I was glad to hear from so many friends whose names are familiar to my memory—IckⒶemendation, & the Ellas, Al. Patterson’s folks, India, your parents, Belle,—why, it is a party
in itself! And Miss Mason—will you borrow a mustache & kiss her once for me—or several
times?1explanatory note
I received a dainty little letter from Lou Conrad, yesterday. She is in Wisconsin.
But what worries me is that I have received no letter from my sweetheart in New York
for three days. This won’t do. I shall have to run up there & see what the mischief
is the matter.Ⓐemendation I will break that girl’s back if she breaks my heart,Ⓐemendation I am getting too venerable now to put up with nonsense from children.2explanatory note
I have made a superbⒶemendation contract for a book, & have prepared the first ten chapters of the sixty or eighty—but
I will bet it never sees the light. Don’t you let the folks at home hear that. That
thieving Alta copyrighted the letters, & now showⒶemendation no disposition to let me use them. I have done all I can by telegraph, & now await
the final result by mail.3explanatory note I only charged them for 50 letters, what in green-backs, would amount to less than
two thousand dollars, intending to write a good deal for high-pricedⒶemendation eastern papers, & now they want to publish my letters in book form themselves, to
get back that pitiful sum.Ⓐemendation4explanatory note I can write them over, but I don’t want to. EvenⒶemendation with the subjects all fresh in my mind, it took me more than twenty days to write
those 50 letters—& now it would take full forty, I think.
But the contract compels me to use those particular letters in the book. I rather expect to go with Mr. Burlingame
on his Chinese Embassy5explanatory note—you know he is a tip-top good friend of mine—but for goodness sake don’t hint of this to the home folks. I would [not] hear the last of it. CussⒶemendation this cussed place—I am precious tired of it. There is no fun but receptions, & nobody
there but stupid old muffs of Generals & Senators, who talk their plagued war & politics
to me when I had rather hear Greek. When they have what they call “reunions” they
are pleasant enough & are full of jollityⒶemendation.
The State of Illinois had one last night, & Oregon gives one at Senator Corbett’s
Monday night. These suit me well.Ⓐemendation The invitations are special, & not more than a hundred to a hundred & fifty are invited.
They are not crowded to death like the receptions. I like the banquets better than
anything, but they do not occur often.
But I am not interesting you, & besides I must answer some letters of “Quaker City”
ladies. They are indefatigableⒶemendation correspondents, & exceedingly pleasant withal. I give them a paragraph from the book,
now & then, just to hear them howl.
They send back whole quires of remonstrance, & I forward other paragraphs—entirely
imaginary ones—gotten up for the occasion that are infinitely worse than the first.
It makes rare fun—for—me.
MyⒶemendation love to all of them,—& to you, my good & true, & well beloved sister.
Affectionately
Sam.
Mrs. Orion Clemens | Keokuk | Iowa postmarked with handwritten year:washington d.c. feb 22 ’68 freefranked by unidentified hand: Wm M Stewart | USS
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):
A typed transcription made for Albert Bigelow Paine is source text for the letter,
CU-MARK; MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, ViU, is source text for the envelope. A portion of the third paragraph was published
in MTB and in Paine 1912, but both extracts derive from the Paine typescript, not independently from the original
letter. Both did correct one manifest transcription error (“supberb” in the first
line of the third paragraph) and treated another word as an error (“show”, also in
the third paragraph), which has not been emended here.
Previous Publication:
MTB, 1:359–60, partial publication; Paine 1912, 938, partial publication; L2, 198–99 (dated 22? February 1868), partial publication.
Provenance:
For the text of the letter, see Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenanceclick to open letter. The envelope was deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963. It is not known how Paine got access
to this particular letter, or how Barrett obtained the envelope.
Explanatory Notes
0 The present text, notes, and apparatus supersede those previously published in L2,
198–99. L2’s version is available hereclick to open letter.
1 Clemens refers to letters or messages (now lost) from: “Ick”: Margaret Elizabeth Starkweather,
née Patterson (25 February 1837–January 1922); “the Ellas”: Ick’s unmarried younger
sister Martha Eleanor (Ella) Patterson (b. 1839 or 1840), and their niece, Mary Eleanor
(Ella) Montgomery (née Creel) (1 June 1841–26 February 1894); “Al. Patterson’s folks”:
presumably William Albert Patterson (5 August 1827–2 November 1900) and family; “India”:
one of Mollie’s sisters-in-law, Indiana (Indi) Stotts (8 October 1833–8 July 1871),
married to her older brother William Thompson Stotts (23 November 1829–14 August 1911);
Mollie’s parents: William L. Stotts (16 September 1799–13 June 1888) and Mary (Polly)
Stotts, neé Patterson (25 March 1797–7 July 1869); and “Belle”: Mollie’s younger
sister, Susannah Isabella (Belle) Bohon, neé Stotts (26 December 1839–24 May 1910).
“Miss Mason” remains unidentified.
