To Olivia L. Clemens
1 January 1874 • London, England
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01025)

D Jan 1. Midnight.

Livy darling, what an access of love, a bit of separation brings! I have such a longing for you, these days; & the lesson it teaches, is, separate yourselves every now & then. When I have been away from you 2 days, I am wild to see you. So I mean to go away every now & then, just to renew that fee‸ling‸ el——but never more than 48 hours. As long as we live I hope it will never be more than 48 hours that will intervene between our seeing each other. I[t] [seem◇s ] that it will be a whole age before I see you again.1

Saml.

Jan. 1.

11.30 AM. [Horseguards ] just passing—tremendous procession of them.

But dearie I only took the pen to tell you the address of Mrs. Brooks’ friends—it has just occurred to me this moment, & if I vei nture to sit down to breakfast before writing it, I shall surely forget it. It is Wm Jacox, Venetia Cottage, Streatham. Now you can write them if you want to.2

I love you, honey

Samℓ.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 Clemens had left his wife in Hartford on 7 November and arrived in England on 17 November 1873. The purpose of this trip, his third since August 1872, was to ensure a British copyright for The Gilded Age (published in London on 22 December 1873); to give a second series of lectures; and to finish gathering material for a book about England. (For details of all three trips, see L5.) Despite the printed letterhead, Clemens wrote this letter from the Langham Hotel in London—on one of the sample stationeries that he purchased from James T. Stockley, a Bond Street stationer, engraver, and bookseller. (Previously it was thought that Olivia had sent the stationery for his approval.) Throughout the early months of 1874 he continued to use sample letterhead. The family did not move into its new home, on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, until 19 September 1874 (SLC 1874; L5, 472, 476, 509 n. 1, 532 n. 2; London Directory, 1323; 20 Sept 74 to Parish).

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2 Fidele A. Brooks, of New York City, was a close friend of Olivia’s family (L2, 276 n. 10). William Jacox of Streatham (a village slightly south of London) has not been further identified.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L6, 1–2; LLMT, 189.

Provenance:see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

seem◇s • [second ‘s’ over miswritten ‘m’ and a partly formed character, possibly ‘t’]

Horseguards • Horse-|guards