To Olivia L. Clemens
27 July 1877 • New York, N.Y.
(MS, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01456 and UCLC 50431)

Friday Eve.

Now, my darling, for the first time I consider that I’ve got a holdiday. And the first thing I do with it is to write to my sweetheart. Isn’t that praiseworthy?

To-day’s rehearsal went along pretty satisfactorily; but I notice that when an [actors] begins with getting a word ‸or an emphasis‸ wrong, you’ll wear your soul out before you get him corrected. Now at the first rehearsal, these things occurred, to-wit:

Mrs. Plunkett—Little did I think, when I shied the skittle at his head—&c

I—Skillet, madam, skillet, please!

Mr. Plunkett—We s timbered her up, & then stoped stopped her up ‸out‸—&c

I—StOped, please!

Mrs. Plunkett—It was preforeordestinated beforehand.

I—Take that emphasis away from there & put it on the second syllable of the last word—beforehand!

Mrs. Plunkett—This most momentuous occasion—

I—Momentary, madam!

And so forth & so on. Every day I have made the same old corrections., over & ov Mrs. Plunkett is the worst old fool I ever saw, except the Mrs. Plunkett in Baltimore—both are fine actresses, with high reputations. They are ignorance gone to seed. Still I have only lost my temper two or three times.

I think we have got a fine cast. Mr. Fawcett was to have played Ferguson, a miner, but we have got old Davidge, a man much better known. The “second miner” (Boston,) is taken by Vining Bowers, who has a large reputation—I thought he was one of the great men of the earth when I was a boy. The “third miner” (the vVigilantè judge), is going to play his part deliciously. Our Miss Tempest is very pretty, exceedingly [ladylike] & refined, & has nothing in the least stagey or unnatural about her. Mrs. Tempest is a very fine, large, handsome woman of 50, with a pleasant voice & way, & no stage-frills or fo offensivenesses. Mrs. Plunkett is as much as 55, & is going to play her part well. Miss Plunkett must have been created for her part. She is a perfectly honest, kindly, sincere, coarse, vulgar, low-born English wench, large, nobly built, with a beautiful fair face, fair complexion, & an opulence of golden tresses.

The villain of the piece is a tragedian, & is a little [stagy]. He is the only stagey one in the [lot. Mr.] York is young, handsome, frank, open, & manifestly a gentleman. He is to play the part of a gentleman, too; for Mr. York has been through my mill & is no longer the snob Mr. he was when he left Mr. Harte’s pen. Our Judge Tempest [with] be all that could be desired.1

Mr. Harte will pay me $50 a day for my work here, or I will know the reason why——that is, if the play succeeds.

I have written my speech for the opening night. It is very short—& nothing in it. But there’s really nothing to say.2 I’ve got a ne new [swallow-tail], but I know I could not endure it in that sweltering theatre. I shall wear white linen. You see, if I wear a swallow-tail it is plain I expected to be called out, maybe wanted to be. My! but the laundry here does make my white linen lovely! The driven snow doesn’t begin with it.

Dear old Joe, I must write [him.3—regars] Liberty, my darling, I am very much obliged to you for marrying me, & I love you, love you, love you!

Saml.

[enclosure:]

daly’s fifth avenue theatre.

new york, Jul 27 1877.

memorandum for Mark Twain, ◊

with the compliments of Stephen Fiske

My Dear Author:

Please send by bearer (& as soon as you come in) fifty of the orchestras for Tuesday and you shall have that number for some other night. The orders for seats are so heavy that we cannot spare so many for Tuesday

Yours

Fiske (Plunkett[)]4

[in margin:] Livy dear, I started in to corr corral a world of dead-heads (the first night of Sellers we had none but dead-heads in the house), but you perceive we are going to play to some money, this time.

S L C

Mrs S. L. Clemens | Elmira | N.Y. [postmarked:] new york jul 27 12pm

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1In addition to Charles T. Parsloe in the title role, the opening night cast of Ah Sin included, according to a playbill: Mrs. G. H. Gilbert as Mrs. Plunkett, “the too apparent cause of Mr. Plunkett’s absence from home”; P. A. Anderson as Bill Plunkett, “ ‘Uncle Billy,’ the Champion Liar of Calaveras”; William Davidge as Ferguson, “Foreman of the ‘Keystone’ Mine and Chief of the ‘Vigilantes’ ”; Vining Bowers as Boston, one of “the lawless society of law and order”; Dora Goldthwaite as Shirley Tempest, “a San Francisco Belle, and Heiress of an adventurous spirit”; Mary Wells as Mrs. Tempest, her “Fashionable and Fastidious Mother”; Edith Blande as Caroline Anastasia Plunkett, “Practical Daughter of an Impractical Parent”; Henry Crisp as York, “the Gentleman Miner and Owner of the ’40 Mill”; and H. A. Weaver as Judge Tempest, “a wealthy and retired Lawyer, with an Interest in the Mines and in one of the Miners” (“Bill of the Play,” Daly’s 5th Avenue Theatre, photocopy in CU-MARK).

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2See 31 July 1877 to the night editor of the New York World, n. 1.

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3Olivia Clemens had forwarded a letter of 25 July from Twichell, in which he confessed to being “in a sweat of misery” because of a report, considerably distorted, of the recent arranged marriage in the Clemens household, which had appeared in the Boston Herald on 22 July: Twichell wrote (referring to Charles Dudley Warner and Alfred Deane Richardson by their initials): “Charley W. says that it was written by young Richardson (son of A.D.R.) who is temporarily stopping in town. He must have got his particulars from the police. I have related the matter to only a very few judicious folks, and I feel perfectly sure that the public revelation is not to be laid at my door” (“Twain’s Latest. The Genial Humorist in the Role of Match-Maker,” Boston Herald, 22 July 1877, 6). On the back of Twichell’s letter Olivia wrote, “I get no letters from you We are all well— Livy—” (CU-MARK).

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4Stephen Ryder Fiske (“Ariel,” 1840–1916), a journalist, author, and drama critic, corresponded for the New York Herald during the Civil War, and was with Garibaldi in Italy during the unification movement. After eight years in London as a theater manager, he returned to New York in 1874, where he became Augustin Daly’s business agent and then, in October 1877, comanager of his Fifth Avenue Theatre. His reason for adding “Plunkett” to his signature has not been discovered (Daly 1917, 185; Whitley and Weidman 2014; “Stephen Fiske,” New York Times, 28 Apr 1916, 11).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, in pencil, CU-MARK (encloses Fiske to SLC, 27 July 1877).

Previous publication:

MicroML, reel 4.

Provenance:

See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

actors • [sic]

ladylike • lady-|like

stagy • [sic]

lot. Mr. • ~.— | ~

with • [sic]

swallow-tail • swallow-|tail

him.—regars • [deletion of dash implied]