Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes ()

Source: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass ([MH-H])

Cue: "Fall does the"

Source format: "MS"

Letter type: "[standard letter]"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: AB

MTPDocEd
To James Redpath and George L. Fall
7 March 1872 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 00731)
Dear Afflicted:

Fall does the carbuncles, Redpath does the boils—hire me to do an abscess & Nasby a tumor, or a wen, or something picturesque, like a goitre, for instance, & let’s g open the Lyceum Course at Music Hall1explanatory note with an exhibition, with appropriate music & a cold lunch. It would be the sensation of the season., if Redpath’s boils are happily emendation strikingly situated. We could get some surgeon to take the baton & lecture while the panorama moves.


But we must come down to the serious affairs of life. I dock your bill about $25 to feed fe fatemendation an ancient grudge I bear2explanatory note the Bureau! To get from Columbus, Ohio, to the next awfully out-of-the-way place, I had to hire a locomotive & pay $75 for it.3explanatory note If the Fall had adhered to my written stipulations that next place wouldn’t have been in my list at all. So I divide up the expense & make you pay a third of it, though my conscience continually urges me to mulct you the full amount, every time I think of the vexation, the profanity & the unspeakable indignation of that long day & the talking to the dullest & stupidest of audiences that memorable night. A place so out of the way that my usual telegraphing cost me $18 that day!

Enclosed please find check for $260 instead of $284.31.

But Lord bless you, being now avenged & satisfied, I will harbor vindictuitude no longer, but upon rep receipt of notice that this course is considered unkind & wrongful treatment by you, will hasten to forward the additional $24.31 immediately at once without delay.4explanatory note

Ys ever
Sam. L. Clemens.

letter docketed: 3/8.72 and Clemens Saml. L. | Hartford Conn | Mch. 7 ’72

Textual Commentary
7 March 1872 • To James Redpath and George L. FallHartford, Conn.UCCL 00731
Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).

Previous Publication:

L5 , 54–55.

Provenance:

bequeathed to MH by Evert Jansen Wendell (1860–1917), a Harvard alumnus and collector of theater memorabilia (Dickinson, 332–33).

Explanatory Notes
1 

Boston’s largest auditorium. Clemens lectured there on 1 November 1871 ( L4 , 422 n. 7, 484–85).

2 

Shylock’s words in The Merchant of Venice, act 1, scene 3.

4 

On 8 March the lyceum bureau acknowledged Clemens’s check as payment “in full for commissions on engagements for season 1871 & ’72” (CU-MARK).

Emendations and Textual Notes
  happily  •  false ascenders/descenders
  fe fat •  feat
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