2 Clemens’s “sweetheart in New York” has not been identified, although it is likely
she was “Pauline,” whom Clemens tried and failed to find in New York immediately upon
return of the Quaker City in November 1867 (see SLC to Webb, 25 Nov 1867click to open letter).
3 The typescript made for Albert Bigelow Paine from the original manuscript (now lost)
and the surviving envelope make clear that this letter was addressed to Mollie—not
Orion—Clemens, although Paine claimed or implied it was addressed to Orion in two
published excerpts from it (Paine 1912, 938, MTB, 1:359–60). Clemens had told the St. Louis family (Jane, Pamela, and Orion) about
his “superb contract” (24 Jan 1868 to JLCclick to open letter and family), and presumably did not want to worry his mother with the possibility
that the book would not be published. He clearly felt he could trust Mollie— who was
living with her parents in Keokuk and had recently sent him three clippings of his
Alta dispatches—with the news (the clippings were mentioned as received in 21 Feb 1868 to JLCclick to open letter and family). In another letter written at this time but now lost, Clemens must have
also informed Pamela of his problem, swearing her to strict confidence even with members
of the family (just as he later did in respect to his pending engagement to Olivia
Langdon). Pamela evidently confided the information to Orion, but not to Mollie, and
probably not to Jane—for in April, Orion was obliged to explain to Mollie why he had
known about the problem but had not told her: “Pamela thought Sam had enjoined strict
privacy on her, and I said nothing [to you] because she thought Sam would be displeased
if privacy to that extent was not kept” (OC to MEC, 10 Apr 1868, CU-MARK). Paine reported that when Clemens first heard about the Alta’s plans (ostensibly from Joseph Goodman), he “got confirmation of the report by telegraph”
(MTB, 1:359). Clemens must have learned the bad news and “done all [he could] by telegraph”
within a day of writing the previous letter to Orion (on 21 Februaryclick to open letter), which does not mention the problem.
4 Noah Brooks recalled the Alta editors’ response to the news—which they had certainly heard by 14 January—that Clemens
planned to reuse his Quaker City letters:
Although up to that moment there had been no thought of making in San Francisco a
book of Mark Twain’s letters from abroad, the proprietors of the “Alta California”
began at once their preparations to get out a cheap paper-covered edition of those
contributions. An advance notice in the press despatches sent from California was
regarded as a sort of answer to the alleged challenge of Mark Twain and his publishers.
This sent the perplexed author hurrying back to San Francisco in quest of an ascertainment
of his real rights in his own letters. (Brooks 1898, 99)
No copy of this “advance notice” has been found, but whether Clemens saw it or was
otherwise apprised of the Alta’s plans, he was evidently persuaded on or about 22 February to telegraph for permission
to reuse the letters, something he had declined to do earlier (24 Jan 1868 to JLC and PAMclick to open letter). The “final result by mail” which he then awaited came about two weeks later, on
or about 8 March. A California newspaper, reprinting an item from a still-unidentified
“Eastern exchange” (published sometime in mid-March), summarized the situation with
some authority:
Mark Twain has got a scrape on his hands. He had written several hundred MS. pages
for a book for one of the Hartford publishing houses, expecting to make his letters
to the Alta California useful for the bulk of his book. These letters were fifty,
for which $2,500 in gold coin had been paid. Mark telegraphed to California for permission
to use the letters. His telegram was, of course, an admission that the Alta had the
right to the letters. He got a letter last week, refusing the requested permission.
This broke up the Hartford contract, and sent him spinning to the Pacific coast, to
break somebody’s head. (“Mark Twain in Trouble,” Marysville [Calif.] Appeal, 9 May 1868, 3)
Clemens had, in fact, received his $1,250 fare in currency, or “greenbacks,” plus
$500 in gold (equivalent to $700 in currency), for a total of about $1,950, or “less
than two thousand dollars” (see 15 Apr 1867 to JLC and familyclick to open letter, n. 1).
Ⓐ Dear Mollie— • ~- [the typist consistently transcribed as hyphens what are manifestly em-dashes in the
original; corrected to em dashes, closed up, here and hereafter]
Ⓐ Ick • Ich [‘Ich’ is an easy error to make for a typist who, unlike Clemens, did not know how Margaret
Patterson Starkweather spelled her nickname]
A typed transcription made for Albert Bigelow Paine is source text for the letter, CU-MARK; MS, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, ViU, is source text for the envelope. A portion of the third paragraph was published in MTB and in Paine 1912, but both extracts derive from the Paine typescript, not independently from the original letter. Both did correct one manifest transcription error (“supberb” in the first line of the third paragraph) and treated another word as an error (“show”, also in the third paragraph), which has not been emended here.
MTB, 1:359–60, partial publication; Paine 1912, 938, partial publication; L2, 198–99 (dated 22? February 1868), partial publication.
For the text of the letter, see Paine Transcripts in Description of Provenanceclick to open letter. The envelope was deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 17 December 1963. It is not known how Paine got access to this particular letter, or how Barrett obtained the envelope.