To George L. Fall
To James Redpath
10 July 1871 • (1st of 3) • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: ViU, UCCL 00634)

Elmira, July 10.

Dear F Redpath:

Excuse my delay. Your long [letter ] about routes, engagements, &c, received. I will reply at the earliest leisure hour.

You know I never interfere with my agents after once giving them my instructions in detail, & my notions about business. But I must put down my foot on that Boston business. I expected to speak in Music Hall (Fall promised I should), & I must speak there first if I am to speak in Boston at all. It might seriously hurt my season to be called to open elsewhere in the chief city of New England, & I fear to run such a risk.1

Now you must arrange this in some way. I am cheerfully willing to speak for the South End course second, but not first. I am looking at the matter purely from a business point of view, & wholly without [prejudice ] toward the South End. Mr. Dana’s acquaintance with the lecture [ w ] business wh will easily enable him to understand my position. If he will take the second delivery, I will lec knock $200 off my price & lecture for the South End for $50.2

I am sorry to interfere, but this should be fixed at [once. Don’t ] Nasby, Phillips,3 Dickinson, & others speak more than once.?

Yrs

Mark Twain.

[letter docketed:] boston lyceum bureau. redpath & fall. jul 15 1871 [and] Twain Mark | Elmira July 10

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 See 28 June to Redpath, n. 7.

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2 Thomas Dana II—of Thomas Dana and Company, wholesale grocers—was the secretary of the South End Course. He may have agreed rather easily to the rescheduling proposed here, since Clemens received $150 for the “second delivery” on 13 November (Boston Directory 1871, 204; Redpath and Fall 1871–72, 3–4).

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3 Wendell Phillips (1811–84), whom Clemens had met in Elmira at the Langdon house in March 1869, had first won fame in the late 1830s for his eloquent and impassioned antislavery oratory. After the Civil War he advocated a wide variety of reforms, including equal rights for women, temperance, Irish Home Rule, and the better treatment of Indians. By 1873, if not earlier, Redpath engaged some of his speakers, including Phillips, to lecture three times in Boston (L3, 175; Eubank, 148–50).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (ViU).

Previous publication: L4, 432–433.

Provenance:deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963.

Emendations and textual notes:

letter • ltetter

prejudice • prejujdice

w • [partly formed]

once. Don’t • once.—|Don’t