22 February 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00579)
Return to me, per express, the “Liars” & the other 2 sketches—right away.1explanatory note
Livy is very, very slowly & slightly improving, but it is not possible to say whether she is out of danger or not—but we all consider that she is not. I have a non-resident Ⓐemendationphysician in the house, hired at fifty dollars a day—(but this you are not to repeat.)2explanatory note
Two of these sketches have been identified (4 and 5 Jan 71 to Blissclick to open link, nn. 1, 3; 4 Mar 71 to OC, n. 1click to open link).
Rachel Brooks Gleason (1820–1905) had come from Elmira, most likely in mid-February, to temporarily supplant Andrew Wright as Olivia’s physician. A teacher until her marriage in 1844 to Dr. Silas O. Gleason (1818–99), she was one of the first women admitted to the Central Medical College in Rochester, where, studying under her husband, she received her degree in 1851. The Gleasons opened the Elmira Water Cure on East Hill in 1852, where Rachel thereafter treated several Langdon family members and friends. Her 1870 book, Talks to My Patients: Hints on Getting Well and Keeping Well, which dispensed medical and practical advice for women from childhood through menopause, was currently enjoying great success, having gone through five printings in its first year (Cotton, 20–21; Willard and Livermore, 322; Kirk, 1:677; 14 Mar 71 to Fairbanksclick to open link). The Water Cure was temporarily closed by the Gleasons “for a few months, to afford them rest,” and reopened on 1 May 1871 (“Elmira Water Cure,” Elmira Advertiser, 29 Apr 71, 4). Rachel Gleason probably remained in Buffalo until early March, when Olivia’s condition began to improve.
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 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
- Cotton, Michelle L. Mark Twain’s Elmira, 1870–1910. Elmira, N.Y.: Chemung County Historical Society. 1985
- Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore, eds. A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton. 1893
- Kirk, John Foster. A Supplement to Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. 2 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1892
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 334–335.
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.