Clemens, Samuel L.

Autograph letter signed ("Father"), 2 pages on mourning stationery, [Dublin, New Hampshire], 1 October 1905, to his daughter Clara, describes the glorious New Hampshire fall foliage and announces that he has completed "A Horse's Tale." Together with: envelope addressed to longtime servant Katy Leary and marked "For Clara"; torn along left margin. — Autograph letter signed ("Father"), 2 pages, [Dublin, New Hampshire], 3 October 1905, announcing that he will be reading "A Horse's Tale" to two adults and two teenaged girls, with Miss Lyon providing the musical accompaniment.  

"A Horse's Tale" is completed. In his 1 October letter, Clemens tells Clara that he finished the book "yesterday evening & am satisfied wtih it, though it was not manufactured calmly but with an eight-day drive & rush—a dangerous process." In the letter dated Tuesday, 3 October, he tells Clara he will give the first reading of the tale on Thursday "with 4 invited guests: a man, a woman, & 2 girls of 15. In the last chapter there are bugle-calls & war-music, & Miss Lyon will break in at the precise places & play this, as I read. We practised it last night &  got it right, & it was dramatic & stirring."

"It is joy to be alive!" In both letters, Clemens paints a vivid picture of the New Hampshire mountains in the fall. "It is noon, now, warm, briliant, profoundly still & reposeful, the valley & the retreating hills are a bewildering intoxication of color—why it is a joy to be alive!"  In the 3 October letter, he writes: "Clara dear, you think you have seen autumn foliage, but it is not so; you have seen only attempts, partial successes, & failures. And you have not seen these attempts properly grouped, properly neared & distanced, properly leveled for vivid display in the foreground, properly retreating & softening away through a spacious gate in the gorgeous hills & dimming to smouldering embers under the hazy mountains on the verge of the world."