11 April 1867 • St. Louis, Mo. (MS: CU-SB, UCCL 11498)
You remember I promised you, a long time ago in the Sandwich Islands, that I would asc be sure to get you a silver sword when I ascended Haleakala.2explanatory note I got it away down in the old crater, & used to try to think to send it to you, but always recollected it at some unseasonable hour.
PackingⒶemendation my trunk to-nightⒶemendation (for I leave to-morrow for New York, &, I suppose, for Europe a month later,) I came across the old swords, & hasten to send them, begging at the same time that you will excuse my characteristic negligence. I had to send them—I wouldn’t consider the Island trip complete with so chivalrous a promise, so knightly a deed as the disarming of a crater many times larger than myself & the laying of his weapons at the feet of a lady, unaccomplished. How’s that? I think I’ll put that in my lecture.
Remember me kindly, & many, many times, to Mrs. Hyde,3explanatory note & believe me
Alice (1844?–78) and her mother (see note 3), of San Francisco, were fellow passengers with Clemens on the Ajax when he sailed to the Hawaiian Islands in March 1866. Alice was still unmarried when she was killed in an accident in 1878 (New York Census 1850, 244–45; “Passengers,” Honolulu Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 24 Mar 66, 2; Langley 1867, 263; “Terrible Runaway Accident” and “Died,” San Francisco Alta California, 12 Mar 78, 1, 4).
The silversword plant (Argyroxiphium sandwichense) is found only in the high-altitude areas of the islands of Maui and Hawaii. The base of its tall central flower stem is surrounded by a dense head of slender, rigid, daggerlike leaves, eight to sixteen inches long, which are covered with silvery hairs. “In Hawaii the gathering of a silversword corresponds with the gathering of the edelweiss in the Alps, and furnishes the adventurous climber a prize well worth keeping as a memento of a trip that invariably costs much in exertion if not in actual peril” (William Alanson Bryan, 229). Clemens hiked up to the summit of Haleakala, a 10,023-foot-high dormant volcano with a crater 2,720 feet deep, during his visit to Maui from mid-April to 22 May 1866; his description of the trip may be found in chapter 76 of Roughing It ( N&J1 , 100).
Jane V. B. Hyde (1811?–85) and her husband, William F. Hyde (1799?–?1858), a merchant, had five children, of whom Alice was the second youngest. They moved from New York City to San Francisco in December 1851. Alice’s oldest brother, Henry Clay Hyde (b. 1835), became a prominent San Francisco attorney (New York Census 1850, 244–45; “Will of Jane V. B. Hyde,” San Francisco Morning Call, 30 Dec 85, 1; Langley 1858, 162; Langley 1859, 157; Langley 1860, 174; Langley 1867, 263; Rasmussen, 2:131–32, 3:32–33; San Francisco City and County 1867, s.v. “Hyde, Henry Clay”).
References
- University of California, University Library, Department of Special Collections, Santa Barbara, Calif.
- 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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 2: 1867–1868. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, Richard Bucci, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1990
- New York Census. “Free Inhabitants in . . . New York City.” National Archives Microfilm Publications, Microcopy no. 432. Washington, D.C.: General Services Administration. [1850] 1963
- Langley, Henry G., comp. The San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing September, 1867. San Francisco: Henry G. Langley. 1867
- Bryan, William Alanson. Natural History of Hawaii. Honolulu: Hawaiian Gazette Company. 1915
- N&J1. Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, Volume I (1855–1873). Edited by Frederick Anderson, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1975
- Langley, Henry G., comp. The San Francisco Directory for the Year 1858. San Francisco: S. D. Valentine and Son. 1858
- Langley, Henry G., comp. The San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing June, 1859. San Francisco: Valentine and Co. 1859
- Langley, Henry G., comp. The San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing July, 1860. San Francisco: Valentine and Co. 1860
- Rasmussen, Louis J. San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists. 4 vols. Colma, Calif.: San Francisco Historic Records. 1965–70
- San Francisco City and County. Supplementary List of Citizens of the United States Resident in the City and County of San Francisco, and Registered in the Great Register of Said City and County, Since the Making Out of the General List, in July, 1867. San Francisco: Mullin, Mahon and Co. 1867
MS, Department of Special Collections, University Library, University of California, Santa Barbara (CU-SB).
L2 , 21–22.
unknown.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.