To
Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
7 April 1878 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: NPV; transcript by Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK;
and MTL, 1:325–27, UCCL 01553)
Apl. 7./78
My Dear Mother—I have told Livy all about Annie’s beautiful house, & about Sam & Charl‸ey‸ y, & about Charley’s ingenious manufactures & his strong manhood & good promise, & how glad I am that he & Annie married. And I have told her about Alice & her blue eyes, & about Annie’s excellent [ housekeeping], & also about the great Bacon conflict; (I told you it was a hundred to one that neither Livy nor the European powers had heard of that desolating struggle.) And I have told you her how beautiful you are in your age & how bright your mind is with its old-time brightness, & how she & the children would enjoy you. And I have told her how singularly young p Pamela is looking, & what a fine large fellow Sam is, & how ill the lingering syllable “my” to his name fits his port & figure.
Well, Pamela, after thinking it over for a day or so, I came near inquiring about a state-room in our ship for Sam, to please you, but my wiser former resolution came back to me. It is not for his good that he have [ friends] in the ship. His conduct in the Bacon business shows that he will develop rapidly into a manly man as soon as he is cast loose from your apron strings.
You don’t teach him to push ahead [& do & dare] things for himself, but you do just the reverse. You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a village—villagers watch each other [&] so make cowards of each other. After Sam shall have voyaged to Europe by himself, [&] rubbed against the world [& taken & returned] its cuffs, do you think he will hesitate to escort a guest into any whisky-mill in Fredonia when he himself has no sinful business to transact there? No, he will smile at the idea. If he [avoids] this courtesy now from principle, of course I find no fault with it at all—only if he thinks it is principle he may be mistaken; a close examination may show it is only a bowing to the tyranny of public opinion.
[I] only say it may—I cannot venture to say it will. Hartford is not a large place, but it is broader than to have ways of that sort. Three or four weeks ago, at a Moody [&] [Sankey] meeting, the preacher read a letter from somebody “exposing” the fact that a prominent clergyman had gone from one of those meetings, bought a bottle of lager beer [&] drank it on the premises (a drug store.) [A] tempest of indignation swept the town.
[Our] clergymen [&] everybody else said the “culprit” had not only done an innocent thing, but had done it in an open, manly way, [&] it was [nobody’s] right or business to find fault with it. Perhaps this dangerous latitude comes of the fact that we never have any temperance “rot” going on in Hartford.
I find here a letter from Orion, submitting some new matter in his story for criticism. When [you] write him, please tell him to do the best he can [&] bang away. I can do nothing further in [this] matter, for I have but 3 days left in which to settle a deal of important business [&] answer a bushel [&] a half of letters. I am very nearly tired to death.
I was so jaded [&] worn, at the Taylor dinner, that I found I could not remember 3 sentences of the speech I had memorized, [&] therefore got up [&] said so [&] excused myself from speaking. I arrived here at 3 [o’clock] this [morning.] I think the next 3 days will finish me. The idea of [sitting] down to a job of literary criticism is simply ludicrous.
A young lady passenger in our ship has been placed under Livy’s [charge.] Livy couldn’t easily get out of it, [&] did not want to, on her own account, but fully expected I would make trouble when I heard of [it, but I] [didn’t.] A girl can’t well travel alone, so I offered no objection. She leaves us at Hamburg. So I’ve got 6 people in my care, now—which is just 6 too many for a man of my unexecutive capacity. I expect nothing else but to lose some of them overboard.
We send our loving good-byes to all the [household] & hope to see you again after a [spell.]
Affly Yrs.
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):| MS | Jean Webster McKinney Papers, Special Collections, NPV ‘Apl. 7. . . . for a day’ |
| Tr | Transcript by Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK ‘or so, . . . Sam.’ |
| P | MTL, 1:325–27 ‘or so, . . . Sam.’ |
Provenance:For the MS, see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance; for
the transcript, see Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenance.
Emendations, adopted readings, and textual notes:
housekeeping (MTP) • house-|keeping (MS)
friends (P) • friend (Tr)
& do & dare (Tr) • and do and dare (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& taken & returned (Tr) • and taken and returned (P)
avoids (P) • avoid (Tr)
[¶] I (P) • [flush left] I (Tr)
& (Tr) • and (P)
Sankey (P) • Sanky (Tr)
& (Tr) • and (P)
[no ¶] A (Tr) • [¶] A (P)
[¶] Our (Tr) • [no ¶] Our (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
nobody’s (P) • no-body’s (Tr)
you (MTP) • You (Tr, P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
this (P) • his (Tr)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
& (Tr) • and (P)
o’clock (P) • oclock (Tr)
morning. (P) • morning (Tr)
sitting (P) • setting (Tr)
charge. (P) • charge (Tr)
& (Tr) • and (P)
it, but I (Tr) • it. But I (P)
didn’t. (P) • didn’t (Tr)
household (P) • house-hold (Tr)
spell. (P) • spell—. (Tr)
Sam. (Tr) • Sam. (P)
