27 December 1871 • Tuscola, Ill. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00695)
I made an ass of myself leaving a mean hotel at midnight to hunt up another a good one 20 miles away. Train was behindⒶemendation time & didn’t get me here till 2.30 AM—& wasn’t it bitter cold—the coldest night of the season. No one at the depot. Hunted up the hotel myself & carried my own baggage. FoundⒶemendation every bed in the house occupied—so I had to sit up, in a fireless office the rest of the night.1explanatory note My spe splendidⒶemendation overcoat earned its cost—every cent of it.2explanatory note My body was not cold for a moment—but all the dirty shirts & things I could pile i Ⓐemendation find in my valise wouldn’t keep my legs warm. I wouldn’t tell who I was, or I could have fared better—I was too savage.
Got breakfast at 7.30, & then pitched into my new lecture & memorized the last half of it. So I know it all, now, & can begin to use it the moment I get away from the Chicago Tribune country.
Lectured on Ward tonightⒶemendation. I got Ⓐemendation had got through work in time to take a brief, nice nap before talking—consequently was uncommonly bright & fresh.3explanatory note
Am in splendid condition, now to go on working till 1 o’clock——you see they have changed the time-tableⒶemendation, & so I have to be up the entire night to-night again. But I am in hight vigor & don’t mind it.
I do hope the cubbie is well again—shall be anxious to get your letter tomorrow & learn how he is.4explanatory note
I am going to kiss you good night, my darling, & get at my work. I can do a great deal between this & train time.
Kiss mother & the baby for me, & believe that I love you with all my heart, my darling.
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Cor Forest & Hawthorne | Hartford | Conn postmarked: tuscola illⒶemendation. dec 29
Clemens’s reservation at Tuscola’s new Beach House (built in 1870), was for the night of 27 December, following his lecture (Redpath and Fall 1871–72, 9–10; Wallace, 51).
Writing to Orion and Mollie Clemens from London on 12? September 1873, Clemens reported that he had “ordered a sealskin overcoat for Charley Langdon—price £50, which is just what mine cost me in Buffalo” (NPV†). He indicated that he had bought his own coat in September 1871. The price in Buffalo would have been $250.
In addition to memorizing his revised “Roughing It” lecture, Clemens was reading and correcting proofs of the book ( RI 1993 , 871–72). No reviews of his Tuscola performance have been found.
For more than a week, Langdon Clemens had been suffering from “lung fever” (28 Dec 71 to JLCclick to open link). On 20 December Olivia had written to Clemens about the baby, but sent her letter to Mattoon, Illinois, which he did not reach until 29 December (CU-MARK):
My Darling
I must not write you tonight because I should write you a homesick letter, I do so long to see you—
The baby has been better today, I hope he is over the worst now— Mother and Emma have gone to Miss Dickenson’s lecture, I, of course, would not leave our boy—
When we say where is papa he looks right at your picture that stands on the bureau—
Good night my dearest dear heart—more than a month of seperation yet, before we even look at each other—
I love you Youth—
But as the present letter shows, Olivia also reported the baby’s condition in subsequent letters which Clemens had already received. Anna Dickinson lectured on “Demagogues and Workingmen” (“Anna Dickinson this Evening,” Hartford Courant, 20 Dec 71, 2). “Emma” may have been Olivia’s Elmira friend Emma Sayles.
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
- Redpath, James, and George L. Fall. Notebook containing Clemens’s lecture itinerary for 1871–72 in the hand of George H. Hathaway of the Boston Lyceum Bureau. MS of sixteen pages entitled “Lecture-route, winter of 1871” and annotated by Clemens. Accompanied by its own black leather wallet, which is engraved in gold on an interior flap “Sam’l L. Clemens,” CU-MARK. 1871–72
- Wallace, Robert D. “A Gentleman of Some Notoriety: Mark Twain Speaks in Illinois.” Unpublished TS, CU-MARK. 1960?
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Roughing It. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Edgar Marquess Branch, Lin Salamo, and Robert Pack Browning. The Works of Mark Twain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. This edition supersedes the one published in 1972. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1993
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 524–26; MFMT , 48–49, excerpt.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.