To
Orion Clemens
19 December 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, correspondence card: CU-MARK, UCCL 01512)
(SUPERSEDED)
slc
Wednesday.
Dr Bro—
If I write all the books that lie planned in my head, I shall see the middle of the next century. I can’t add another, until after that. I couldn’t write from another man’s idea, anyway. But go ahead & write it yourself—that is, if you can drop other things. Your law is not in your way; but if you write a book worth reading it will only be by eschewing temperance, amateur theatricals, religion, & other dissipations., & giving your entire mind to the one thing. Don’t think of it as a book—think of it as an amusement, a thing with no object, a thing done
. . . .
Orion Clemens, Esq | Keokuk | Iowa [return address:] if not delivered within 10 days, to be returned to [postmarked:] hartford conn. dec 21 12m
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