18 November 1879 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CSmH, UCCL 01731)
I’ll be danged if I ever seem to do anything right, & between you & me I’ll be derned if I ever do do anything right—intentionally, I mean. But to come down to the solid facts, I made all my plans to stop over with you a day—going. Then I consulted my character, & believed I knew enough of myself to know that if I stopped I shouldn’t go any further. Then I resolved to stop over, returning—but that was all busted up in Chicago., & I couldn’t. There’s millions of reasons, but it ain’t any use to offer them to you, because they wouldn’t have any weight with you. I have noticed that mothers are so unreasonable. It has been the way with all that I’ve ever had, & you are one of the very unreasonablest of the lot. The times I’ve noticed it!
But here comes Livy, & if I don’t drop everything & run to dinner, of course there will be trouble in that quarter, next. You kiss Mollie for me, & pet her up—what is a Mother for but to heal a fellow’s difficulties with—& tell her I’ll be along by & by, sure. And you tell John & Mrs. John Hay not to venture to Washington without coming up here & seeing how bad a cook a body can get here for only three or four dollars a week. They already have my political support—what they need out of me, now, is a moral lift.
Livy has shut down on any further extension of this letter.
But honestly, my main reason was that I left Livy all alone & almost worn out with house-settling. She hardly sleeps when I am away.
References
- Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif.
- 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 to Mrs. Fairbanks. Edited by Dixon Wecter. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library. 1949
MS, CSmH, call no. HM 14301.
MTMF , 234–35.
See Huntington Library in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.