February 9 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mollie Fairbanks, daughter of Mary Mason Fairbanks. Sam idealized girlhood, as his later treatment of “Angel Fish” would show. Mollie had just had her “coming out” to society party, and Sam reflected:

I wanted you to remain always just as you were when I saw you last, the dearest bud of maidenhood in all the land. I feel about it as we feel about our youngest child, “the Bay;” every time she discontinues a mispronounciation, & enters upon the correct form of pronouncing that word, never to retreat from it again, & never again to charm our ears with the music that was in the old lame sound of it, we feel that something that was precious has gone from us to return no more; a subtle, elusive, but nevertheless real sense of loss…Now you see, my Mollie is lost to me, my darling old pet & playfellow is gone, my little dainty maid has passed from under my caressing hands, & in her place they have put that stately & reserve-compelling creation, a Woman!

Sam asked what sorts of things Mollie was reading, and recommended “an old book by” Thomas Fuller, title forgotten, which Sam said contained what he called “pemmican sentences,” that is, sentences that boil “an elaborate thought down & compresses it in to a single crisp & meaty sentence,” something that Sam was adept at in his writing [MTLE 1: 21]. Note: Lamb’s essay “Specimens from the Writings of Fuller, the Church Historian,” originally published in the Reflector in 1811, extracts Thomas Fuller’s History of the Worthies of England, which appeared in 1662 [MTPO].

Moncure Conway wrote to Sam.

My dear Clemens, /I have been for some days haunted by paragraphs in the papers saying that Mark Twain is about to take a blue trip ship—alas, what am I writing, that you mean to go to England, to “lecture in London in May and June,” etc. Is there real substance in this rumour?

—Have you not an influential acquaintance in Elmira, New York, who would find it convenient in passing the imposing and imposturing rooms of the Young Men’s Christian Association and find out whether they really do mean to defraud me out of the $25 which they owe me? The contract was to lecture for $125; it is not denied; but they said they had embarrassments, and being one to three I could not get out of them more than $100. They are now coming the dodge of not answering letters. If they do not pay I shall certainly sue them if only to publish their meanness.

Heartiness to Mrs Clemens & the young ones. / Ever yours / M D Conway

This will reach you on Sat., and if you will write then or next day to me, care of Rev. Jno F. Effinger St Paul, Minn, I shall get it. If you write on Monday or Tuesday address Care Rev Robt Collyer 500 La Salle Chicago [MTPO].