I have got such a perfectly delightful razor. I have a notion to buy some for Charley, Theodore and Slee—for I know they have no such razors there. I have got a neat little watch-chain for Annie—$20.
I love you my darling. My love to all of you.
SAML.
That Mark Twain should feel and privately report something of his
triumphs we need not wonder at. Certainly he was never one to give
himself airs, but to have the world's great literary center paying
court to him, who only ten years before had been penniless and
unknown, and who once had been a barefoot Tom Sawyer in Hannibal,
was quite startling. It is gratifying to find evidence of human
weakness in the following heart-to-heart letter to his publisher,
especially in view of the relating circumstances.
To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford:
LONDON, Sept. 28, 1872.
FRIEND BLISS,—I have been received in a sort of tremendous way, tonight, by the brains of London, assembled at the annual dinner of the Sheriffs of London—mine being (between you and me) a name which was received with a flattering outburst of spontaneous applause when the long list of guests was called.
I might have perished on the spot but for the friendly support and assistance of my excellent friend Sir John Bennett—and I want you to paste the enclosed in a couple of the handsomest copies of the “Innocents” and “Roughing It,” and send them to him. His address is
“Sir John Bennett,
Cheapside,
London.”
Yrs Truly
S. L. CLEMENS.