To William Dean Howells
24 April 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: NN-B, UCCL 02490)

Apl. 24.

My Dear Howells:

An actor named D. H. Harkins has been here to ask me to put upon paper a 5-act play which he has been mapping out in his mind for 3 or 4 years. He sat down & told me his plot all through, in a clear, bright way, & I was a deal taken with it; but it is a line of characters whose fine shading & systemati artistic development require an abler hand than mine; so I easily perceived that I must not make the attempt. But I liked the man, & thought there was a good deal of stuff in him; & therefore I wanted his play to be written, & by a capable hand, too. So I suggested you, & said I would write & see if you would be willing to undertake it. If you like the idea, he will call upon you in the course of two or three weeks & describe his plot & his characters. Then if it don’t strike you favorably, of course you can simply decline; but it seems to me well worth while that you should hear what he has to say.1 You could also “average” him while he talks, & judge whether he could play your priest—though I doubt if any man can do that justice.2

Shan’t I write him & say he may call? upon If you wish to communicate directly with him instead, his address is “Marchmont Manor, Westchester Co., N. Y.”

Do you know, the chill of that 19th of April3 seems to be in my bones yet? I am inert & drowsy all the time. That was villainous weather for a couple of wandering children to be out in.

Ys Ever

Mark.

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 Daniel H. Harkins (1835?–1902) was born in Boston and began his stage career in Chicago in 1853. He served in a New York regiment during the Civil War, attaining the rank of major. In 1866 he returned to acting, and also became the stage manager of the New York Theatre. Upon Harkins’s recommendation, in 1869 Augustin Daly opened his first Fifth Avenue Theatre, on Twenty-fourth Street, engaging Harkins as an actor and stage manager. Harkins possessed a remarkably resonant voice, and was successful in both dramatic and comedic roles. In early 1875, he was in the cast of the traveling company of Daly’s popular comedy The Big Bonanza (based on Ultimo, by Gustav von Moser), which performed at the Brooklyn Theatre from 23 through 28 March and at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on 1 April. Nothing further has been learned of the play Harkins now proposed: see 12 May 75 to Howells, n. 3 (Clapp and Edgett, 1:139–40; Joseph Francis Daly, 83, 92; Odell, 9:540–41, 575, 623).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 A Venetian priest, Don Ippolito, who falls in love with an American girl he is tutoring and ultimately dies of a broken heart, figures in A Foregone Conclusion, which Howells had been considering for dramatic adaptation since the previous fall (see 29 Oct 74 to Daly, n. 4; Hart 1983, 257).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 The day that Clemens and Howells tried to attend the centennial celebration (18 Apr 75 to OLC, n. 1).

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, 458–459; MTL, 1:255–56; MTHL, 1:76–77.

Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.