9 November 1871 • Worcester, Mass. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00670)
Livy darling, am just in from the lecture—just in from talking to 1700 of the staidest, puritanical g people you ever saw—one of the hardest g gangs to start that move, that ever was. By George the next time I come here I mean to put some cathartic pills in my lecture. The confounded chairman Ⓐemendation sat on the stage behind me—a thing I detest. He is the last one that can air his good clothes & his owlish mug on my platform. I will have no more of this.
I’m going to bed—I’m disgusted. This chairman was in very good spirits after the lecture. Said he—“Can’t anybody rouse up our audiences, but by j George you fetched ’em; & kept ’em at it, too.” “Fetched your grandmother!” I said,—“a man couldn’t fetch them with a hundred thousand yoke of oxen.”1explanatory note
But I love you, darling, & I’m going to scoot to bed. Kiss cubbie & mother for me. With a world of love—
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Cor. Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn postmarked: worcester mass. nov Ⓐemendation 10
According to the Worcester Spy, the capacity audience included “a sufficient number of people with a just appreciation of wit to acknowledge the hour of fun, and laugh most heartily; but there were others who did not appreciate the treat, and went down stairs at the close, talking about the very silly lecture they had listened to” (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” 10 Nov 71, 1).
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
- CC (Clara Langdon Clemens, later Gabrilowitsch and Samossoud). My Father, Mark Twain. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1931
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 487–488; MFMT, 45, with omissions.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.