To
Clara M. Wilson
27 October 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CSadM, UCCL 01847)
27 October 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: CSadM, UCCL 01847)
Confidential.
You being a girl, my dear, I will tell you a secret. w Most of these swell proverbs which we have fed on, morally, all our lives, are brim full of humor—you look & see if it isn’t so.
Don’t tell anybody I added a sentiment—it’s a thing which I can do only 2 or 3 times a year—for the rest of the time I am too busy.
S. L. C.
on a new page:
“A lie carries with it its own antidote.”
There—I don’t know who is the author of it, but it is the most gravely humorous maxim that exists. The humor of it, is, that it is a palpable & impudent lie itself, yet carries no antidote with it, for every goose in Christendom believes it.
Truly Yours
Mark Twain
Oct. 27, 1880.
References
- Calaveras County Museum & Archives Library, San Andreas, 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
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 8 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, CSadM.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Donated to CSadM before 1955 by E. A. Potter.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.