7 January 1872 • Wooster, Ohio (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00708)
Livy darling, did these clothes ever come? If so you ought to have informed me. If they did, forward the enclosed note to the tailors, along with the bill (have Orion get you a check for $89 & enclose that, too—I am out of money.) If they didn’t come, write & tell them so Redpath so (36 Bromfield st) & enclose th Ⓐemendation my letter & the draft to him & let him see the tailors.2explanatory note
I hired a locomotive for $75 yesterday, to keep from having to get up at 2 in the morning;3explanatory note then I gave away $50 to a sick & needy poet, 4explanatory note & so I am about out of cash.
I enclose a couple for Theodore—but both of them put together ain’t as good as that child’s-trumpet story.5explanatory note
I have been figuring. My lecture business, up to the end of January, yields about $10,000—& yet, when I preach Jan. 30, it is wh well Ⓐemendation I am so close to Hartford, for I would not have money enough to get home on.6explanatory note It has all gone & is going, for those necessaries of life—debts. Every night the question is, Well, who does this day’s earnings belong to?—& away it goes. I do hate lecturing, & I shall try hard to have as little as possible of it to do hereafter Ⓐemendation. The rest of my earnings will go to Ma & Redpath, principally7explanatory note—& then what are we going to do, I don’t reckon? You gave that $50 to the poet, honey, for that was the money I was going to buy you a Christmas present with. How do you like such conduct as those?
Lecturing is hateful, but it must come to an end yet, & then I’ll see my darling, whom I love, love, love.
Love to all that jolly household & that dear old Susie.8explanatory note
Mrs. S. L. Clemens | cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn postmarked: wooster Ⓐemendation o. jan 10
After his 4 January lecture in Dayton, Clemens spoke the next evening in Columbus before a full and “appreciative” house:
Whenever he paused, placed his left arm akimbo and his right elbow in his left hand and began to gesticulate slowly with his right hand, the next word or words he uttered was the funny point toward which all that he had been saying just before tended, and which forced the audience into convulsions. It is impossible to imitate on paper his gestures and manner of speaking. One must hear him to realize the effect of what he says. (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” Columbus Ohio State Journal, 6 Jan 72, 4)
The Ohio State Journal also reprinted (without attribution) a synopsis of the lecture from the Chicago Tribune of 20 December, slightly altered and updated, as if it were a transcription of the Columbus lecture. “If the report don’t correspond with the lecture,” the Journal quipped, “it is the fault of the lecturer” (Columbus Ohio State Journal: “‘Mark Twain’” and “Notes and Comments,” 6 Jan 72, 1; “‘Mark Twain,’” Chicago Tribune, 20 Dec 71, 4; L4 , 519).
The bill and Clemens’s “enclosed note” have not been found, presumably because Olivia sent them to Redpath or to the tailors, both of whom were in Boston. Clemens probably bought the clothes referred to in November 1871, when he was last in that city.
That is, to travel from Columbus, Ohio, to Wooster in order to lecture on the evening of 6 January. According to the Wooster Republican, Clemens lectured successfully to a “fair audience” and mentioned his railroading difficulties:
Failing to make connection at Crestline {forty miles west of Wooster} he hired an engine to bring him to Wooster. He introduced his subject, “Roughing It,” by a very humorous description of his trip from Crestline to Wooster. The gentleman from Wooster, of regal appearance, who accompanied him and is said to have palmed himself off as the Grand Duke, enjoys the joke immensely, but denies its foundation in fact. (“Lecture of Mark Twain,” 11 Jan 72, 2)
The “gentleman from Wooster” was very likely Clemens’s official host there, attorney Charles M. Yocum (Redpath and Fall, 11–12; “Attorneys,” Wooster Republican, 11 Jan 72, 1).
See the previous letter, n. 5.
The enclosures have not been found, but were evidently printed jokes like the one Crane had just sent Clemens (4 Jan 72 to OLCclick to open letter).
Actually, Clemens did not “get home” to Hartford for more than a few days until after his 1 February lecture in Troy, New York, when he returned for a three-week break. He lectured on 30 January in Jersey City, and on 31 January in Paterson, New Jersey. For his lecture income, see 2 Jan 72 to Redpath, n. 4.click to open letter
See 2 Jan 72 to Redpath, n. 3click to open letter, and L4 , 504 n. 4.
Susan Crane.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L5 , 10–12; MFMT , 46, excerpt, mistakenly as part of 9 Nov 71 to OLC; LLMT , 171–72.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.