9 August 1867 • Naples, Italy (MS, damage emended: CU-MARK, UCCL 00144)
I can’t write but a word. I have been away a day or two—slept none last night & sailed for on return to Naples at daylightⒶemendation, thinking I would go to bed when I got here—got to talking—then went to see the king’s palace—lost time in one way or another till now it is night & I learn for the first time that our own party have decided to start for Vesuvius at midnightⒶemendation.1explanatory note I have some little preparation to make. Good-bye.
I wrote to Bill Stewart today accepting his private secretaryship in Washington next winner. When I come to think of it, I believe it is can be made one of the best paying berths in Washington. Say nothing of this. At least I can get an office for Orion, if he or the President will modify their politics.2explanatory note
Orion Clemens, Esq. Ⓐemendation | 1312 Chesnut street Ⓐemendation | St Louis Mo | United ⒶemendationStates of America. two postmarks: napoli 9 ago Ⓐemendation◇ ◇ 12 ◇ and torino 11 ago 67 12 m ufo succursale Ⓐemendation n. 43explanatory note one or more postmarks and postage stamps torn away
Clemens’s party, consisting of four men and four women, departed late in the evening of 9 August for Vesuvius. Only three of his companions have been identified: Dr. Jackson, Dr. Nesbit, and Julia Newell (Abraham Reeves Jackson 1867; Nesbit, entry for 10 Aug; Newell 1867).
Orion Clemens openly sided with the Radical Republicans in Congress against President Andrew Johnson’s pro-Southern Reconstruction policies. The passage of the First Reconstruction Act on 2 March 1867—over Johnson’s veto—prompted Orion to write the San Francisco Times:
Congress, by passing the Reconstruction law, has steered the Ship of State past two dangers: First—Rebel votes and corruption forcing the United States to pay the rebel debt.
Second—Rebel Governors and rebel Congressmen fomenting a foreign war, and then joining the enemy against their own country.... If any newspaper correspondent should write that the late rebels are friends of the whole country, put him down as a Copperhead, beslabbering his party with false praise. (OC 1867)
At the time of the present letter Orion was evidently growing desperate for any sort of employment. By September he had begun approaching several friends and acquaintances in his original profession of typesetting:
I asked William McKee of the Missouri Democrat for a situation any where about his office—job office, newspaper, or reporter. He said he would let me know if there was a vacancy, but job printing was very dull. He had discharged half a dozen hands last week. I went to the Missouri Republican office, but there were only a few men in the job office, and half of them seemed to bridle. I went to Levisons. Two men were at work, but seemed to have little to do. I asked Thomas Watt Ustick for work in his job office. He said they were full. (OC to MEC, 6 Sept 67, CU-MARK)
That is, “ufficio succursale n. 4,” branch office number 4. Why the letter went to Turin has not been explained.
References
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 2: 1867–1868. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Richard Bucci, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1990
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. 3 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. [Volume numbers in citations are to this edition; page numbers are the same in all editions.] 1912
- Jackson, Abraham Reeves. “Letter XIII. From the Mediterranean Excursion.” Letter to the editor (A. O. Greenwald) dated 11 August, clipping from the Monroe County (Pa.) Democrat preserved in a scrapbook owned by Horace Levy. Photocopy in CU-MARK. Reprinted in Regan and Dickinson 1995, 33–36. 1867
- Nesbit, Benjamin B. Journal of the Quaker City excursion, 1 January–6 September plus memoranda. MS owned by Mary N. Shelnutt, Claremont, Calif. Photocopy in CU-MARK courtesy of Leon T. Dickinson. 1867
- Newell, Julia. “From Janesville to the Holy Land.” Letter dated 10 August. Janesville (Wis.) Gazette, 17 October, unknown page. 1867
- Clemens, Orion. “Letter from St. Louis.” Unsigned letter dated 11 March. San Francisco Times, 13 April, 2. 1867
MS, damage emended, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library (CU-MARK).
L2 , 78–79; MTB , 1:346 n. 1, brief excerpt.
see Mark Twain Papers, pp. 514–15. On the first MS page, Paine wrote, in pencil now erased, “No. 3,” and on the second page, also erased, “This page.”
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.