Chi[c]ago, Nov. 12./79.
Livy darling, it was a great time. There were perhaps twenty ‸thirty‸ people on the stage of the theatre, & I think I never sat elbow-to-elbow with so many historic names before. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Pope, ‸Logan,‸ Auger, & so on. What an iron man Grant is! He sat facing the house, with his right leg crossed over his left & his right boot-sole tilted up at an angle, & his left hand & arm reposing on the arm of his chair—you note that position? Well, when glowing references were made to other grandees on the stage, those grandees always showed a trifle of nervous consciousness—& as these references came frequently, the nervous changes of position & attitude were also frequent. But Grant!—he was under a tremendous & ceaseless bombardment of praise & gratulation, but as true as I’m a sitting here he never moved a muscle of his body for a single instant, during 30 minutes! You could have played him on a stranger for an effigy. Perhaps he never would have moved, but at last a speaker made such a particularly ripping & blood-stirring remark about him that the audience rose & roared & yelled & stamped & clapped an entire minute—Grant sitting as serene as ever—when Gen. Sherman stepped to him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, bent his respectfully down & whispered in his ear. Then Grant got up & bowed, & the storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. He sat down, took about the same position & froze to it till by & by there was another of those deafening & protracted roars, when Sherman made him get up & bow again. He broke up his attitude once more—to the extent of something more than a hair’s breadth—to indicate me to Sherman when the house was keeping up a determined & persistent call for me, & poor bewildered Sherman, (who did not know me,) was peering abroad over the packed audience for me, not knowing I was only three feet from him & most conspicuously located. ‸(Gen. Sherman was Chairman.)‸
One of the most illustrious individuals on that stage was “old Abe,” the historic war eagle. He stood on his perch—the old savage-eyed rascal—three or four feet behind Gen. Sherman, & as he had been in nearly every battle that was mentioned by the orators his soul was probably stirred pretty often, though he was too proud to let on.
Read Logan’s bosh, & try to imagine a burly & magnificent Indian, in General’s uniform, striking a heroic attitude & getting that stuff off in the style of a declaiming school-boy.
{————}
Please put the enclosed scraps in the drawer & I will scrap-book them.
I only staid at the Owl Club till 3 this morning & drank little or nothing. Went to sleep without whisky. Ich liebe dich.
Saml.
[in margin:] Sentinels walked the stage all the evening.
Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] chicago ill. nov 13 3 pm [and] hartford conn. rec’d. nov 15 11am [docketed by Olivia L. Clemens:] Nov 12/79
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MTB, 2:653–54, partial publication; MTL, 1:368–70; MicroML, reel 4.
Provenance:See Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
