langham hotel, portland place, london. w. Oct. 12.
I have been thinking & thinking, Livy darling, & I have decided that one of 2 or 3 things must be done: either you must come right over here for 6 months; or I must ‸go‸ right back home 3 or 4 weeks hence & both of us come here April Ist & stay all summer. But I am not going abroad any more without you. It is too dreary when the lights are out & the company gone. Don’t particularly want to talk to you, for I do hate talking—much prefer reading & smoking—but I simply need & want the company there is in your b presence—I want to know & [be- ] conscious that you are around—close at hand. I don’t think you have ever understood my penchant for silence & how much I enjoy a person’s mere presence without the bore of speech. You may have observed that I do dearly love to go to bed & lie [ their there ] steeped in the comfort of reading—& I have observed that you will not permit a body to get any satisfaction out of that sort of thing, but you always interfere. Here, I lie & read every night till 1 or 2 oclock. It would be perfect bliss if you were at my side—‸(& perfectly quiet & peaceable)‸—(even asleep)—but without you I am free to admit that it is only a poor lame sort of enjoyment.
The courts ‸of justice‸ I cannot see till the first week in November—& there are other things that date along there—& besides it will take that long to get an answer to this. So I wait. If you can prefer to come over now & stay till the middle of next summer, telegraph me & come right along. If you prefer & will promise to come April 1 & spend the entire summer, telegraph me & I write me & I will no doubt skip ‸start‸ along home about 10th or 12th or 15th November.
About one thing there is no question whatever—& that is, one mustn’t tackle England in print with a mere superficial knowledge of it. I am by long odds the most widely known & popular American author among the English & the book will be read by pretty much every Englishman—therefore for my own sake it must not be a poor book.
In the course of a week or ten days the [Routledge’s] will send you that cloak through their N. Y. house.1
Good bye sweetheart—I love you.
Samℓ.
Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn. [in upper left corner:] US. of America. | [rule] [on flap:] the langham [postmarked:] london • w 6 oc12 72 [and][ new york oct 20 paid all]
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L5, 196–197; MTB, 1:469–70, brief paraphrase; Davis 1978, 1; Christie 1991, lot 88, with omissions.
Provenance:Chester L. Davis, Sr., probably acquired the MS from Clara Clemens Samossoud
between 1949 and 1962 (see Samossoud Collection in Description of
Provenance). After Davis’s death in 1987, the MS was owned by
Chester L. Davis, Jr., who sold it through Christie’s in May 1991
to CLjC.
Emendations and textual notes:
be- • be-| [deletion implied]
their there • theirre [canceled ‘r’ partly formed]
Routledge’s • [sic]
con • con- |
new york oct 20 paid all
•
n
[
]
w york oct
[20]
paid a
[ll]
[badly
inked]
