Tuesday.
My Dear Howells:1
Well, all that was necessary to make that visit perfect was to know that you & Mrs. Howells enjoyed it. Sunday morning Mrs. Clemens said, “Nothing could have been added to that visit to make it more charming, except days.” And presently she said she felt fresher & stronger than usual”——& I was able to say “You look it.”—which was the case. My most secret reason for not going to the Aldrich lunch was that I [ g ] had got [intell◇ectual] friction enough out of your visit to be able to go to work Monday. Which turned out to be correct—I wrote 4000 words yesterday.
Today I am proposing to bang away again.
I’ll remember & not divulge the Longfellow matter.
I found it was the [wet-nurse] who had drank 200 bottles of the 252—so I have been making an awful ra row in the servants’ quarters, this morning, & clearing the atmosphere. My beer will be respected, now, I hope, for I do not wish to resort to bloodshed.2
Old Twichell dropped in Saturday night in the hope that you had remained over. I guess that same hope moved him to cancel his “exchange.”3
Jolly times to you all & the Aldrich[e]s—& the kindest remembrances from us to Mrs Howells.
Ys Ever
Mark
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
The lunch, hosted by James Osgood, was a farewell to Aldrich, who was about to leave for Europe (see 20 Feb 75 to Osgood, n. 1). On 11 March Aldrich had suggested
that if Osgood wanted to expand his guest list, he could invite “any of these gentlemen: Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Mark
Twain, Edwin Booth” (Anderson 1909, lot 28). Howells had learned
of the existence of proofsheets—or privately printed copies—of “Morituri Salutamus,”
Longfellow’s poem for the fiftieth anniversary of his class at Bowdoin. It was collected in The Masque
of Pandora, which Osgood published in 1875 (MTHL, 1:70 n. 3; Hart 1983, 507).
No. 5 was apparently Irish, with a powerful strain of Egyptian in her. . . . She
stood six feet in her stockings, she was perfect in form & contour, raven-haired, dark as an Indian, stately, carrying
her head like an empress, she had the martial port & stride of a grenadier, & the pluck & strength
of a battalion of them. In professional capacity the cow was a poor thing compared to her, & not even the pump was
qualified to take on airs where she was. She was as independent as the flag, she was indifferent to morals & principles,
she disdained company, & marched in a procession by herself. She was as healthy as iron, she had the appetite of a
crocodile, the stomach of a cellar, & the digestion of a quartz-mill. Scorning the adamantine law that a wet-nurse must
partake of delicate things only, she devoured anything & everything she could get her hands on, shoveling into her person
fiendish combinations of fresh pork, lemon pie, boiled cabbage, ice cream, green apples, pickled tripe, raw turnips, &
washing the cargo down with freshets of coffee, tea, brandy, whisky, turpentine, kerosene—anything that was liquid; she
smoked pipes, cigars, cigarettes, she whooped like a Pawnee & swore like a demon; & then she would go up
stairs loaded as described & perfectly delight the baby with a bouquet which ought to have killed it at thirty yards, but
which only made it happy & fat & contented & boozy. No child but this one ever had such grand
& wholesome service. The giantess raided my tobacco & cigar department every day; no drinkable thing was safe
from her if you turned your back a moment. (SLC 1906, 36–38) In 1907 he remembered her as Maria McManus, called her “a delight, a darling, a never failing
interest,” and claimed: “In the shortest month in the year she drank two hundred and fifty-eight pints of my
beer, without invitation, leaving only forty-two for me. I think it was the dryest month I ever spent since I first became a
theoretical teetotaler” (AD, 11 Apr 1907, CU-MARK). For Olivia’s remarks on McLaughlin, see 18 Apr 75 to OLC, n. 2.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L6, 414–416; MTHL, 1:70–72.
Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
g • [partly formed]
intell◇ectual • [partly formed character]
wet-nurse • wet-|nurse
