28? November 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CtHMTH, UCCL 01156)
Your exquisite gift came this morning of course I need not tell you that I was entirely surprized and perfectly delighted— They are so dainty and beautiful, and the case adds ever so much to the pleasure of looking—at them, now you and Ida and Julia must come soon and use them with us, and let you us thank you for them—oh they are so pretty. It was so lovely in you to send them to me and I do truly thank appreciate the thoughtfulness which prompted the gift— 1explanatory note
I want to write you a long letter and fill it full of my thanks, but I have very little energy these days, so I am sure you will let this little stand for the much that I would say—
Love to Ida, Mother, Julia, and all— 2explanatory note
Livy—
I thought I would take advantage of the blank space left to testify my thanks & appreciation, too, Charley. The case is a jewel in itself & every new light thrown on it gives it a new beauty. If I had a suit of clothes like it I would want nothing more in this life. Now you come & see “your home” & help us enjoy it. Ida & Julia will enjoy it, too, I can promise them that. I have an admirable billiard table up stairs & am prepared to take pupils. I have taught Theodore the rudiments.
The “bay” had another of those spells yesterday & turned blue & white & scared everybody. Cause—a spoonful of cow’s milk. She will experiment no more. Patrick’s wife will sleep in the house & board her night & day hereafter till she quits school. She is all right again today.3explanatory note
Theodore & Sue remain with us till Monday. The house is still imperceptibly progressing.4explanatory note
Now don’t come to New York again without running Ⓐemendationup here.5explanatory note With love to you all—
The gift was for Olivia’s twenty-ninth birthday, on 27 November. If Langdon sent it by express from New York on that day (see note 5), it probably reached Hartford the following morning.
Specifically, Ida Langdon, Charles’s wife; Julia, their three-year-old daughter; and Mrs. Langdon.
This visit by the Cranes may have begun around 12 November, when Clemens left on his excursion to Boston with Twichell. One or both of them regularly came to Hartford to be with Olivia when she was indisposed or while Clemens was away.
On 27 November, the New York Evening Express (3) listed Langdon among the “Morning Arrivals” at the St. Nicholas Hotel.
MS, Jervis Langdon Collection, Mark Twain House, Hartford (CtHMTH).
L6 , 297–298.
The Jervis Langdon Collection was donated in 1963 by Ida Langdon.