5 October 1872 • London, England (MS: CU-MARK UCCL 00819)
By the enclosed it appears that I have an unknown friend in England.I was an ass to make a speech at such an awfully swell affair at 15 minutes notice s, but then the mere mention of my name, when according to ancient custom they called over the list, before soup,—my name being No.75 in a list of 250 guests, called forth a spontaneous welcome (the other names being received without this demonstration) that well-nigh took my breath away. I was so completely knocked out of time that I did not even know enough to get up & bow—a thing that makes me ashamed every time I think of it. So when they invented that toast I responded with alacrity. I made a good speech, too, but & it was received in a way that was exceedingly delightful; but it was execrably reported, & so I am disseminating the report that some impostor personated me there.1explanatory note If they had only reported one or two of the twenty other speeches made there, & butchered them, I could have stood it—but to be alone in my humiliation!
I am having a very cheerful time here (though of course you will know enough to tell my wife that I write in a rather sad va vein.) She gives me pleasant news of you & Mrs. Warner, for which I thank her. My warm regards to you both.
enclosure: 2explanatory note
THE SCOTTISH CORPORATION AND
MR. STANLEY AND MARK TWAIN.—
MARK TWAIN AT THE SHERIFFS’
DINNER.
(From our London Correspondent.)
London, Wednesday Evenibg.
I understand that the Scottish Corporation
have been
endeavouring to get Mr. Stanley to
be present at their annual festival
on Saint Andrew’s
Day, but that his having to be in
America
in November will prevent him.3explanatory note It is anticipated
that Mark Twain will be both present at the
din-
ner and make a speech.4explanatory note It may well be hoped
that if he should make a speech, the
reporters
will endeavour to do him more justice than they
did on the
occasion of the Sheriff’s Ⓐemendation dinner.
Mark Twain speaks very well. He has a good
loud,
telling voice, which he seems to know
well how to manage. On Saturday he
spoke
under much disadvantage. It was outrageous
to call upon a
stranger to respond to a
toast at a moment’s notice. When
the
company sat down to dinner, there was no
notice of having such
a toast as “Success to
Literature.” He would have
been fully justified
in declining to be unceremoniously put
forward.
Twain was too much the gentleman to refuse.
The speech was,
nevertheless, the best of the
evening. It abounded in capital points,
not one
of which was done justice to by the reporters.
I cannot
account for this.
in ink: Chas. Dudley Warner Esq | Cor. Forest & Hawthorne sts | Hartford | Conn. in upper left corner: U. S. of America. | flourish on flap: slc postmarked: london-w 7 oc 7 72 and new york oct 20 paid allⒶemendation
Clemens’s speech at the sheriffs’ dinner of 28 September, as reported in the LondonObserver the next day, is quoted in full in28 sept 72 to OLC, n. 5click to open letter.
The following article by George H. Fitzgibbon, Clemens’s “unknown friend,” appeared in the Darlington Northern Echo on 3 October 1872 (Fitzgibbon 1872). Fitzgibbon no doubt sent a clipping of it to Clemens, who in turn enclosed it in this letter (see the next letter, n. 1). Warner reprinted the item in the Hartford Courant on 22 October (“Mark Twain in London,” 2). The actual clipping has not been found: it is simulated here from the Northern Echo, reset line for line.
Clemens left England before the St. Andrew’s Day dinner on 30 November, but he attended the event during his return visit in 1873 and responded to the toast to “The Ladies” (see 28 Nov 73 to Fitzgibbonclick to open letter; “The Scottish Corporation,” London Morning Post, 2 Dec 72, 2).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), is copy-text for the letter. The enclosure does not survive. The source for it is “The Scottish Corporation and Mr. Stanley and Mark Twain,” Darlington Northern Echo, 3 Oct 72, 3 (Fitzgibbon 1872). The text printed here is a line-for-line resetting of the article. Copy-text is a microfilm edition of the newspaper at the Georgia State University Library (GASU).
L5 , 191–193.
The MS was donated to CU-MARK in January 1950 by Mary Barton, a close friend of the Warners’, who had owned it since at least 1938.