[Autograph Manuscript, Signed ("M.T."), Incorporating an Autograph Note, Signed] de Clemens, Samuel L - 2 July 1895.

Quarry Farm, Elmira, NY, 2 July 1895.. One page, in ink, on quarto front panel of a large linen-lined envelope. Marginal pencil note crossed through, several ink squiggles in blank areas symptomatic of a struggle with an unreliable pen, otherwise very good. A manuscript memento of a famous artifact, being Clemens' fourteen line rough draft verse (signed "M.T."), written in preparation for his inscribing the verse on three stones for presentation to Mrs. Thomas K. Beecher, wife of Reverend Beecher who officiated at the wedding of Clemens and Livy Langdon in 1870. An account of the undertaking appears in the October 1895 number of MUNSEY'S, and in brief, a sort of wager grew out of a friendly debate between Clemens and Mrs. Beecher about the immortality of the soul. Mrs. Beecher concluded by asking Clemens: "If you meet me in heaven a million years from now, will you confess yourself wrong?" And when Clemens assented, she insisted a record of his agreement be rendered in stone for future generations. The manuscript in hand is Clemens' draft of what was placed on three sections cut from a stone Mrs. Beecher picked up from the Susquehanna river bed near Charles Beecher's summer home near Wyalusing, PA. The actual stones, known as the "wager stones," are now preserved in the Twain Archive at Elmira College. Clemens' poem (incorporating his alterations) reads: "If you prove right & I prove wrong [/] A million years from now, [/] In language plain & frank & strong [/] My error I'll avow [/] To your dear mocking face. [/] If I prove right, by God his grace [/] Full sorry I shall be, [/] For in that solitude no trace [/] There'll be of you & me [/] Nor of our vanished race. [/] A million years, O patient stone, [/] You've waited for this message: [/] Deliver it a million hence [Survivor pay expressage.] M.T." Appended to the manuscript is an autograph note from Clemens, 2 July 1895, to Livy Clemens' friend, Clara Spaulding: "Dear Clara: Livy says it is this rough old original draft that you preferred. I didn't understand & I beg pardon. This looks too disreputable. My purpose was to have a nice trim comely copy made for you. Yours ever, SL Clemens."