with a note to Charles E. Porter
7 November 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MB, UCCL 02083)
It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you a friend of mine, Mr. Charles E. Porter, citizen of Hartford, who comes to Paris to continue his studies in painting. I not only commend him to your own good offices with confidence, but I make bold to venture further & commend him to those various friends of yours to whom Mr. Warner, Mr. Ward, Mr. St Gaudens, etc., made you known when you went to Paris; for I am satisfied that he is worthy of your & their kind attentions & will prove it by his conduct & his appreciation.
Without money or moneyed friends he has fought his way steadily to a good & substantial place in the esteem of the people here, by sheer force of talent & patient diligence in the study & practice of his art; & he carries with him introductory letters from citizens of ours who do not give such things lightly.
I commend him to you & your friends in an especial way, because you are the persons who can be most useful to a student & stranger, & can best advise him where to live, how to live, whom to place himself under—in a word, how to make his path straight & sure.
With love to you both from Mrs. Clemens & me, I am
P. S. The medallion came, & I am going to write about it soon—very soon.
on back of letter as folded:
Mr. Karl Gerhardt,
Ecole National des Beaux Arts,
(Elève Jouffroy,)
Rue Bonaparte,
Paris
Mail this to this address, when you get to Paris, Mr Porter, naming your hotel, & Mr. Gerhardt will come to you or inform you how to find his house.
References
- Boston Public Library and Eastern Massachusetts Regional Public Library System, Boston
- 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- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters.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, MB.
Parke-Bernet Galleries catalog, 4–5 April 1939, no. 103, lot 95, partial publication; MicroPUL, reel 2.