To William Dean Howells
13 December 1874 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: NN-B, UCCL 02481)

Hartford, Sunday.

My Dear Howells:

I want you to ask Mrs Howells to let you stay all night at the Parker House & tell lies & have an improving time, & take breakfast with me in the morning. I will have a good room for you, & a fire. Can’t you tell her it always makes you sick to go home late at night, or something like that? That sort of thing rouses Mrs Clemens’s sympathises, easily; the only trouble is to keep them up. Twichell & I talked till 2 or 3 in the morning, the night we [supped] at your house,1 & it restored his health on account of his being drooping for some time & made him much more robuster than what he was before. Will Mrs. Howells let you?2

Ys Ever

S. L. C.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 On 13 November (see 14 Nov 74 to OLC, n. 1).

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2 She did (see pp. 317–20).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).

Previous publication: L6, 315; Paine 1912, 250, excerpt; MTB, 1:536, excerpt; MTL, 1:239;MTHL, 1:53–54.

Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

supped • sup | supped [rewritten for clarity]