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Details
CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne "Mark Twain" (1835-1910). Autograph letter signed ("Mark Twain") to Joy Agnew, daughter of the editor of Punch Magazine, Tuxedo Park, New York ("out in the country"), 1 August 1907. 4 pages, 12mo, in double-sided gilt-edged frame, fine.
TWAIN PROPOSES HIMSELF AS THE PET OF A "DARLING SMALL TYRANT"
A characteristically exuberant letter to a child whom he met at a famous Punch dinner, on his well-received visit to England. Joy Agnew, daughter of the chief editor of Punch Magazine, had presented him an original cartoon in which Clemen was featured and made a suitable short address on the occasion. In his later dictations, Twain called this "the prettiest incident of my long life." She wrote Clemens on 16 July listing her pets and reporting her parents were adding a garden to her house (copy accompanies the lot). Twain responds: "Unto you greetings and salutation and worship, you dear sweet little rightly-named Joy! I can see you now almost as vividly as I saw you that night when you sat flashing & beaming upon those sombre swallow-tails. 'Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky.' Oh, you were indeed the only one--there wasn't even the remotest chance of competition with you, dear! Ah, you are a decoration, you little witch! The idea of your house going to the wanton expense of a flower garden!--aren't you enough? And what do you want to go and discourage all the other flowers for? Is that the right spirit? is it considerate? is it kind? How do you suppose they feel when you come around--looking the way you look? And you so pink and sweet and dainty and lovely and supernatural? Why it makes them feel embarrassed and artificial..." Responding to Joy's list of her pets in her letter, he writes: "Well certainly you are well off, Joy: '3 bantams; 3 goldfish; 3 doves; 6 canarys; 2 dogs; 1 cat.' All you need, now, to be permanently beyond the reach of want, is one more dog--just one more good, gentle, high-principled, affectionate, loyal dog who wouldn't want any nobler service than the golden privilege of lying at your door, nights, and biting everything that came along and I am that very one, and ready to come at the dropping of a hat. Do you think you could convey my love and thanks to your 'daddy' and Owen Seaman and those other oppressed and down-trodden subjects of yours, you darling small tyrant? On my knees! There--with the kiss of fealty from your other subject." And in a postscript: "P.S. Won't you please be good and send me the lovely speech you made to me?" (Joy's brief remarks at the celebratory dinner).
Published in Mark Twain's Letters (1917), pp.806-809 (omitting postscript). We are grateful to The Mark Twain Project for generous assistance in cataloguing this letter.
TWAIN PROPOSES HIMSELF AS THE PET OF A "DARLING SMALL TYRANT"
A characteristically exuberant letter to a child whom he met at a famous Punch dinner, on his well-received visit to England. Joy Agnew, daughter of the chief editor of Punch Magazine, had presented him an original cartoon in which Clemen was featured and made a suitable short address on the occasion. In his later dictations, Twain called this "the prettiest incident of my long life." She wrote Clemens on 16 July listing her pets and reporting her parents were adding a garden to her house (copy accompanies the lot). Twain responds: "Unto you greetings and salutation and worship, you dear sweet little rightly-named Joy! I can see you now almost as vividly as I saw you that night when you sat flashing & beaming upon those sombre swallow-tails. 'Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky.' Oh, you were indeed the only one--there wasn't even the remotest chance of competition with you, dear! Ah, you are a decoration, you little witch! The idea of your house going to the wanton expense of a flower garden!--aren't you enough? And what do you want to go and discourage all the other flowers for? Is that the right spirit? is it considerate? is it kind? How do you suppose they feel when you come around--looking the way you look? And you so pink and sweet and dainty and lovely and supernatural? Why it makes them feel embarrassed and artificial..." Responding to Joy's list of her pets in her letter, he writes: "Well certainly you are well off, Joy: '3 bantams; 3 goldfish; 3 doves; 6 canarys; 2 dogs; 1 cat.' All you need, now, to be permanently beyond the reach of want, is one more dog--just one more good, gentle, high-principled, affectionate, loyal dog who wouldn't want any nobler service than the golden privilege of lying at your door, nights, and biting everything that came along and I am that very one, and ready to come at the dropping of a hat. Do you think you could convey my love and thanks to your 'daddy' and Owen Seaman and those other oppressed and down-trodden subjects of yours, you darling small tyrant? On my knees! There--with the kiss of fealty from your other subject." And in a postscript: "P.S. Won't you please be good and send me the lovely speech you made to me?" (Joy's brief remarks at the celebratory dinner).
Published in Mark Twain's Letters (1917), pp.806-809 (omitting postscript). We are grateful to The Mark Twain Project for generous assistance in cataloguing this letter.