29 November 1881 • Montreal, Canada (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 02105)
Well, sweetheart, I have walked a few miles this morning with the same gentleman who took me to the mountain-top (Mr. Iles,) & inspected a lot of Catholic churches, French markets, shop windows, &c. But for the shame of it, the indignity to my pride, I would like to be a Catholic priest’s slave, & glide in with my basket or my bundle, & duck my head & crook my knee at a painted image, & glide out again with my immortal part refreshed & strengthened for my day’s burdens. But—I am not a priest’s slave, & so it hurts me, hurts me all through, to recognize, by these exhibitions, what poor animals we are, what children, how easily fooled, beguiled, & by what cheap & trivial devices., by what thin & paltry lies. Which reminds me—you must read about the early Jesuit missionaries in Canada. Talk about self-abnegation! heroism! fidelity to a cause! It was sublime, it was stupendous. Why what these men did & suffered, in trying to rescue the insulting & atrocious savages from the doom of hell, makes one adore & glorify human nature as exemplified in those priests—yes, & despise a it at the very same time. In endurance & performance they were gods; in credulity, & in obedience to their ecclesiastical chiefs, they were swine.
One is so carried out of his mind with enthusiasm over these marvelous labors & sufferings & sacrifices, that for a moment he is deceived into imagining that nothing but a religion can make men do these things., (& he is helped in that direction toward that delusion by his life-long pulpit-& tract-teaching.) But no—all that these men did & suffered, in the love of money, hatred of an enemy, affection for a child, a wife, a betrothed, has can Ⓐemendation mad ke men do & suffer—yes, infatuation for a filthy prostitute can make a man rival the Ju esuit missoionaries at their grandest & finest.
But a friend waits to take me to luncheon—so I break off my sermon. But I kiss you & Susie & Bay—& even Jean.
Mrs. S. L. Clemens | Hartford | Conn return address: windsor hotel montreal. postmarked: montreal canada no 29 1 pm and rec’d. hartford conn nov 30 8am
References
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- 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
- Wecter, Dixon. The Love Letters of Mark Twain. Edited by Dixon Wecter. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1949
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Manuscript Letters Now in the Mark Twain Papers. Prepared by Anh Quynh Bui, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Robert H. Hirst, Lin Salamo, and Harriet Elinor Smith. 11 vols. Berkeley: The Bancroft Library. 2001
MS, CU-MARK.
LLMT, 205–6; MicroML, reel 4.
See Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.