ALS signed “Mark Twain,” two pages, 4.5 x 7, written vertically on his personal embossed letterhead, May 3. Clemens sends a letter to the editor of the the New York Independent newspaper. In full: “five or six days hence, for the benefit of a Hartford Charity, & . I can’t recal [sic] the title of it; I only remember that a mother calls, ‘Is that you, Pet?’ & is answered, not by the favorite, lent by another of her children, ‘It isn’t Pet, mamma, it’s only me.’ There are only 4 stanzas; would you be so obliging, in the broad interest of charity, as to allow your office-boy to copy & mail it to me? I hate to make a reading entirely out of my own pathos. Hoping you will do me this much desired favor.” In fine condition, with some scattered soiling and staple holes to top edge. As esteemed a writer as Clemens was, he was also an incredibly heralded and famed public speaker, a vocation that didn’t hold possession of his mind and spirit the way writing did: “Although I have permanently quitted the platform (I mean the general platform,) I am to ‘read’ here.” For this particular engagement, Clemens sought the poetic musings of the four-stanza’s of the piece, ‘Favoritism,’ as he would rather have showcased the talent of another writer rather than take from his own words: “I very much desire to use a little poem (by Caroline Mason, if I remember rightly,) which appeared in the Independent about last August or September.” A wonderful request from the author of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to share inspirational words at one of his much acclaimed speaking engagements.
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