18? October 1874 • Hartford, Conn. ( MTB , 1:526, UCCL 01143)
The atmosphere is very hazy, and it makes the autumn tints even more soft and beautiful than usual. Mr. Twichell came for Mr. Clemens to go walking with him; they returned at dinner-time, heavily laden with autumn leaves.
Twichell came up here with me to luncheon after services, & I went back home with him & Ⓐemendation took Susy along in her little carriage. We have just got home again, middle of afternoon, & Livy has gone to rest & left the west balcony to me. There is a shining & most marvelous miracle of cloud-effects mirrored in the brook; a picture which began with perfection, & has momently surpassed it ever since, until at last it is almost unendurably beautiful.1explanatory note
There is a cloud-picture in the stream now whose hues are as manifold as those in an opal & as delicate as the tintings of a sea-shell. But now a muskrat is swimming through it & obliterating it with the turmoil of wavelets he casts abroad from his shoulders.
The customary Sunday assemblage of strangers is gathered together in the grounds discussing the house.
Albert Bigelow Paine did not identify the addressee of this letter when he printed these excerpts ( MTB , 1:526). It was probably intended for the members of the Langdon family in Elmira, the recipients of a similar joint letter of 24? September 1874. The evidence for the date is derived from Twichell’s journal: his activities in the fall rule out any Sunday before 11 or after 25 October. The most likely date is 18 October, but a week earlier and a week later are both possible (Twichell, 1:1, 2, 7, 9, 12).
References
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. 3 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. [Volume numbers in citations are to this edition; page numbers are the same in all editions.] 1912
- 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 6: 1874–1875. Edited by Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 2002
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. “Mark Twain: Some Chapters from an Extraordinary Life. Ninth Paper.” Harper’s Monthly Magazine 125 (July): 249–63. 1912
- Twichell, Joseph H. “Personal Journal.” MS of 12 volumes, Joseph H. Twichell Collection, CtY-BR[bib10615]. 1874–1916
MTB , 1:526.
L6 , 259; Paine 1912, 249.