To
William Dean Howells
4 and 6 July 1877 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS: NN-BGC and MH-H, UCCL 02511)
(SUPERSEDED)
Elmira, July 4.
My Dear Howells—
It is splendid of you to say those pleasant things. But I am still plagued with doubts about Parts I & II. If you have any, don’t print. If otherwise, please make some cold villain like Lathrop read & pass sentence on them. Mind, I thought they were good at first—it was the second reading that accomplished its hellish purpose on me. Put them up for a new verdict. Part IV has lain in my pigeon-hole a good while, & when I put it there I had a Christian’s confidence in 4 aces in it; & you can bet ‸be sure‸ it will skip toward Conanticut tomorrow [be‸fore‸ fore any fresh reading ] any fatal fresh reading makes me draw my bet.
I’ve piled up 151 MS pages on my comedy. The first, second & fourth acts are done, & done to my satisfaction, [too. To-morrow] & next day will finish the 3d act & the play. I have not written less than 30 pages any day since I began. Never had so much fun over anything in my life—never such consuming interest & delight. (But Lord bless you the second reading will fetch it!) [in margin and cross-written: And just think!—I had Sol Smith Russell in my mind’s eye for the old detective’s part, & hang it he has gone off pattering with Oliver Optic, or else the papers lie.]
I read everything about the President’s doings there with exultation. He looms up grand & fine, like the old-time benefac old-time national benefactors of history. Well, it’s a long time since we’ve had anybody to fell feel proud of & have confidence in. I mean to take my fill now while [ my ] the meal’s hot & the appetite ravenous.
I wish that old ass of a private secretary hadn’t taken me for George Francis Train. If ignorance were a means of grace I wouldn’t trade that gorilla’s chances for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s.
I shall call on the President again, by & by. I shall go in my war paint; & if I am obstructed, the nation will have the unusual spectacle of a private secretary with a pen over one ear & a tomahawk over the other.
I read the entire Atlantic this time. Wonderful number. Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke‸’s‸ wr story was a ten-strike. I wish she would write 12 old-time New England tales a year.
Good-times to you all! Mind if you don’t run here for a few days you will go to ◇◇◇◇ hell hence without having had a fore-glimpse of heaven.
Mark.
P.S—2 days later, being July 6—
My play is finished; 4-Act Comedy, with 14 characters; conceived, plotted out, written & completed in 6½ working days of 6½ hours each; just a fraction under 250 MS pages besides the pages that were torn up & the few pages of odds & ends of notes, such as one sets down in the midst of his work for future reference; it is an average of 5 Atlantic pages each day. I think it was a prodigious dash of work; I’m the tiredest man in America. My old fool detective pervades the piece from beginning to end—always on hand & busy.
I go to New York Monday (St James Hotel,) & take MS with me. Shall visit theatres for a week or ten days & see if I can find a man who can play the detective as well as Sol Smith Russell could doubtless have done it—though I never have seen him. If the play’s a success it is worth $50,000 or more—if it fails it is worth nothing—& yet even the worst of failures can’t rob one of the 6½ days of booming pleasure I have had in writing it.
Mark
I meant it for a comedy—but it is only a long farce. Wish you’d come to New York & go to theatres.
Textual Commentary
Copy-text:Previous publication:
MTL, 1:297–98, partial publication; MTHL, 1:185–88, partial publication.
Provenance:See Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
be‸fore‸ fore any fresh reading • be-| ‸fore‸ fore any fresh reading | fore
too. To-morrow • too.—| To-morrow
my • my [‘y’ partly formed]
