stay ] in any such a place. Livy’s letters are not absolutely gay. Good-bye, & write me. Peace unto you & your household.
Yr loving son
Sam.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Click to add citation to My Citations. 1
Clemens had probably read proof of The Innocents
Abroad through chapter 47 (page 502), leaving 13 chapters (148
pages) yet to read. Some of the portraits he mentions here had been
prepared for that final segment of the book. Sultan of Turkey Abdul Aziz
(1830–76) and Emperor of France Napoleon III (Charles Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1808–73) appear in chapter 13. Daniel
Slote appears in chapter 27. Queen Olga of Greece appears in chapter 33.
Viceroy of Egypt Ismail Pasha (1830–95), Moses S. Beach, and
John A. (“Jack”) Van Nostrand in
“half-soled pantaloons” appear in chapter 57. Quaker City Captain Charles C. Duncan appears in
chapter 60. All but the portrait of Van Nostrand were based on carte de visite sized photographs collected by
Clemens (Hirst, 199, 205, 210–16).
Jack Van Nostrand, reproduced from the first edition of The Innocents Abroad, page 610. See note
1.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
Moses S. Beach had advanced the $1,250 passage money of
William E. James, the professional photographer who accompanied the Quaker City excursion. James made dozens of
stereoscopic photographs during the journey, later offering them for
sale to the excursionists and to the general public. Beach allowed
illustrators from the New York firm of Fay and Cox to stay at his
Brooklyn home while using a set of James’s photographs to
prepare sketches of foreign sites for Innocents
(for a discussion of James’s role in the excursion, as well
as a selection of his photographs, see Hirst and Rowles,
15–33). Beach also made available the collection of picture
cards, similar to modern postcards, that he himself had assembled. He is
mentioned in “the letter-press,” in chapter 57,
only as the benefactor of the refugees from the troubled Jaffa Colony.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 3
Clemens’s letter to Abel Fairbanks, which does not survive,
evidently renounced his interest in the Cleveland Herald. Nevertheless, Fairbanks still hoped to attract him
(see 4 June 69
to JLC and family).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 4
See 9
and 31 Mar 69 to Crane, n. 2. The authority for Charles J.
Langdon’s gloomy prognosis may have been Thaddeus S. Up de
Graff (1839–85), the Elmira eye, ear, and throat surgeon
treating Susan Crane (MTMF, 97 n. 2; Towner 1892, 313–14). She survived both
Langdon and Clemens, however, dying in 1924 at the age of eighty-eight.
Langdon’s own infirmity has not been identified.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 5
Olivia may have been spending a day or two on an excursion with her
friend Ella J. Corey: see 17 and 18 May 69 to OLL.
Source text(s):MS, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH, call no. HM 14240).
Previous publication:
L3, 211–214; LLMT, 89, brief excerpt; MTMF, 94–98; Harnsberger, 55, brief excerpt.
Provenance:see Huntington Library, pp. 582–83.
Emendations and textual notes:
jug judgment • jugdgment
ranche • [sic]
I • [partly formed]
away, • away[,] [written off edge of page onto next page]
disobey • dis- [-] |obey [hyphen written off edge of page onto next page]
about • abou[t] [written off edge of page onto next page]
she they • s ‸they‸
of • o[f] | of [written off edge of page onto next page]
Viceroy • Vice-|roy
half-soled • half-|soled
thou thoroughly • thouroughly [‘u’ partly formed]
day. [paragraph indention deleted] Charley • day.———[paragraph indention deleted] Charley
to-day • to-|day
within • with[-] |in [written off edge of page onto next page]
say stay • saytay [canceled ‘y’ partly formed]
