Details
CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE ("Mark Twain"). Autograph letter signed ("Saml") to his wife, Livy (in Elmira, New York), Hartford, Conn., "Friday," [l877]. 4 pages, 8vo, in pencil on lined stationery with imprinted address of "Charles E. Perkins, Attorney," with original stamped envelope addressed (in ink) by Clemens.
TWAIN ON THE GLORIES OF THE NEWLY COMPLETED HARTFORD MANSION
"...I telegraphed Mr. [Edward Tuckerman] Potter [Twain's New York architect] & he came from Boston & we have talked over everything that needed talking. I have reminded Garvey to obey Potter's orders. Have blown up Mr. McCray & told him not to offend again by taking orders from anybody but Mr. Potter.
"Small processions of people continue to rove through the the house all the time. You may look at the house or the grounds from any point of view you choose & they are simply exquisite . It is a quite, murmurous, enchanting poem done in the solid elements of nature. The house & he barn do not seem to have been set up on the grassy slopes & levels by laws & plans & specifications -- it seems as if they grew up and out of the ground & were part & parcel of Nature's handiwork. The harmony of size, shape, color,--everything-- is harmonious. It is a house -- and the word never had so much meaning before. The money actually expended on grounds, architects, & house & barn thus far is $40,000. Mr Goodwin's palace has cost $250,000, & he is worth several millions; but I would be sincerely sorry if we had to swap houses & fortunes with him. You will say the same.
"The house will be lovely inside, of course, & we shall live inside, but we shall be forever looking out of the windows.....Without consulting us Mr. Perkins has altered his original plans in many places & reduced the expense in every way he could. everybody is charmed with the house. But I enter into no descriptive details, & I don't want to. I want your own eyes to furnish your impressions.....Our Mulberry tree is flourishing -- so are the flowers, & also a wonderful ivy that has been made to follow the old rough fence 12 feet in 3 luxurious strands -- not an imperfect leaf upon it..."
The Clemens home at 35l Farmington Avenue, Hartford, had been designed by Potter in a novel and quirky fashion, with many peculiar innovations and details suggested by the owner himself. 'Outside and inside it defied all categories. It preented to the dazzled eye three turrets, the tallest of which was octagonal and about fifty feet high, five balconies, innumerable embrasures, a huge shaded veranda that turned a corner, an elaborate porte-cochere, a forest of chimneys. Its dark bricks were trimmed with brownstone and decorated with inlaid designs in scarlet-painted brick and black; the roof was patterned in colored tile. The house was permanent polychrome and gingerbread Gothic; it was part steamboat, part medieval stronghold, and part cuckoo clock" (Kaplan, Mr. Clemens & Mark Twain, pp.181-184). As the Clemens family moved into the second floor of the uncompleted home in September l874, the present letter dates from sometime prior to that date.
TWAIN ON THE GLORIES OF THE NEWLY COMPLETED HARTFORD MANSION
"...I telegraphed Mr. [Edward Tuckerman] Potter [Twain's New York architect] & he came from Boston & we have talked over everything that needed talking. I have reminded Garvey to obey Potter's orders. Have blown up Mr. McCray & told him not to offend again by taking orders from anybody but Mr. Potter.
"Small processions of people continue to rove through the the house all the time. You may look at the house or the grounds from any point of view you choose & they are simply exquisite . It is a quite, murmurous, enchanting poem done in the solid elements of nature. The house & he barn do not seem to have been set up on the grassy slopes & levels by laws & plans & specifications -- it seems as if they grew up and out of the ground & were part & parcel of Nature's handiwork. The harmony of size, shape, color,--everything-- is harmonious. It is a house -- and the word never had so much meaning before. The money actually expended on grounds, architects, & house & barn thus far is $40,000. Mr Goodwin's palace has cost $250,000, & he is worth several millions; but I would be sincerely sorry if we had to swap houses & fortunes with him. You will say the same.
"The house will be lovely inside, of course, & we shall live inside, but we shall be forever looking out of the windows.....Without consulting us Mr. Perkins has altered his original plans in many places & reduced the expense in every way he could. everybody is charmed with the house. But I enter into no descriptive details, & I don't want to. I want your own eyes to furnish your impressions.....Our Mulberry tree is flourishing -- so are the flowers, & also a wonderful ivy that has been made to follow the old rough fence 12 feet in 3 luxurious strands -- not an imperfect leaf upon it..."
The Clemens home at 35l Farmington Avenue, Hartford, had been designed by Potter in a novel and quirky fashion, with many peculiar innovations and details suggested by the owner himself. 'Outside and inside it defied all categories. It preented to the dazzled eye three turrets, the tallest of which was octagonal and about fifty feet high, five balconies, innumerable embrasures, a huge shaded veranda that turned a corner, an elaborate porte-cochere, a forest of chimneys. Its dark bricks were trimmed with brownstone and decorated with inlaid designs in scarlet-painted brick and black; the roof was patterned in colored tile. The house was permanent polychrome and gingerbread Gothic; it was part steamboat, part medieval stronghold, and part cuckoo clock" (Kaplan, Mr. Clemens & Mark Twain, pp.181-184). As the Clemens family moved into the second floor of the uncompleted home in September l874, the present letter dates from sometime prior to that date.