To Olivia L. Clemens
27 April 1877 • Baltimore, Md.
(MS, correspondence card, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01418)

Friday Night.

slcLivy My Darling, I had a jolly adventure last night with a chap from the “Eastern Shore”1—you must remind me to tell you about it when I get home. I spent 4 hours in the State Prison2 to-day, after rehearsal, but it would take a book to hold all I saw & heard. Am too tired [to-night] to write—will only say I’m homesick, & that the old song lies when it says that “absence conquers love.”

Saml

[cross-written:] Thanks for your second letter which is just received

[in ink:] Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn. | [flourish] [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] baltimore md. apr 28 9am

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1The area of Maryland on the Delaware, or eastern, side of Chesapeake Bay. It was a somewhat independent-spirited region that resented the disparagement it felt it received from “western shore” cities, such as Baltimore (Bode 1978, map facing xi, 74–80).

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2The Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore was built in 1811. After the Civil War it came under criticism for its poor treatment of prisoners. The Maryland Prisoners’ Aid Association, organized in 1869, had succeeded in carrying out a number of reforms, possibly the reason for Clemens’s interest (Kte’pi 2012, 3:1074).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

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

Previous publication:

MicroML, reel 4.

Provenance:

See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

to-night • to- | night