13 February 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: UkLNAL, UCCL 01047)
I am sorry I can’t come, for I most sincerely like British audiences; but I find my wife does not enjoy being left alone so much, & I can’t blame her. So I have managed to get released from my half dozen engagements in New York & Boston, & made a deep, strong vow that I will not lecture again this season, except it be gratuitously for some charity in my immediate vicinity.
Morrin is at home & happy, in Montreal—have had a note from him. Rev. Mr. Dunn is in California by this time, & I do hope that his young companion is no longer famishing.2explanatory note
On 31 January Clemens wrote Frank Fuller that he was “entirely idle” and planned to “remain so for two weeks & possibly three.” That helps explain why for nine days, between 4 and 13 February, no letters have been found.
Baillie, Samuel Morrin, and the Reverend R. Dunn were all fellow passengers of Clemens’s during the transatlantic crossing on the Parthia in January. Neither Morrin’s note nor Baillie’s invitation to lecture has survived. Dunn’s “famishing” companion has not been identified. The published passenger list misidentified Baillie as “J. E. Baillie” (“Arrival of the Parthia,” Boston Evening Transcript, 26 Jan 74, 1). This letter survives among the papers of William E. Baillie (b. 1848 or 1849), which also include the following autograph, on Parthia letterhead, doubtless to him as well: “Very Truly Yrs | Samℓ L. Clemens | Mark Twain | Jan. 25” (information courtesy of the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (UkLNAL).
L6 , 30–31.
donated in 1959, together with several other letters to Baillie, by “Miss Baillie,” possibly his granddaughter.