15 January 1883 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: LNT, UCCL 02336)
I have just finished my book at last, & was about to return the volumes you so kindly lent me. I’ll get ’m started this afternoon or tomorrow. I am a little short-handed, in the executive department, the coachman’s family being down with scarlet fever—so I find myself a trifle overloaded with jobs which I don’t know the hang of. Two of our children are pretty sick, too—& 2½ weeks ago my secretary went home with scarlet fever, & since then I have disposed of 120 letters, January bills, & so on. My life is a trifle too busy these days.
When an audience do not complain, it is a compliment; & when they do it is a sort of confession that compliment, too, if unaccompanied by violence.
Geo. W. C remainder torn away | 229 remainder torn away written across left end of envelope: No Stuart in the lot, but give me the full title & I’ll rob a library for you. return address: return to s. l. clemens, hartford, conn., if not delivered within 10 days. postmark torn away
References
- Tulane University, New Orleans, La.
- 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
- Cardwell, Guy A. Twins of Genius. [East Lansing]: Michigan State College Press. 1953
- Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Previously Unpublished Letters.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, LNT.
Cardwell 1953, 89; MicroPUL, reel 2.