6 August 1884 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 01482)
Mrs. Clemens came near persuading me to go, & take her; but dear me, although I very much wanted to go, myself, I knew it wouldn’t answer at all. The summer is my only effective working-season; & as I have been hindered a great deal since we arrived here, I am so much behind hand that I dare not venture to spare a day out of what the few weeks that are left me. A few years ago I was growing old & rheumatic; but that is all changed, now: for now I have grown old & rheumatic; & so a long journey in the heats of summer is become formidable to me; nevertheless I would undertake it for the sake of the pleasure which my wife & I would find yonder at the end of it, as well as for the sake of any I might hope to give to others there, if I were but free of the necessity of holding my grip on my work & sticking steadfastly to it. Some day, I hope, you will change your dinner-hour to winter; then I am likely to be close by & idle; also hungry.
Both of us send our best thanks for your hospitable offers, & our sincere regrets that we must stay away.
P. S. I seem to enlarge upon my work as if it were something important. Indeed it is not; but I do it, just as if it were—that’s the heroism of the thing.
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
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Manuscript Letters Now in the Mark Twain Papers. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 11 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, CU-MARK.
MicroML, reel 5.