June 7 Thursday – The Clemenses rode the train ten hours and arrived at the Langdon home in Elmira.

Henry Whitney Cleveland (1836-1907) wrote from N.Y.C. the first of six letters to Clemens, who became irritated with him to the point of calling him the “Reverend D—d tramp.”

Dear Sir: / I have a book, like and unlike, the Pilgrims Progress, and call it, “Entranced a Romance of Immortality.” I am a poor Presbyterian minister, for whom you once brought a watch from George MacDonald.

      I recently read aloud the story in your last book, of the boy who took a whipping for a girl at school, and it was Sabbath Evening, in the family of Mr Wiles up the Hudson River, where I was preaching, and we all cried over it, before prayers.

      I thought you might like mine, and get that great Am. Publ. Co. to like it too.

      Very. Rev. A.P. Stanley, of Westminster, wrote me a good letter about it, when he read it, and so did Dr Loyden of Bradford.

      P.W. Zeigler of Pa, agreed to take it, but is not able to do so now. If you just would read it, it might make me almost as famed as you are. Yes, on a postcard, and I will tell Dr Rand, of Am. Tract Society to send it to you. / Respectfully / Henry W. Cleveland [MTP]. Note: see Cleveland’s Aug. 9 letter. The whipping tale is in Ch 20 of TS. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881); William W. Rand (1816-1909) sec. Am. Tract Soc.