To William Dean Howells
23 April 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: NN-B, UCCL 02489)

Apl. 23.

My Dear Howells:

I’ve got Mrs. Clemens’s picture before me, & hope I shall not forget to send it with this.1

Jo Twichell preached morning & evening here last Sunday; took midnight train for Boston; got an early breakfast & started by rail at 7.30 AM for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P.M., seeing everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw everything there; traveled on top of a train to Boston, (with hundreds in company) deluged with dust, smoke & cinders; yelle & yelled & hurrahed all the way like a [schoolboy] lay flat down to dodge numerous bridges, & sailed into the depot, howling with excitement & as black as a chimney [in top margin: got to] sweep; got to Young’s Hotel at 7. P.M.; sat dowin down in reading-room at Young’s [ Hoetl ] & immediately fell aslseep; was promptly awakened by a porter who supposed he was drunk; wandered around an hour & a half; then took 9 PM train, sat down in smoking car & remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as the train came into Hartford at 1.30 AM. Hopped up in the morning & hived his [Chinaman]. Thinks he had simply a glorious time—& wouldn’t have missed the Centiennial for the world. He would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge, but was too dirty. I wouldn’t have wanted him there—his appal[l]ing energy would have been an insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you & me.

Some of the things Joe saw were inexpressibly funny—pity but he could talk on paper as he does with his mouth.2

Well, he is welcome to the good time he had—I had a deal better one. My narrative has made Mrs. Clemens wish she could have been [there. When] I think over what l a splendid good sociable time I had in your house I feel ever so thankful to the wise providence that thwarted our several ably-planned & ingenious attempts to get to Lexington. I am coming again before long, & then she shall be of the party.

Now you said that you & Mrs. Howells could run down here nearly any Saturday. Very well then, let us call it next Saturday., for a “starter.” Can you do that? By that time it will really be spring & you won’t freeze. The birds are already out; a small one paid us a visit yesterday. We entertained it & let it go again, Susie protesting.3

The spring laziness is already upon me—insomuch that the spirit begins to move me to cease from Mississippi articles & everything else & give myself over to idleness until we go to New Orleans. I have one article already finished, but somehow it dont seem as proper a chapter to close with as the one already in your hands. I hope to get in a mood & rattle off a good one to finish with—but just now all my moods are lazy ones.4

Winnie’s literature sings through me yet! Surely that child has one of these “future’s” before u her.5

Now try to come—will you?

With the warmest regards of the two of us—

Ys Ever

S. L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens had intended to enclose a photograph in his letter of 26 January to Howells, but may have forgotten. He did remember to enclose one now (see 7 May 75 to Howells, n. 1), but it does not survive with this letter. Howells presumably requested it during Clemens’s recent visit to Cambridge.

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2 In his journal Twichell characterized his adventures at the Concord and Lexington centennial on 19 April as “a day full of high interest, qualified by much physical discomfort,” recording many of the same details that Clemens reported here (Twichell, 1:88–90).

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3 In her separate letter to Elinor Howells on 23 April, Olivia seconded Clemens’s invitation, but suggested “next Sunday,” and concluded:

Mr Clemens did have such a good time with you and Mr Howells, he evidently has no regret that he did not get to the centenial—I was driven nearly distracted by his long account of Mrs. Mr. Howells and his wanderings—I would keep asking if they ever got there, but he would never answer, but made me listen to a very minute account of every thing that they did—At last I found them back where they started from—(MH-H)

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4 While in Cambridge, Clemens apparently reinterested Howells in the Mississippi River trip they had decided against in February, but which Clemens now hoped to make in May or June. The “Old Times on the Mississippi” article in Howells’s hands was the sixth installment. The seventh and final installment appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for August.

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5 See 18 Apr 75 to OLC.

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, 456–458; MTL, 1:255–56, MTHL, 1:76–77.

Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

schoolboy • school-|boy

Hoetl • [‘l’ partly formed]

Chinaman • [‘(buried one of the Chinese students)’ inserted in pencil in an unidentified hand]

there. When • there.—|When