From Mark Twain to the Public:
Nov. 16, '04.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,--I desire to recommend Madame Hartwig to
my friends and the public as a teacher of singing and as a
concert-vocalist. She has lived for fifteen years at the court of
Roumania, and she brought with her to America an autograph letter in
which her Majesty the Queen of Roumania cordially certified her to me
as being an accomplished and gifted singer and teacher of singing, and
expressed a warm hope that her professional venture among us would meet
with success; through absence in Europe I have had no opportunity
to test the validity of the Queen's judgment in the matter, but that
judgment is the utterance of an entirely competent authority--the best
that occupies a throne, and as good as any that sits elsewhere, as the
musical world well knows--and therefore back it without hesitation, and
endorse it with confidence.
I will explain that the reason her Majesty tried to do her friend a
friendly office through me instead of through someone else was, not that
I was particularly the right or best person for the office, but because
I was not a stranger. It is true that I am a stranger to some of the
monarchs--mainly through their neglect of their opportunities--but
such is not the case in the present instance. The latter fact is a high
compliment to me, and perhaps I ought to conceal it. Some people would.