28 October 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01848)
Receive a lesson. This is a plan which I have used to for many years to get the advantage of a bad memory. I keep the hieroglyphics in my pocket, but I don’t have to refer to them.
Pratt & Whitney.
———
They ve raised these rivers here with their tears—joyful
tears—& dissipated the malaria
on the verso, canceled with three vertical rules:
As this is the
As
As I have long ago sworn off from lecturing
& other forms of lying., I seriously thought, for a
time, of making
enlarging the reform complete by going
ascending into the pulpit or some other middle ground between
fact & fiction
ascending as far as the truth pulpit toward the remote
heights of the
the truth; but finally resolved to make the reform complete by
climbing on, clear
enclosure of three pages: page 1 shows drawings of an eye, wash tub and board, running man, house labeled “Poor house”, and other images and words; page 2 shows drawings of an angel, a church steeple, smoke, a man labeled “tramp”, and other images and words
page 3:
ENGLAND
———————————
He forgives you & we forgive you—all &
everything—& you shall have yr W T. which
you urge upon us—
———————————
My 3 pages of hieroglyphic notes, memorized
to keep a memorized speech straight in my
head—delivered Oct. 26/80 in Hartford.
References
- Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.
- 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
- MTHL. Mark Twain–Howells Letters. Edited by Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson, with the assistance of Frederick Anderson. 2 vols. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1960
MS, MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 (98).
MTHL , 1:334.
See Howells Letters in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.