To William Dean Howells
4 and 6 July 1877 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS, in ink, then pencil: NN-BGC and MH-H, UCCL 02511)

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.1 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.2

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.3]

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.4 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.5 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 me of the 6½ days of booming pleasure I have had in writing it.6

Mark

I meant it for a comedy—but it is only a long farce. Wish you’d come to New York & go to theatres.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1George Parsons Lathrop (1851–98) was associate editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Howells had responded enthusiastically to the first three installments of “Some Rambling Notes” (27 June 1877 to Howells, n. 3).

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2Howells’s “splendid” response to the Bermuda sketches would continue with his reaction to the fourth and final installment, which Clemens had finished on 27 June (but did not send him until 5 July): “No 4 of your Notes of an I. Ex. is glorious. I nearly killed Mrs. Howells with it—I want to see that comedy! Why not run on here with it from N. Y. next week?,” he wrote on 12 July (CU-MARK).

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3Clemens soon told Howells, on 11 July, that the name of his new play was Cap’n Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective. Russell (1848–1902), who had a long career as a leading comic actor, was at this time a member of Augustin Daly’s company at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, playing supporting roles. “Oliver Optic” was the pseudonym of his father-in-law, William T. Adams, who wrote children’s stories. Russell contacted Clemens in late August to express his interest in the play: see 29 Aug 1877 to Howells, n. 3.

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4An allusion to William K. Rogers, who had prevented Clemens from seeing President Hayes in April (1 May 1877 to Howells).

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5Rose Terry Cooke (1827–92) grew up in Hartford and graduated from the Female Seminary there at age sixteen. Her earliest works were poems published in the New York Tribune, but she became better known for her insightful and humorous tales of New England life and character. The story Clemens enjoyed was “Freedom Wheeler’s Controversy with Providence,” in the July 1877 Atlantic Monthly (Cooke 1877).

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6Clemens postponed his trip to New York until 14 July, while he revised the Simon Wheeler play.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, in ink, NN-BGC is Source text for the letter; MS, in pencil, MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 (98), is Source text for the postscript.

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 any fresh reading | fore

too. To-morrow • ~.— | ~

my • [‘y’ partly formed]