Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

To Joseph H. Twichell
29 August 1880 • Elmira, N.Y.
(Transcript by Albert Bigelow Paine: CU-MARK,
and MTL, 1:383–85, UCCL 01827)

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[ Quarry Farm], [ Aug. 29.]

[ Dear Old Joe—

Concerning] Jean Clemens, if anybody said he “didn’t see [ no] p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog,” I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of observer. [ She is the comeliest, & daintiest & perfectest little creature the continents & archipelagoes have seen since [ Bay] & Susie were her size.] I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will soon be in Hartford, where I have already hired a hall; the admission fee will be but a trifle.

It is curious to note the change in the [ stock-quotations] of the Affection Board brought about by [ the] throwing this new security on the market. Four weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right along, where she had always been. But now:

Jean

Mamma

Motley

Frauleincats.

}

Papa

That is the way it stands, now. Mamma is become No. 2; I have dropped from No. 4, and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip [&] tuck between me [&] the cats, but after the cats “developed” I didn’t stand any more show.

I’ve got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of the day, [&] read [&] smoke [&] scribble [&] have a good time. Last evening Livy said with deep concern, “O dear, I believe an abscess is forming in your ear.”

I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the head—

[ ’Tis] said that abscess conquers love,

But O believe it [ not.]

This made a [coolness. ] [For the one thing which Livy cannot stand, is wit.

I have read “John’s Trial,” & like it very much indeed. It has the advantage of Bret Harte’s rot, that it is sincere. I mean to read the rest, to-day. The papers say that Harte & William Black are bumming around together in the Highlands. I suspect that at bottom these two are kindred spirits.

I am more than charmed to know that John T. Raymond has made a most complete & pitiful failure in London with Col. Sellers. Still, it doesn’t do me half the good it could have done if it had come sooner. My malignity was so worn out & wasted away with time & the exercise of charity that even [ Raymond’s] death would not afford me anything more than a mere fleeting ecstasy, a sort of momentary pleasurable titillation, now—unless, of course, it happened in some peculiarly radiant way like burning, or boiling, or something like that. Joys that come to us after the capacity for enjoyment is dead, are but an affront.]

Been reading Daniel Webster’s Private Correspondence. Have read a hundred of his diffuse, conceited, “eloquent,” bathotic (or bathostic) letters written in that dim (no, vanished) Past when he was a student; [&] Lord, to think that this boy who is so real to me now, [&] so booming with fresh young blood [&] bountiful life, [&] sappy cynicisms about girls, has since climbed the Alps of fame [&] stood against the sun one brief tremendous moment with the world’s eyes upon him, [&]; then—[ f-z-t-! ] where is he? Why the only long thing, the only real thing about the whole shadowy business is the sense of the lagging dull [&] hoary lapse of time that has drifted by since then; a vast empty level, it seems, with a formless spectre glimpsed fitfully through the smoke [&] mist that lie along [ its] remote verge.

Well, we are all getting along here first-rate; Livy gains strength daily, [&] sits up a deal; the baby is five weeks old [ and—— but] no more of this; somebody may be reading this letter 80 years hence. And so, my friend (you pitying snob, I mean, who are holding this yellow paper in [ your] hand in 1960,) save yourself the trouble of looking further; I know how pathetically trivial our small concerns [ would] seem to you, [&] I will not let your eye profane them. No, I keep my news; you keep your compassion. Suffice it you to know, scoffer [&] ribald, that the little child is old [&] blind, now, [&] once more toothless; [&] the rest of us are shadows, these many, many years. Yes, [&] your time cometh!

Mark.

Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

No copy-text. The text is mainly based on two transcripts by Albert Bigelow Paine, one typed and the other printed. The first (Tr) was apparently typed directly from the manuscript, after which Paine must have marked a carbon copy (now lost) with both corrections from the manuscript and his own editorial changes. That marked typescript probably served as printer’s copy for MTL (P).

Tr	Transcript by Albert Bigelow Paine, CU-MARK
P	MTL, 1:383–85

glyph Previous publication: MTB, 2:682–83.

glyph Provenance:See Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenance.

glyph Emendations, adopted readings, and textual notes:

Quarry Farm (Tr) • Quarry Farm (P)

Aug. 29. (MTP) • Aug. 28 (80) (Tr); Aug. 29. [’80]. (P)

Dear Old Joe— | [¶] Concerning (Tr) • [¶] Dear Old Joe,— Concerning (P)

no (P) • np (Tr)

She . . . size. (Tr) • [sentence not in; replaced by ellipsis points] (P)

Bay (MTP) • Ba (Tr)

stock-quotations (Tr) • stock-quotation (P)

the (Tr) • [word not in] (P)

& (Tr) • and (P)

’Tis (Tr) • “Tis (P)

not. (Tr) • not.” (P)

coolness. (P) • coolness.— (Tr)

For . . . affront. (Tr) • [passage not in] (P)

Raymond’s (MTP) • Raynond’s (Tr)

& (Tr) • and (P)

f-z-t-! (Tr) • f-z-t-! (P)

& (Tr) • and (P)

its (P) • itd (Tr)

& (Tr) • and (P)

and—— but (Tr) • and— but (P)

your (P) • y | your (Tr)

would (Tr) • will (P)

& (Tr) • and (P)