28 May 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: IU-R, UCCL 00470)
llc
Yourself & daughter must spare a moment to read my thanks for your hearty words & good wishes—& with mine go my wife’s with all her heart.1explanatory note
I believe I am out of the lecture field & I tell you it is imperial luxury to believe it, too.
We are arranging to spend August & part of Sept in the Adirondacks—& I do hope we shall get a chance to see you all for a moment in Boston while we are wandering away from home. For I can kiss the book & hold up my hand & depose, with Nasby, that “I would rather be a lamp-post in Boston than Mayor of another town.”2explanatory note
Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814–90), printer, journalist at the Boston Post and other papers, humorist, and lecturer, was the creator of the loquacious Mrs. Partington, whose comical sayings and doings filled a series of popular books. He had founded a Boston weekly, the Carpet-Bag (1851–53), where Clemens published “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter,” in 1852 ( ET&S1 , 63–65). Probably in response to Clemens’s wedding cards, Shillaber had sent the following poem, which Clemens published in the Buffalo Express on 12 February 1870 (2):
Congratulatory.
[B. P. Shillaber (Mrs. Partington) discourses pleasantly and kindly concerning a late occurrence as follows:]
Dear brother of the happy pen, Your card is just beneath my ken Announcing that ’mongst married men You’ve taken place: Well, Heaven bless you, “but and ben,” With fortune’s grace. There’s none deserving more the prize Of good that ‘long life’s pathway lies, Lit by sweet smiles and sunny eyes, Than you, my friend, And o’er you may benignant skies Forever bend. The world to you a tribute brings, And on your bridal altar flings, Grateful and glad for myriad things Your muse has lent, And one grand epithalamium sings O’er the event.We’ve gloried in the race you’ve run, We’ve gloried in the fame you’ve won Ere yet your life’s meridian sun Has gained its height, Illuming by his rays of fun A pathway bright.
And better far than all, dear Mark, Thou’st found the matrimonial ark In which the true who there embark Find many a charm, That prudence whispers those who hark To save from harm.
And I, your latest friend, am fain To pour my tributary strain, In unpretending rhyming vein, And thus appear, Invoking blessing on the Twain, With heart sincere. Benny dicite,
Boston, February 7. B. P. S.
(The Buffalo Commercial Advertiser printed the poem the same day [“A Recent Wedding,” 3].) Shillaber’s “hearty words & good wishes” may have come in a recent letter or were possibly delivered by John W. Ryan, assistant editor of the Boston Gazette. On 1 May Shillaber wrote a letter of introduction for Ryan, asking Clemens to “Please receive him graciously for his sake, your sake and my sake” (CU-MARK; Boston Directory 1869, 535).
Clemens had been in Boston twice with Nasby in 1869 ( L3 , 164, 169, 405–8). It is not known where or even whether Nasby published this remark about Boston.
References
- University of Illinois, Rare Book Room, Urbana, Ill.
- 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 4: 1870–1871. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1995
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 1 (1851–1864). Edited by Edgar Marquess Branch and Robert H. Hirst, with the assistance of Harriet Elinor Smith. The Works of Mark Twain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1979
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- 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
MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in the Rare Book Room, University of Illinois, Urbana (IU-R).
L4 , 142–144.
The MS, in the Franklin J. Meine Collection, was probably among the Mark Twain materials purchased from Meine’s widow in 1969.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.