To William Dean Howells
23 August 1876 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02504)
(SUPERSEDED)

Elmira, Aug. 23.

My Dear Howells:1

I am glad you think I could do Hayes any good, for I have been wanting to write a letter or make a speech to that end. I’ll be careful not to do either, however, until the opportunity comes in a natural, justifiable & unlugged way; & shall not then do anything unless I’ve got it all digested & worded just right. In which case I might do some good—in any other I should do harm. When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works harm to his cause.

Very greatly did we enjoy the suggestion in Johnny’s remark that the Almighty had hardly dealt fairly by him—& the apparent conviction that a day void of profanity was necessarily void of sin justly punishable by nightmare.

We think that both of our children are developing [ night ] whooping-cought—which is unfortunate, for it is getting pretty cold here, now, & we want to get away homeward Sept. 5.

The farce is wonderfully bright & delicious, & must make a hit. You read it to me, & it was mighty good; I read it last night & it was better; I read it aloud to the household this morning & it was better than ever.2 So it would be worth going a long way to see it well played; for without any question an actor of genius always adds a subptle something to any man’s work d that none but the writer knew was there before. Even if he knew it. I have heard of readers convulsing audiences with my “Aurelia’s Unfortunate Young Man.” If there is anything really funny in the piece, the author is not aware of it.3

All right—advertise me for the new volume. I send you herewith a sketch which will make 3½ pages of the Atlantic. If you like it & accept it, you must get it into the December No., (Nov. 15) (Nov. 15, ain’t it?) because I shall read it in publice in Boston tw the 13th & 14th of Nov. If it went in a month earlier it would be too old for me to read except as old matter; & if it went in a month later it would be too old for the Atlantic—do you see? And if you wish to use it, will you set it up now, & send me 3 proofs?—one to correct for Atlantic, one to send to Temple Bar (shall I tell them to use it not earlier than their November No?) & one to use in practising for my Boston readings.4

We must get up a less elaborate & a much better skeleton-plan for the Blindfold Novels & make a success of that idea. David Gray spent Sunday here & said we could but little comprehend what a rattling stir that thing would make in the country. He thought it would make a mighty strike. So do I. But with only 8 pages to tell the tale in, the plot must be less elaborate, doubtless. What do you think?

When we exchange visits I’ll show you an unfinished sketch of Elizabeth’s time which shook David Gray’s system up pretty exhaustively.5

Ys Ever

Mark.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK), written from Townsend Harbor, Massachusetts, in response to his of 9 August:

UCLC32407

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Howells’s “enormous quantity of copy” was for his campaign biography of Rutherford B. Hayes (9 Aug 76 to Howells, n. 1). On Howells’s envelope, Clemens wrote: “Johnny Howells learns to swear.”

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2 “The Parlor Car,” in the September Atlantic Monthly (Howells 1876).

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3 This comic sketch—about a young woman’s engagement to a disaster-prone young man who successively suffers smallpox, the amputation of a leg, the loss of both arms, partial blindness, the fracture of his remaining leg, and scalping by Indians—first appeared as “Whereas” in the Californian on 22 October 1864. A revised version then was included as “Aurelia’s Unfortunate Young Man” in 1867 in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And other Sketches. Clemens revised that version for subsequent collections, most recently in 1875 for Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old (for the full history of revision and publication, see ET&S2, 86–87, 597–604; SLC 1864; SLC 1867; SLC 1875).

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4 “The Canvasser’s Tale,” about a seller of echoes, did fill about three and a half pages in the December Atlantic Monthly (SLC 1876). It was not published in London in Temple Bar magazine, however, nor did Clemens use it in his Boston readings in November (19 Oct 76 to Saunders, n. 2).

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5 This unfinished sketch, which so affected poet and journalist David Gray on 20 August, was Date 1601. Conversation, As It Was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors, Clemens’s bawdy Elizabethan burlesque. Its first authorized printing was in 1882, although it was also printed privately in 1880 (SLC 1880; SLC 1882; SLC 1920; BAL, 2:3388).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Copy-text:

MS, NN-BGC.

Previous publication: MTL, 1:283–85; MTHL, 1:146–48.

Provenance:See Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

night • night- |