30 July 1877 • New York, N.Y. (MS, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 01459)
Livy my darling, I don’t make any excuse, I only say I have worked like a dog, through this blistering weather & come home, whether early or late with the feeling that I couldn’t write.1explanatory note I am just from the theatre now, 5 PM. IⒶemendation coached those actors five hours in that close, hot oven, & before that had been away up town on foot, on a business errand. To-night we hears rehearse again—also tomorrow. I believe the 3 first acts will go off nicely—& that is the main point; if the curtain goes down handsomely on the 3d act, all will be well. It will not go down handsomely on the last act—I think I can foresee that. The last act is exceedingly difficult, being cut all up into ejaculations, & O’s, & exclamations, & rushes, & shouts, & noise, & it seems impossible to drill the people into doing it right. There will be gaps of silence, & mistakings of cues that will be pretty distressing. Still, we are having a much more thorough rehearsal thatn we had of Col. Sellers. Daly stays right by & attends strictly to business. He makes them do a scene over three or four times, till they get it right.
Harte has not put in an appearance.2explanatory note
Our officer writes me that George & Mary3explanatory note were gone on a pic-nic 24 hours, the other day. I am going to keep the officer on duty there every night till we go home. It will be best, now that Lizzy’s affair is in all the papers.4explanatory note
My darling I do love you; I do love you with all my heart, & am so sorry I have caused you distress. I won’t do it again, sweetheart.
Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Elmira | N.Y. postmarked: new york jul 30 12pm
On 28 July Olivia Clemens had written from Quarry Farm (CU-MARK):
UCCL 01457click to open letter
Charles Kingsley (1819–75) was an English clergyman, university professor, historian, and novelist whom Clemens had met in 1873 when lecturing in London (26 Nov 1873 to OLC, L5, 485–87). Olivia quoted a passage from an 1847 letter found in a recently published book of his letters and memoirs, edited by his wife (Kingsley 1877, 1:147). Neither Clemens’s card of Thursday, 26 July, nor the letter he evidently wrote on Sunday, 22 July, is known to survive.
Olivia repeated her caution about Bret Harte in a letter of 29 July (CU-MARK):
Youth I want to caution you about one thing, don’t say harsh things about Mr Harte, don’t talk against Mr Harte to people, it is so much better that you be reticent about him, don’t let anybody trap you into talking freely of him—We are so desperately happy, our paths lie in such pleasant places, and he is so miserable, we can easily afford to be magnanimous toward him—but I am afraid that my desire to have you quiet is not from generosity to him, but from my selfish desires toward you. I don’t want you in the position of having talked against him—be careful my darling—
MS, in pencil, CU-MARK.
MicroML, reel 4.
See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open letter.