Munich, Jan. 21.
My Dear Howells—
It’s no use,—your letter miscarried in some way & is lost. The consul has made a thorough search & says he has not been able to trace it. It is unaccountable, for all the letters I did not want arrived without a single grateful failure. Well, I have read‸-up‸ as, now, as far [as] you have got,—that is, to where there’s a storm at sea approaching,—& we three think you are clear out-Howellsing Howells. If your literature has not struck perfection now we are not able to see what is lacking. It is all such truth—truth to the life; everywhere your pen falls it leaves a photograph. I did imagine that everything had been said about life at sea that could be said,—but no matter, it was all a failure & lies, nothing but lies with a thin varnish of fact,—only you have stated it as it absolutely is. And only you see people & their ways & their insides & outsides as they are, & make them talk as they do talk. I think you are the very greatest artist in these tremendous mysteries that ever lived. There doesn’t seem to be anything that can be concealed from your awful all-seeing eye. It must be a cheerful thing, ‸for one‸ to live with you & be aware that you are going up & down in him like another conscience all the time. Possibly you will not be a fully accepted classic until you have been dead a hundred years,—it is the fate of the Shakspeares & the of all genuine prophets,—but then your books will be as common as Bibles, I believe. You ain’t a weed, but an oak; you ain’t a summer-house, but a cathedral. In that day I shall still be in the Cyclopedias, too,—thus: “Mark Twain; history & occupation unknown—but he was personally acquainted with Howells.” There—I could sing your praises all day, & feel & believe every bit of it.
My book is half finished; I wish to heaven it was done. I have given up writing a detective novel—can’t write a novel, for I lack the faculty; but when the detectives were nosing around after Stewart’s loud remains, I threw a chapter into my present book in which I have very extravagantly burlesqued the detective business—if it is possible to burlesque that business extravagantly. You know I was going to send you that Detective play, so that you could re-write it. Well I didn’t do it because I couldn’t find a single idea in it that could be useful to you. It was dreadfully witless & flat. It knew it would sadden you & unfit you for work.
I have always been sorry we up threw up that play embodying Orion which you began. It was a mistake to do that. Do keep that MS & tackle it again. It will work out all right, you will see. I don’t believe that that character exists in literature in so well developed a condition as it exists in Orion’s person. Now won’t you put Orion in a story? Then he will go handsomely into a play afterwards. How deliciously you could paint him—it would make fascinating reading,—the sort that makes a reader laugh & cry at the same time, for Orion is as good & as ridiculous a soul as ever was.
We thought we were going to lose our little Clara yesterday, but the danger is gone, to-day, apparently.
Ah, to think of Bayard Taylor! It is too sad to talk about. I was so glad there was not a single sting & so many good praiseful words in the Atlantic’s criticism of Deukalion.
Love to you all
Yrs Ever
Mark.
We remain here till middle of March.
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