7 October 1873 • London, England (London Standard, 9 Oct 73, and MTB , 1:490 UCCL 00969)
TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD.
Sir,1explanatory note —In view of the prevailing frenzy concerning the Sandwich Islands, &Ⓐemendation the inflamed desire of the public to acquire information concerning them,2explanatory note I have thought it well to tarry yet another week in EnglandⒶemendation & deliver a lecture upon this absorbing subject. And lest it should beⒶemendation thought unbecoming in me, a stranger, to come to the public rescue at such a time, instead of leaving to abler hands a matter of so much moment, I desire to explain that I do it with the bestⒶemendation motives & the most honorableⒶemendation intentions. I do it because I am convinced that no one can allay this unwholesome excitement as effectually as I can, & to allay it, & allay it as quickly as possible, is surely the oneⒶemendation thing that is absolutely necessary at this juncture. I feel & know that I am equal to this task, for I can allay any kind of an excitement by lecturing upon it. I have saved many communities in this way. I have always been able to paralyzeⒶemendation the public interest in any topic that I chose to take hold of & elucidate with all my strength.
Hoping that this explanation will show that if I am seeming to intrude I am at least doing it from a high impulse, I am, sirⒶemendation, your obedient servantⒶemendation,
The editor of the Standard was James Johnstone, Jr., the proprietor’s son (see 5 Nov 73 to Bliss, n. 6click to open letter); he was assisted by John Eldon Gorst (1835–1916), a former Conservative member of Parliament—and, according to one of his colleagues, “a ‘pig-headed’ Tory” (Griffiths, 269, 627). No evidence has been found that Clemens sent duplicate letters to other newspapers. On 11 October, however, a brief paraphrase of the letter appeared in the London Court Journal (“Metropolitan On Dits,” 1194), which probably copied the text from the Standard.
William Lunalilo, king of the Sandwich Islands since January 1873, was dying of tuberculosis, and had not chosen a successor (see 3 Jan 73 to Reid [2nd], n. 1click to open letter). Two brief notices had appeared in the London Times, on 25 September and 2 October, announcing his illness and “expected death” (“The Sandwich Islands,” 5; Kuykendall and Gregory, 236).
No copy-text. The text is based on two transcriptions, each of which may derive independently from the manuscript:
P1, a clipping in Scrapbook 12:1, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK), was probably typeset from Clemens’s original manuscript. Although it is possible that Paine took his text (P2) from P1, incorporating his own revisions, several of P2’s variants appear to be authorial, suggesting that it may well have been typeset from Clemens’s own fair copy of the manuscript—made for security when he wrote the letter, and preserved among his papers. The occurrence of ‘Sir,—’ in both texts does not necessarily suggest that P2 derives from P1, since it may reflect the missing manuscript, or editorial styling applied independently by the Standard and by Paine, who consistently used this form when publishing Clemens’s letters (see the Description of Texts).
L5 , 448–449.
for the scrapbook see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.