26 April 1873 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MoHH, UCCL 11885)
Thank you heartily, you splendid old reconstructed profane rebel conundrumist!
The “old man” has been down again & spent two days with me—he came fortified—brought 6 bottles of Scotch whisky—& all he drank while here was two glasses.1explanatory note
We talked a deal about you & your disheartening habit of cursing & swearing at the table while the ladies & the ministers needed quiet & silence wherein to coax their sustenance to go down—& stay.
Well, the builders have been at work digging cellar a week, now, & so it does really look as if a year from to-day (as per contract) the architect might really be able to say, “Mr. Clemens your shanty is ready.” And then—or sooner if you can—I want you to come!2explanatory note
Good-bye—
John B. Garvie, the general contracto; and John R. Hills, the masonry contractor, built the house from plans by Edward T. Potter and Alfred H. Thorp. The Clemenses were not able to occupy it until the fall of 1874, and even then it was still unfinished ( MTB , 1:520; “Twain Home Given Builders,’ Pictures,” unidentified Hartford newspaper, 18 May 1931, PH in CU-MARK). It is not known whether Greene ever visited the Clemenses.
References
- Mark Twain Home Foundation, Hannibal, Mo.
- 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 5: 1872–1873. Edited by Lin Salamo and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1997
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. 3 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. [Volume numbers in citations are to this edition; page numbers are the same in all editions.] 1912
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
MS, Lyman L. Pierce Collection, Mark Twain Home Foundation, Hannibal, Missouri (MoHH).
L5 , 356–357.
donated to MoHH in 1995 by Lyman L. Pierce.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.