21 June 1869 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00318)
By the almanac, darling, this is the longest day in the year—& since you are gone from me I would know it to be the longest day without having to refer to the almanac. For I do miss you so much. “Old” Bliss says you are the prettiest girl he has seen for 2 years—& thinks he could venture to say longer, but he can’t depen recollect further back than that. Young Bliss says it is his usual luck—when he finds a girl he wants, somebody else has already got her.1explanatory note He thinks there can’t be any more like you—& I know it. You are the Ninth Statue—the Jim of the Ocean2explanatory note—you are the dearest, & the loveliest, & the best girl in all the world.
I don’t think I shall accomplish anything by tarrying here, & so I shall be in New York tomorrow evening. Warner says he wishes he could effect a copartnership with me, but he doubts the possibility of doing it—will write me if anything turns up.3explanatory note Bromley of the Post says the 5 owners of that paper are so well satisfied with the progress the paper is making that they would be loo loth Ⓐemendationto sell.4explanatory note He wants to talk with me again to-morrow Ⓐemendation morning. However, I am not anxious, for the Post is a not quite as desirable property in my eyes as its is in theirs.Ⓐemendation
P. S. However, I believe I’ll run out now & fill an appointment. Good-bye—in haste, my darling
in ink: Miss Olivia L. Langdon | 675 Fifth Avenue | New York.5explanatory note return address: allyn house, hartford, conn. r. j. allyn . postmarked: hartford conn. jun 22 docketed by OLL: 83rd
Clemens probably went to Hartford from New York, for the Hooker-Day wedding, on 16 June, a few days after the Langdons. He introduced Elisha and Frank Bliss to Olivia sometime before 21 June, when she and her parents left Hartford for New York City.
“Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” or “The Red, White, and Blue,” was introduced to American theater audiences in 1843. It was evidently written by songwriter Thomas à Becket, although it has often been attributed to singer David T. Shaw, who first performed it (Elson, 226–32; Cable Company, 6; Luther, 109–10; de Charms and Breed, 8; Sears, 104; Mattfeld, 63).
Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900), associate editor and part-owner of the Hartford Courant, had been in his youth a typesetter, postal clerk, railway surveyor, and an occasional contributor to magazines. After receiving a law degree in 1858 and practicing for two years, in 1860 he became associate editor to his friend Joseph R. Hawley on the Hartford Evening Press, which they merged with the Courant in 1867 (see 13 and 14 Feb 69 to OLL, n. 5click to open link). Warner had returned to Hartford from Europe on 16 June after nearly a year’s sojourn. On 17 June he attended the Hooker-Day wedding, where he surely first met Clemens, who was to become a life-long friend and his collaborator on The Gilded Age (1874). Probably on 21 June they had the discussion about a “copartnership” in the Courant summarized here—a conversation Clemens had been anticipating since February. In his 27 December 1869 letter to Olivia, he characterized the Courant management’s response to his proposal as “contemptuous indifference” (Lounsbury, v, vii–xii; Hawley, 10; Hartford Courant: “Brief Mention,” 16 June 69, 2; “A Wedding in Hartford,” 19 June 69, 2; “Mr. Warner’s Death,” 22 Oct 1900, 7).
Isaac Hill Bromley (1833–98), lawyer, founder of the Norwich (Conn.) Morning Bulletin, and former member of the Connecticut General Assembly, became editor and part-owner of the Hartford Evening Post in 1868. Three of his partners in the paper have been identified: H. T. Sperry, Ezra Hall, and Marshall Jewell (for the latter, see also 23 June 69 to Olivia Lewis Langdon, n. 4click to open link). The Post, like the Courant, was a Republican paper. It claimed “the largest circulation of any evening paper in New England outside of Boston,” compared to the Courant’s “daily 4,000 and weekly 9,000” (Rowell, 13; “Isaac H. Bromley Dead,” New York Tribune, 12 Aug 98, 7; Trumbull, 1:611).
The address of Henry and Fidele Brooks. Evidently on 22 June Olivia and her parents checked out of the St. Nicholas Hotel, where they had spent the previous night. Olivia then began a three-day visit with the Brookses, while her parents returned to Elmira (“Morning Arrivals,” New York Evening Express, 22 June 69, 3).
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
- Wecter, Dixon. The Love Letters of Mark Twain. Edited by Dixon Wecter. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1949
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 3: 1869. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Dahlia Armon. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1992
- Elson, Louis C. The National Music of America and Its Sources. Boston: L. C. Page and Co. 1899
- Cable Company. The One Hundred and One Best Songs: for Home, School and Meeting. Chicago: Cable Company. 1951
- Luther, Frank. Americans and Their Songs. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1942
- de Charms, Desiree, and Paul F. Breed. Songs in Collections: An Index. Detroit: Information Service. 1966
- Sears, Minnie Earl, ed. Song Index: An Index to More Than 12000 Songs in 177 Song Collections Comprising 262 Volumes. New York: H. W. Wilson Company. 1926
- Mattfeld, Julius. Variety Music Cavalcade, 1620–1969: A Chronology of Vocal and Instrumental Music Popular in the United States. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1971
- Lounsbury, Thomas R. “Biographical Sketch.” In The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner[bib14085], vol. 15. Hartford: American Publishing Company. 1904
- Hawley, Joseph R. “To the Editor of the Courant.” Hartford Courant, 22 October, 10. Undated letter, probably written 21 October. In The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner. 1900
- Rowell, George P. Geo. P. Rowell & Co’s American Newspaper Directory. New York: George P. Rowell and Co. 1869
- Trumbull, James Hammond, ed. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633–1884. 2 vols. Boston: Edward L. Osgood. 1886
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
LLMT , 101; L3 , 265–267.
see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.