To Susan L. Crane
23 April 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, correspondence card, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01415)

Monday,

1877

slcSusie Dear—

On the 10th of May I am going off on a sea voyage, to be gone till toward the end of that month.1 It is to get the world & the devil out of my head so that I can start fresh at the farm early in June.2 My great problem is how to leave Livy for 2 or 3 weeks so that my absence will be no detriment to her. We can’t think of any company that can compensate her for my absence & be able to make her forget that absence but you. Could you come & stay here while I am gone? Livy says you had better go to the farm, & insists that I shan’t urge you to come here. So I don’t urge, but only ask if you can come without inconvenience & without detriment to your plans.3 With love to you all—affectionately

Samℓ.

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1By 6 May 1877 Susan Crane, Olivia Clemens’s foster sister, knew that Clemens had postponed his Bermuda excursion until the seventeenth of the month (OLC to Olivia Lewis Langdon, 6 May 1877, CtHMTH). The present letter, which must precede that date, was probably written on Monday, 23 April, just before Clemens left Hartford to attend the Baltimore rehearsals of Ah Sin.

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2The Clemens family typically spent their summers at Quarry Farm, the property outside Elmira owned by Susan and Theodore Crane.

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3Clemens’s letter to his wife from New York on 17 May indicates that Susan Crane complied with this request.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, correspondence card, in pencil, CU-MARK.

Previous publication:

MicroML, reel 4.

Provenance:

Donated in 1972 by Mrs. Eugene Lada-Mocarski, Jervis Langdon, Jr., Mrs. Robert S. Pennock, and Mrs. Bayard Schieffelin.