To Mary Mason Fairbanks
14 and 17 April 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: CSmH, UCCL 01412)

Hartford Apl. 14.

Dear Mother:

This is prodigious news! But ist is just as it should be. A body can’t marry too young, I judge, if he except he be under twenty. I mean, a body who‸se‸ place, position & vocation are settled, & a comfortable living assured. Without these things, I judge a body can’t marry too late. I lost 15 years of married life from not being “fixed” for matrimony, as Charley is. I envy the young folks their early start, but I tender my blessing & best wishes, anyway.1 I would vastly like to be present at the marriage, but there will be no such luck for me. I shall either be in the neighborhood of New Orleans, then, or hard at work on a book.2

No—come to look at the date, I shall be in Washington, April 25, to superintend the rehearsals of mine & the play of “Ah Sin,” which will be hurled at the public enither May 1st or 7th, as shall seem best.3 I suppose I shall remain in Washington & Baltimore till the middle of May, if things seem to require it, & I am depending upon Livy’s going with me—but she doubtless won’t, because she would find it burdensome to take the children, and—you catch her leaving them behind! This reminds me that I would lend Susie to you & trust her freely to our Mollie’s auntship; but it ain’t any use of trying to get Livy to sleep apart from Susie a night. That is one of those impossible things, you know. But you are to send Mollie & her father here, never [nevertheless]. It is the very n thing—a spring visit to Hartford. Will you, now? Won’t you? Speak up, & say you will. I had a wonderful letter from Mollie, & I want to see her. It was singularly compact & well expressed. This is a girl to be proud of. I’m going to write her before long., when I shall have cleared my decks of some of their load of business obstructions. I will grant you the privilege of kissing her for me—& it is no small privilege, I warn you, or one to be lightly scattered around.

The “Scrap-Book?” Well, well, well—& don’t you really know about that yet?—& the newspapers talking about it all the time for the past 8 months & Dan Slote aclmost neglecting all his other business & his family to attend to the selling of it & the bragging about it.4 You surprise me, you do [indeed. I] must tell Dan there’s a missionary field in the west.

“Where do I write?” In the billiard room—the very most satisfactory bi study that ever was. Open fire, register, & plenty of light.

Apl. 17.

I left this page blank for Livy, who wantded to add a line, but there’s an accession of company & so she hasn’t time to turn around hardly, & therefore sends love through me to the Fair Banks household,5[—a] along with that of

Yr Eldest

S. L. C.

Mrs A. W. Fairbanks | Care “Herald” | Cleveland | Ohio [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] hartford conn. apr 17 6pm [and] [cleveland o. apr 18 7am]

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1The letter that Clemens answered is now lost. Charles Mason Fairbanks was married to Pauline Merrill on 25 April 1877, at the age of twenty-two. He had become night editor of the Cleveland Herald in 1876 and worked there until his father relinquished control of the paper toward the end of 1877, whereupon he joined the New York Sun (3 June 1876 to Fairbanks, n. 1; Lorenzo Sayles Fairbanks 1897, 755; Kennedy 1896, 512).

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2This is the only indication in letters of this period that Clemens was again contemplating the southern trip which he had planned in late 1874 and early 1875, then postponed (L6: 29 Nov 1874 to Redpath, 298–99; 7 May 1875 to Howells, 473).

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3Ah Sin opened at the National Theatre in Washington on 7 May 1877.

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4In addition to carrying regular advertisements for the Self-Pasting Scrap Book, newspapers reprinted the advertising letter, written by Clemens as if to Slote (see 11 Sept? 1876 to Slote). In Scribner’s Monthly for April 1877 the Scrap Book was comically reviewed at length as “essentially an autobiography,” and included invented incidents in Clemens’s life. The author evidently was Robert Underwood Johnson (1853–1937), a member of the editorial staff; later, after the magazine became the Century in 1881, he became the associate editor, and eventually editor (Robert Underwood Johnson 1877, 874; Mott 1938, 457).

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5“Fair Banks” was the name of the family home in Cleveland.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, CSmH, call no. HM 14290.

Previous publication:

MTMF, 203–5.

Provenance:

See Huntington Library in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

nevertheless • never nevertheless [corrected miswriting]

indeed. I • ~.— | ~

—a • —a- |

cleveland o. apr 18 7am • c[◊◊◊◊◊◊] o. [◊◊]1[◊] 7am [badly inked]