To Pamela A. Moffett
17 December 1869 • Boston, Mass.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00390)

Boston, [ d ] Dec. 17.

My Dear Sister—

Yours of 10th is received. I know Mrs. Langdon wants you & Annie to get there several days before the wedding, because [their] might be little chance to visit, later. We have about persuaded her to give us a perfectly private wedding, but we can’t tell how it will be, yet. Livy has written delightedly to say you are likely to come. Her heart is thoroughly set upon it., & I don’t like to have the child disappointed.

Purchase no outfit. Come as you are.1

I examined my pocket a moment ago, to see if I had $500 to send to Ma, but I only found $300. I have been paying out a few more hundreds within a few days, & must work two or three days longer before I can forward the $500. But it shall be forthcoming.2

I am killed up with a cold, & shall not lecture [to-night]—so there goes a few weeks’ board.3

We No—we are not to be married in the evening, but about noon. Then if we must have a reception, that will take place in the evening. The idea of our starting on a bridal “trip,” is funny. Neither of us are fond of traveling, & you may be sure we shall not go a mile that we are not obliged to go.

We shall go to Buffalo the day after the marriage & never stir another peg till we are compelled to do it.

I cordially accept Annie’s & Sammy’s explanations—& there is good hard sense & candor enough in Sammy’s to compensate for fifty lost presents. I fully appreciate Annie’s, too, for if there is one thing I cordially hate more than another, it is the bore of selecting a present. I have already told Livy that I shall deliberately violate the [custom to giving] the bride a wedding present—& by a singleular coincidence I used both an [Annies & Sammy’s] reason’s in explanation of my conduct.4

I am sorry Ma’s health remains so bad—St Louis is not the climate to improve it, I am afraid.

In haste,

Affectionately

Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 An echo of Olivia’s 13 and 14 November letter to Clemens (see 10 and 11 Nov 69 to OLL, n. 1).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 The “few more hundreds” may have included, in addition to lecturing expenses, an interest payment on Clemens’s indebtedness to Jervis Langdon (see 12 Aug 69 to Bliss, n. 2, and 20 and 21 Aug 69 to PAM, p. 311). Since Clemens’s lecture fee during the present tour was generally either $75 or $100, he was capable of completing the $500 for his mother within a few days. Nevertheless, he did not send her a check for that amount until early January 1870. She recorded its receipt on the sixth of the month (JLC, 4). Clemens intended her to use at least some of this money to come to Elmira for his 2 February 1870 wedding (see 21 Dec 69 to OLL). Jane Clemens did not make the trip (Dixon Wecter was mistaken in reporting that she did: see MTMF, 115 n. 2). Pamela and Annie Moffett were able to attend, however, afterward spending part of February with the newlyweds in Buffalo and visiting for a week with the Langdons in Elmira. They also explored Fredonia, New York, renting the house to which they and Jane Clemens would move in the spring (MTMF, 122; MTBus, 107, 112).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 The canceled lecture was to have been in Abington, Massachusetts. There is no indication that it was rescheduled.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4 No letters from Annie and Samuel Moffett have been found. Pamela may have simply passed on their explanations in her letter of 10 December, also now lost.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK). A photographic facsimile of the letter is on pp. 542–47. The MS, written on three leaves of the same notebook paper as 30, 31 October, 1 November to Olivia Langdon, consists of three consecutive leaves of blue-lined and red-columned off-white wove paper, 3½ by 5 11/16 inches, torn from Clemens’s notebook, inscribed on all six sides in pencil. Page 1 was splattered with black ink.

Previous publication: L3, 429–430.

Provenance:see Moffett Collection, pp. 586–87.

Emendations and textual notes:

d • [partly formed]

their • [sic]

to-night • to- |night

custom to giving • [sic]

Annies . . . reason’s • [sic]