n
a house presented to the young couple by Mr. Langdon. It did not prove
a fortunate beginning. Sickness, death, and trouble of many kinds put
a blight on the happiness of their first married year and gave, them a
distaste for the home in which they had made such a promising start. A
baby boy, Langdon Clemens, came along in November, but he was never
a strong child. By the end of the following year the Clemenses had
arranged for a residence in Hartford, temporary at first, later made
permanent. It was in Hartford that little Langdon died, in 1872.

Clemens, meanwhile, had sold out his interest in the Express, severed
his connection with the Galaxy, a magazine for which he was doing a
department each month, and had written a second book for the American
Publishing Company, Roughing It, published in 1872. In August of the
same year he made a trip to London, to get material for a book on
England, but was too much sought after, too continuously feted, to do
any work. He went alone, but in November returned with the purpose of
taking Mrs. Clemens and the new baby, Susy, to England the following
spring. They sailed in April, 1873, and spent a good portion of the
year in England and Scotland. They returned to America in November,
and Clemens hurried back to London alone to deliver a notable series of
lectures under the management of George Dolby, formerly managing agent
for Charles Dickens. For two months Mark Twain lectured steadily
to London audiences--the big Hanover Square rooms always filled. He
returned to his family in January, 1874.

Meantime, a home was being built for them in Hartford, and in the autumn
of 1874 they took up residence in ita happy residence, continued through
seventeen years--well-nigh perfect years. Their summers they spent in
Elmira, on Quarry Farm--a beautiful hilltop, the home of Mrs. Clemens's
sister. It was in Elmira that much of Mark Twain's literary work was
done. He had a special study there, some distance from the house, where
he loved to work out his fancies and put them into visible form.

It was not so easy to work at Hartford; there was too much going on. The
Clemens home was a sort of general headquarters for literary folk, near
and far, and for distinguished foreign visitors of every sort. Howells
and Aldrich used it as their half-way station between Boston and New
York, and every foreign notable who visited America made a pilgrimage to
Hartford to see Mark Twain. Some even went as f