22? December 1880 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: ViU, UCCL 01876)
I wish you would compose a certain piece of music. I have hea imagined it all the morning—that is, imagined I was listening to it—but of course it was only blended sounds, & not articulated, not organized. Theme: “The Splendor falls on Castle walls, & snowy summits old in story.”
I imagined a quartette of mail male voices (without accompaniment) singing, down to where “Blow, bugle, blow” (then a few notes from a bugle behind the singers, or behind the scenes;) “Set the wild echoes flying!” (Bugle notes repeated.) Then “Answer, echoes” (bugle im (the bugle notes softly imitated by a concealed flute at the other end of the house, or in another room.) And so on: “O hark, O hear! (flute) how thin & clear! (flute) And thinner (flute) clearer, (flute) farther going! (flute) How thin & far (flute) from cliff & scar (flute) the horns of Elfland faintly blowing!” (flute.)
Well it does look like the very nation on paper, but it sounds well when it is fading & receding in my mind’s ear Horatio.
May be the song has been already set to music.—then it has been poorly done & nobody sings it; so I wish you’d do it over again & do it right. Won’t you?
References
- University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
- 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- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters.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, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Alderman Library, ViU.
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Deposited at ViU by Clifton Waller Barrett on 15 May 1962.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.