20/20 hindsight indeed.  Sam's 8 January 1868 letter to his mother suggests that SLC was at least as interested in Alice Hooker as in Olivia Langdon not only after he saw the miniature, but after he met Olivia in person (no later than on December 31, 1867). To his mother he said that both were pretty "girls" and that he intended to visit both young women in their homes.  He got to the Hooker household later that month, and it took him over half a year to get to the Langdon home. If haste is a sign of interest, it seems he had the stronger interest in Hooker, though his visit seemed to end his interest (because the family put him off?  see the letters to his mother and to Fairbanks and his _Enterprise_ letter on the visit).  

The letters of '67-'68 to Mary Mason "Mother" Fairbanks suggest that she was actively encouraging him to marry, and he was frustrated by the sense that he couldn't support a wife.   He certainly seemed to want feminie companionship--his letters to Fairbanks and to Emmeline Beach are far too long and playful to support the idea that he was merely pumping them for material for _Innocents Abroad_. Wecter, I believe, said that Clemens in 1868 was in love with the idea of love.  Seems right to me.  Which isn't to say that he had a merely Platonic or Victorian idea of sex.  Jokes in letters (15 Aug and 24 Sept '68) to Frank Fuller about wanting to purchase condoms show that he had a bawdy streak long before he wrote _1601_.

Gregg

----- Original Message -----
From: Harold Bush <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, October 23, 2010 7:24 am
Subject: WHERE did Sam first see the miniature?
To: [log in to unmask]


> In September 1867, Sam saw a little picture of Olivia Langdon, sister 
> of
>  18-year-old Charles Langdon, Elmira native, while on board the ship Quaker
>  City and "fell madly in love."   All of which is well known.
>  
>  Does anyone know off the top of your head WHERE this occurred?  i.e. 
> I seem
>  to recall somewhere they were supposedly anchored in one of the 
> ports, for
>  some reason I'm thinking Napoli;  or Athens??  any help?
>  
>  
>  ps -- I recognize that the location, and perhaps even the incident, has
>  benefited from 20/20 vision retrospectively speaking ....
>  
>  
>  
>  thanks, -hb
>  
>  -- 
>  Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
>  Professor of English
>  Saint Louis University
>  St. Louis, MO  63108
>  314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
>  <www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>
>