From Olivia L. and Samuel L. Clemens to Olivia Lewis Langdon and Family
24? September 1874 • Hartford, Conn.
(MTB, 1:520–21, UCCL 01133)

. . . .

We are perfectly delighted with everything here and do so want you all to see it.

. . . .

Livy appoints me to finish this; but how can a headless man perform an intelligent function?1 I have been bullyragged all day by the builder, by his foreman, by the architect, by the tapestry devil who is to upholster the furniture, by the idiot who is putting down the carpets, by the scoundrel who is setting up the billiard-table ([& ] has left the balls in New York), by the wildcat who is sodding the ground & finishing the driveway (after the sun went down), by a book agent, whose body is in the back yard & the coroner notified.2 Just think of this thing going on the whole day long, & I a man who loathes details with all his heart! But I haven’t lost my temper, & I’ve made Livy lie down most of the time; could anybody make her lie down all the time?

. . . .

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

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1 This expression echoes a remark in the previous letter (“my head is all gone”), indicating that it was probably written around the same time. In printing these excerpts, Albert Bigelow Paine reported that they were from a letter “home”—that is, to the Langdon family in Elmira: Mrs. Langdon, Charles and Ida Clark Langdon, and the Cranes (MTB, 1:520).

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2 Garvie, the builder; William B. Low, the foreman; and Macrae, the landscape gardener. The architect could have been either Potter or Thorp, who was the primary on-site supervisor (Mark Twain House, 3, 8). None of the other workmen has been identified.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MTB, 1:520–21.

Previous publication: L6, 244–245.

Emendations and textual notes:

& • and [here and hereafter]