To George H. Fitzgibbon
21 December 1873 • London, England
(MS: NN-B, UCCL 01012)

Dec. 21.

My Dear Fitz Gibbon:

I wish you had been there—it was a beautiful house; tho’ piling the stage full of people made it pretty hard talking. I made no speech, because I had kept the audience there longer than I ever had before, & as I had had a jolly good time with them I didn’t want to run the risk of spoiling the thing.

Besides, I was saving myself for [tomorrow ]evening, when 6 or 8 personal friends of mine are to give me a quiet dinner, & I am to make a bit of a speech.1 The speech itself won’t amount to anything, but the enclosed paragraph will be a part of it. I would like to see it in print, because I want it to cross over & run through the American papers. But if you use it won’t you please put it in your handwriting, & [tear ]mine up? Remember the fate of that other thing!2

Dolby is to let you know when I go north—which will be within the [fortnight], I suppose.

With kind‸est‸ nes regar[d]s to you & all your family—

Ys [faithfully]

Samℓ. L. Clemens

[enclosure:]

In response to a toast to his health, at a dinner on Monday evening, Mark Twain said, among other things:

“I have lectured all through the fog & all through the fine weather, in London, & have completed my mission of instruction & moral [elevation. And ] But now that it is all over, I am sorry rather than glad, for I never have seen audiences that were quicker to see a point & [sieze ]it than those I have had in London & Liverpool—& there is where ‸& in this‸ the comfort of lecturing lies. I had always had an idea, before, that British risibles were hard to move.”3

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Only three of these friends have been identified: Stoddard, Finlay, and Dolby (see 22 Dec 73 to OLC [1st]).

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2 The “other thing” may have been the speech on “The Ladies,” a copy of which Clemens had sent Fitzgibbon on 28 November to use in the Darlington Northern Echo, where it did not, however, appear (see 28 Nov 73 to Fitzgibbon, n. 6).

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3 The second paragraph of this enclosure appeared in the Darlington Northern Echo on 23 December, with the following introduction:

We saw to-night the last of Mark Twain. The ensuing fortnight he intends devoting to the enlightenment of the British public who live in North England and Scotland. At a private dinner given to-night to the distinguished American humorist by a few friends, he said, in response to the toast of his health, among other characteristically funny things:—(Fitzgibbon 1873)

The entire item, with Fitzgibbon’s introduction, was reprinted by the Edinburgh Courant, from which it was in turn reprinted by the Hartford Courant on 13 January 1874 (“Mark Twain’s Last Night in London,” 2).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).

Previous publication: L5, 525–526.

Provenance:The MS was owned by businessman William T. H. Howe (1874–1939); in 1940 Dr. A. A. Berg bought and donated the Howe Collection to NN.

Emendations and textual notes:

tomorrow • to-|morrow

tear • te tear [corrected miswriting]

fortnight • fort-|night

faithfully • fally ‸ith‸fully [corrected miswriting]

elevation. And • elevation.—| And

sieze • [sic]