22 February 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 00580)
In haste—
{Mem. Washn born this day.}
They keep writing me from Cleveland to send along the next article—so let’s have it—but do find some other author than “A Retired Lecturer”—it points right at me., old boy.1explanatory note
Yes, you be sure & call when you come here. Nasby was here yesterday, enormously fat & handsome. We had a pleasant talk but I couldn’t offer him the hospitalities because my wife is very seriously ill & the house full of nurses & doctors.2explanatory note
Love to Fall.
In a hurry
letter docketed: boston Ⓐemendation lyceum bureau. redpath Ⓐemendation & fall. apr 5 1871 and L | rule and Mark Twain | Buffalo N.Y. | Febry 22 ’71
Redpath’s letter proposing a Buffalo visit is not known to survive. Nasby (David Ross Locke) was in Buffalo to deliver a lecture entitled “In Search of the Man of Sin” on 21 February at St. James Hall, for the Buffalo chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic’s charity fund. It was he who had sent Redpath’s first article about lecturers to Clemens. Locke’s wife had been seriously ill with typhoid fever in January (“Petroleum V. Nasby, This Evening,” Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, 21 Feb 71, 3; “Lecture Course,” Buffalo Courier, 21 Feb 71, 3; 22 Jan 71 to Redpath, n. 1click to open letter; Locke to SLC, 7 Jan 71, CU-MARK).
MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).
L4 , 335–336.
bequeathed to MH in 1918 by Evert J. Wendell.