20 December 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (MS, postal card, in pencil: CtHMTH, UCCL 01395)
Shall go to New York tomorrow & return Saturday.1explanatory note I hope the Parsloe contracts will be ready then. He will probably run up here with me.2explanatory note
us postal card. | write the address on this side—the message on the other | Chas. E. Perkins, Esq 14 State st City postmarked: hartford conn. dec 20 ◊pmⒶemendation
Clemens was engaged to speak to the New England Society in the City of New York, at Delmonico’s restaurant, on the evening of Friday, 22 December. The society had been founded “to commemorate the landing of the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock and to promote friendship, charity, and mutual assistance, and to establish and maintain a library” (New England Society 1877, v). Its president had invited Clemens to reply to a toast that included a quotation from act 1, scene 3, of Troilus and Cressida (CU-MARK):
The New York Times noted that “Mark Twain provoked a storm of laughter by his rambling talk about ‘New-England Weather’” (“Forefathers’ Day,” 23 Dec 1876, 1). For the Times’s verbatim report of the speech, see the Appendix “Speech to the New England Society”click to open letter. The society’s dinner chairman possibly was Thomas Gold Appleton (see 29 Jan 1876 to Twichellclick to open letter, n. 3).
On 16 December Harte met with Charles T. Parsloe in New York and then reported to Clemens in a letter that same day (CU-MARK):
I read him those portions of the 1st & 2nd act that indicated his role, and he expressed himself satisfied with it, and competent to take it in hand. As nearly as I could judge he was pleased.
Of the contract, its nature, what would be his share of the profits, and generally what we should expect from him I said nothing. In fact I was only too glad to leave all that business with you. He talked,—a little prematurely I thought and with a certain egotism that I had not noticed before—about his having made the fortunes already of certain people to whom he had been subordinate, and of his intention now of trying to make his own. He intimated that he was hereafter “going to look out for himself.” To all of which I said nothing, and shall deliver him into your hands without committing you to even a single suggestion. He is to go with me to Hartford on such day as I may name early next week, and I shall give you notice by telegraph of our coming twelve hours before. You can, if you like, meet us at the station, and we can go to your lawyer’s at once.
(Harte’s letter was published with one error—“had noticed” instead of “had not noticed”—in Harte 1997, 143–44.) Presumably Harte and Parsloe had not come to Hartford between 16 and 20 December, nor did Parsloe accompany Clemens to Hartford on Saturday, 23 December, since the Ah Sin contract was not then ready for signatures. Clemens signed it on 30 December, and Harte and Parsloe both signed on 5 January 1877 (see the Appendix "Book and Play Contractsclick to open letter.") Clemens must have conferred with both men in New York, however, before returning home accompanied by his cousin, Tip Saunders, whom he had invited for the holiday. In a letter of 18 December (replying to his 16 December invitation, which no longer survives) she had agreed to meet him “at the appointed time, & place,” probably Grand Central Station, in order to take the 11 a.m. train (CU-MARK). One year later, on 23 December, Saunders, once again in New York, wrote Clemens that “as the holidays approach it reminds me of the pleasant week I spent at your house one year ago” (CU-MARK). No evidence has been found that he invited her again (19 Oct 1876 to Saundersclick to open letter; Scharnhorst 1992, 35–37, 59–60).
MS, postal card, in pencil, CtHMTH.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
See Perkins Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open letter.