Hartford, Monday p.m.
O dear, Sue! I am in sackcloth & ashes for my inexcusable crime of leaving you forlorn on that platform to shift for yourself. I don’t know how I ever could have done it. At the time, I seemed to have done everything that was necessary; & we were half way home before it burst upon me & I said, “Great Scott, that train has carried Aunt Sue off in a common car, sure, & I never once thought to put her aboard & see that she got a drawing-room seat!” My afternoon has been spent in suffering shame & calling myself hard names & wondering how it all ever happened. And every time I started to go to Livy I couldn’t bear to go. And sure enough her afternoon has been spoiled, & she has had three cries over this unspeakable business. Don’t forgive me—I don’t want to be forgiven; I want to be drowned. I haven’t been so ashamed in half a lifetime; I never never never will treat you so again, Sue, I swear it.
In the depths,
Yours, inconsolably,
Samℓ.
Try to imagine Theodore treating Livy like that!
Source text(s):Provenance:
The manuscript was given to the Mark Twain Papers in 1972 by the Langdon family.
