Letter from Samuel Langhorne Clemens to Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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This is a scanned version of the original document in the Abernethy Manuscripts Collection at Middlebury College.

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Farmington Avenue, Hartford. Dec. 18 My Dear Aldrich: I read the Cloth of Gold through, coming down in the cars, & it is just lightening poetry - a thing which it gravels me to say because my own efforts in that line have remained so persistently unrecognized, in consequence of the envy & jealousy of this genera-

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tion. Baby Bell always seemed perfection, before, but now that I have children it has got even beyond that. About the hour that I was reading it in the cars, Twichell was reading it at home & forthwith fell upon me with a burst of enthusiasm about it when I saw him. This was pleasant, because he has long been a lover of it. "Thos. Bailey Aldrich responded" etc., "in one

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of the brightest speeches of the evening." That is what the Tribunes correspondent says. And that is what everybody that heard it said. Therefore, you keep still. Don't ever be so unwise as to go on trying to unconvince these people. I've been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs. Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun in skating if you could do it with somebody else's muscles. There are about twenty boys booming by the house, now, & it is mighty good to look at

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I'm keeping you in mind you see, in the matter of photographs. I have a couple to enclose in this letter & I want you to say you got them & then I shall know I have been a good, truthful child. I am going to send more, as I ferret them out, about the place. - And I won't forget that you are a "subscriber." The wife & I unite in warm regards to your & Mrs. Aldrich. Yours Ever S. L. Clemens

Last edit over 2 years ago by shashathree
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