CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE. 1835-1910.
Autograph Letter Signed ("SL Clemens"), 2 pp, 8vo (conjoined leaves), Florence, March 20, 1893 to Mrs Janet Ross, few very pale spots, matted and framed to 11 1/2 by 13 1/2 inches.
Fine, graphic, and humorous Mark Twain note to a fellow Anglophone in Italy, apologizing that a trip to America necessitates a delay in dining together. Janet Ross explains in her book, The Fourth Generation, 1912, that she and her husband were frequent companions of the Clemens family in Italy at this time. In February 1893 her cousin Sir William Markby and his wife were visiting.
In full: "It was my purpose to run in & indulge my pleasure in the society of Sir William & my Lady a little more, & I count it a loss that I failed of the chance; but my time has all been taken up in clearing the decks for America. I shall go over and pay my dinner-call the moment I get back from America. This seems unprompt; but I have a trained conscience, & I quiet it by telling it I am on my road to pay it now, merely going by the way of New York and Chicago for the sake of variety, & because it is much more creditable to go 8,000 miles to pay a dinner-call than it is to go a mere matter of 600 yards. Aufwiedersehen--"
See illustration.
