Later-I’ve written the note to Smith, and with nothing in it which he can use as an advertisement.  I’m called—­Good bye-love to you both.

We leave here next Wednesday for Elmira:  we leave there Apl. 9 or 10—­and
sail 11th
                         Yr Bro. 
                                   Sam.

In the letter that follows the mention of Annie and Sam refers, of course, to the children of Mrs. Moffett, who had been, Pamela Clemens.  They were grown now, and Annie Moffett was married to Charles L. Webster, who later was to become Mark Twain’s business partner.  The Moffetts and Websters were living in Fredonia at this time, and Clemens had been to pay them a good-by visit.  The Taylor dinner mentioned was a farewell banquet given to Bayard Taylor, who had been appointed Minister to Germany, and was to sail on the ship with Mark Twain.  Mark Twain’s mother was visiting in Fredonia when this letter was written.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in Fredonia: 

Apr. 7, ’78.  My dear mother,—­I have told Livy all about Annie’s beautiful house, and about Sam and Charley, and about Charley’s ingenious manufactures and his strong manhood and good promise, and how glad I am that he and Annie married.  And I have told her about Annie’s excellent house-keeping, also about the great Bacon conflict; (I told you it was a hundred to one that neither Livy nor the European powers had heard of that desolating struggle.)

And I have told her how beautiful you are in your age and how bright your mind is with its old-time brightness, and how she and the children would enjoy you.  And I have told her how singularly young Pamela is looking, and what a fine large fellow Sam is, and how ill the lingering syllable “my” to his name fits his port and figure.

Well, Pamela, after thinking it over for a day or so, I came near inquiring about a state-room in our ship for Sam, to please you, but my wiser former resolution came back to me.  It is not for his good that he have friends in the ship.  His conduct in the Bacon business shows that he will develop rapidly into a manly man as soon as he is cast loose from your apron strings.

You don’t teach him to push ahead and do and dare things for himself, but you do just the reverse.  You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a village—­villagers watch each other and so make cowards of each other.  After Sam shall have voyaged to Europe by himself, and rubbed against the world and taken and returned its cuffs, do you think he will hesitate to escort a guest into any whisky-mill in Fredonia when he himself has no sinful business to transact there?  No, he will smile at the idea.  If he avoids this courtesy now from principle, of course I find no fault with it at all—­only if he thinks it is principle he may be mistaken; a close examination may show it is only a bowing to the tyranny of public opinion.