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Add to My Citations To Ellen C. Taft
12 December 1882 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS facsimile, inscription in autograph book: CtHMTH, UCCL 02315)
Click to add citation to My Citations.

Do I understand, Mrs. Taft, that you are going to send this little book across the ocean?—to Mr. Collin, perhaps? Very well, then; I am not going to lose this opportunity of letting at least his fraction of that distant world know that pretty able poetry can be written by your friend who signs this, when the right subject offers.

Mark Twain

(née S. L. Clemens)

As witness next page:

Question and Answer.

====

Who shooteth folk with wit’s keen shaft,

Mrs. Taft?

Whose clear head maketh mine seem daft,

Mrs. Taft?

‸over

Whose heart doth keep the wine of life on draft—

Good-fellowship—to be by all the thirsty quaffed,

Mrs. Taft?

over‸

Who aye compassion had for my sad craft,

Mrs. Taft?

And o’er my humor wept when others laughed,

Mrs. Taft?

Who into shams drives blade unto the haft,

Mrs. Taft?

But heartening cheer to merit aye doth waft,

Mrs. Taft?

What answer answereth this whole raft?—

Mrs. Taft!

Hartford, Dec. 12, 1882.



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MS facsimile, inscription in autograph book, CtHMTH. The MS may have been in the CtHMTH collection at one time but cannot now be located. The available photocopy does not make clear the order of the verses. It has been assumed that Clemens twice used the instruction “over” to signal the beginning and end of an insertion.

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MicroPUL, reel 2.