Clemens, Samuel L.

Autograph letter signed ("SamlClemens"), 4 pages (9 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.; 248 x 197 mm and 7 3/4 x 5 in.; 197 x 127 mm), Washington, D. C., 31 January [1868], to "Shipmate, Ahoy!" [Emma Beach]; some spotting and discoloration, neat repairs to fold tears. Together with: envelope addressed to Emma Beach of Brooklyn; right margin torn away.

"Shipmate, Ahoy!" A teasing and flirtatious Clemens writes buoyantly to his fellow passenger aboard the Quaker City, seventeen-year-old Emma Beach. After visiting her in New York, he returned to Washington where he had "not been out of the house since I came home & have not left the writing table, except to sleep, & take my meals. I have written seven long newspaper letters & a short magazine article in less than two days. ... In two more days I shall have made up for all my lost time. Then I shall feel less tired, & much jollier than I do now."

Clemens listed Emma among the eight passengers he wanted to keep as friends and he corresponded with her as late as 1905.  After their return, he sollictied her help while writing Innocents Abroad; and for a time it was thought that he had all intentions of courting her. He brazenly writes: "I wasted a good deal of strategy trying to make Mrs. Beach invite me to call again, but I didn't succeed. ... she needn't think I am going to stay conquered. No — I shall come without any invitation. I shall come & stay a month! ... And please tell me the names of the Murillo pictures that delighted you most—& say all you can about them, too. Remember, I am in a great straight, now, & it is hard to have to write about pictures when I don't know anything about them. Hang the whole gang of old masters, I say! The idea that I have to go to driveling about those dilapidated, antediluvian humbugs at this late day, is exasperating. Why I don't even remember their names—except Titian, & Tintoretto, & some of those other infamous Italian Vandals."