25 August 1881 • 1st of 2 • Boston, Mass. (MS: CCamarSJ, UCCL 02015)
Livy darling, I will write you just a line; then send down for my breakfast; then expect Osgood about 10.30 o’clock. I never saw Mr. Slee any more after I went to bed at midnight in the cars. I found, next morning, in Albany, that I could catch the Springfield train by rushing; so I rushed—in a hack—& was the last ppassenger that joined it.
Well, pretty soon I heard a couple of foreigners talking (it was in the smoking car,) & they had exceedingly good faces—in fact one of them had a face strongly resembling Charles Kingsley’s; & although he was evidently a laboring man, & was covered with cinders, his face was beautiful because of its sweetness. ; —
Well, we hadn’t gone many miles when it turned out that this one, being deceived by the chuckle-headed station-names (both having a Boston in its name,) was on the wrong road.— So his ticket wasn’t good, & he must get off at the next station & go back & wait, &c So I called the conductor aside & paid the man’s fare to Boston & took his ticket. It had two days to run—so it is dead to-night. It was a “limited” ticket—second class. But what I started to say, was, that getting interested in those people’s faces, absorbed my attention & I just accepted, as final, ) the fact that there was no drawing room car when I came aboard, & never looked out of the window to see if a change was made—but sweated it manfully out, for 4 hours, in that filthy smoking car; & at last, when I stood in the Springfield depôt & the train I had just vacated glided by, I noticed that it had upwards of a million drawing room cars attached. So I said Dam those foreigners. But there’s Osgood. I love you, darling.
References
- St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, California. Formerly home to the Estelle Doheny collection (now dispersed)
- 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
- Harnsberger, Caroline Thomas, ed. The Family Letters of Mark Twain. n.p. 1947
- Wecter, Dixon. The Love Letters of Mark Twain. Edited by Dixon Wecter. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1949
MS, CCamarSJ.
Harnsberger 1947, 56–57; LLMT , 204–5; Christie’s catalog, 1 and 2 February 1988, lot 468, partial publication.
See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open link. The MS was sold to the Yushodo Company at Christie’s sale of the Estelle Doheny Collection on 1 and 2 February 1988.