7 October 1868 • Hartford, Conn. (Cyril Clemens, 18, UCCL 02757)
(SUPERSEDED)
Hartford, Conn., Oct. 7.
I am here, getting out a book. I saw your father & Ⓐemendationmother & Gerty often in New York—& also Mr. Brown of the Legation. We all concocted a Treaty article together, for the New York Tribune.1explanatory note
Do you remember your Honolulu joke?—“If a man compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him Twain.” I have closed many & many a lecture, in many a city, with that. It always “fetches” them.2explanatory note Send me your Picture—I enclose mine.3explanatory note
See 3 Aug 68 to Fairbanks, n. 1click to open letter. “Gerty” was Edward’s sister, Gertrude.
Clemens himself had been recently “fetched” by Burlingame’s joke. After Clemens’s second lecture in Virginia City, the Territorial Enterprise reported that he
was yesterday made the recipient at the hands of Mr. Conrad Wiegand, the well known assayer, of a very beautiful and highly-polished silver brick, worth some $40. The brick bears the following inscription: “Mark Twain—Matthew, V: 41—Pilgrim.” All our readers will recollect at once that the verse referred to reads as follows: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.” Twain would never object to going even farther, if sure of getting a fellow to the bar presented him by Mr. Wiegand, and provided he was furnished a seat in a good, easy-going and softly-cushioned carriage. (“A Neat and Appropriate Present,” 29 Apr 68, 3)
Eventually, however, Clemens grew tired of the joke, saying in 1906:
When it was new, it seemed exceedingly happy and bright, but it has been emptied upon me upwards of several million times since—never by a witty and engaging lad like Burlingame, but always by chuckle-heads of base degree, who did it with offensive eagerness and with the conviction that they were the first in the field. (AD, 20 Feb 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA , 2:125)
The enclosure has not been found, but it was probably a small, carte de visite print of the Bradley and Rulofson photograph recently made in San Francisco, rather than an “imperial-size” print of the one taken in Cleveland (see 1 and 5 May 68, n. 7click to open letter, and 24 Sept 68, n. 3click to open letter, both to Fairbanks).
Cyril Clemens, 18.
L2 , 261; none known except the copy-text.
In 1932, when Cyril Clemens published the letter, it belonged to Frederick A. Burlingame. The MS has not since been found.