To William Dean Howells
15 January 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: MH-H, UCCL 01180)

Hartford, 15th,

My Dear Howells:

I am very glad you like it; & glad, too, that there wasn’t any [profanity ]in it, since you read it to Mrs. Howells; though I have noticed that a little judicious profanity helps out an otherwise ineffectual sketch or poem remarkably.1 I attribute the feebleness of many of Tupper’s noblest efforts to the lack of this element.2

You said once that you wanted a snapper put on to the end of this No. 3, but I judge you have concluded to leave it as it is—which is doubtless best, for it is already plenty long enough.3

Upon second thought, it is too much trouble to make a whole lot of corrections over again in the duplicate proof in order to “simultane” with Temple Bar, & so I’m not going to do it. I a have already broken my promise twice to Mr. Bentley, & the penall ty for a third infraction cannot increase my calamities much hereafter, & besides it may chance to be wholly overlooked amid the multitude of my sins. So you needn’t bother about sending me the duplicate proofs.4

Susie is croupy, but [today ]we believe it isn’t going to be serious.

Ys Ever

Mark.

P. S. I mail you, either in this or another envelop, No. 4—which I have just added a snapper to it. True story, too.5

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 On 12 January Howells sent the following note (CU-MARK), evidently with proofsheets of the third installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi,” scheduled for March publication in the Atlantic:

UCLC32096

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Clemens had earlier expunged some profanity from the second installment (see 14 Dec 74 to Howells). The correction of Howells’s date, in black ink (Howells used purple), may have been by Clemens.

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2 Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) was the author of Proverbial Philosophy (1838), a popular work of commonplace maxims in verse form.

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3 See 21 Dec 74 to Howells, n. 1.

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4 Clemens had met George Bentley, the editor of Temple Bar magazine, in London in 1873. Bentley rejected the sketch Clemens offered him at that time, but specifically requested another, which Clemens declined to write (L5, 454–55). In his unrecovered January letter (see 12 Jan 74 to Howells, n. 1), Clemens presumably had explained that he wanted to publish his “Old Times” articles in Bentley’s magazine, simultaneously with the Atlantic, in order to secure an Imperial copyright. The failure to secure such a copyright allowed the Belford Brothers of Toronto to publish their pirated edition of the articles in 1876 (SLC 1876; Roper, 38–47).

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5 No enclosure survives with the letter. The fourth installment of “Old Times,” published in the April Atlantic, ends with the story of a pilot whose skill at the wheel while sleepwalking prompted another pilot to remark, “I never saw anything so gaudy before. And if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when he is sound asleep, what could n’t he do if he was dead!” (SLC 1875, 452).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 [98]).

Previous publication: L6, 350–51; MTHL, 1:59–60.

Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

profanity • [possibly ‘g profanity’]

today • to-|day