Submitted by scott on
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Livy, I guess that after all I shall become interested in this “Herald,” & then you shall be Managing Editor—that is to say, you’ll manage the editor. I think we’ll live in [Clevland], Livy—& then we’ll persuade Mr. Langdon to come & live in Euclid Avenue, so that we can have a goo place to go to & get a good dinner occasionally when we have got so hungry we can’t stand it any longer. But I don’t think we’ll live in the Avenue yet a while, Livy—we’ll take a back seat with Mrs. Fairbanks, in St. Clair [street.6 But], then, what of it?—it will be a pleasant back seat, won’t it? It couldn’t well be otherwise, with you there.  

 Euclid Street (not officially an avenue until 1870) was, by the late 1860s, the wealthiest residential area in Cleveland (Rose, 364, 303). Clemens described it to his Alta readers on 22 October:

It is devoted to dwelling-houses entirely, and it costs you $100,000 to “come in.” Therefore none of your poor white trash can live in that street. You have to be redolent of that odor of sanctity which comes with cash. The dwellings are very large, are often pretty pretentious in the matter of architecture, and the grassy and flowery “yards” they stand in are something marvellous. (SLC 1868)

The Fairbanks family had lived on attractive (but less expensive) St. Clair Street since 1857, briefly at number 139 and then at 221 (Boyd, 68; Cleveland Directory 1868, 155).

SLC to Olivia L. Langdon, 30 Dec 1868, Cleveland, Ohio (UCCL 00213).” In Mark Twain’s Letters, 1867–1868.

 

Twain never lived in Cleveland yet it was an important location for his career.  It was the home of three of Twain's good friends from the Quaker City tour:  Mary Mason Fairbanks and Emily and Solon Severance.  He began the 1895 North American tour in Cleveland.

July 19 , 1871Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James Redpath not to schedule him west of Cleveland. “When I think of those awful western roads & hotel[s] I get sick—sick as death.” Sam repeated that he wanted “Nasby prices” [MTL 4: 436].

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