To William Dean Howells
21 June 1877 • 2nd of 2 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 11173)

slcfarmington avenue, hartford.

10 P.M.

My Dear Howells—

Never mind about Harte—I mean never mind about being bothered with the letter. I had to have an outlet to my feelings—I saw none but through you—but of course the thing would be disagreeable to you.1 I must try to get somebody to plead with the President who is in the political line of business & won’t mind it. I have partly framed a public letter of advice to Harte, (to print when he is appointed.) I told him, when we were writing the play together, that nobody would appoint him to an office, or ought to.2

To-night I read a little of my Bermuda MS to our little domestic crowd & got no applause—they are a dull lot—then I read the W your Wilden Mann article in the current number, which was received with shrieks of laughter & extravagant praise—Oh, a name goes for everything with these people. If I had written it they wouldn’t have seen anything in it. Yet there are good things in it—I admit that.3

They all want you & Mrs. Howells to come any time this summer & stay a week with us here at the farm on the summit of the hill, & longer if you can. Perfectly glorious here—perfectly bewitching. Can you? Will you? Won’t you? Come—say yes. Love to you both.

Ys Ever,

Mark.

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1

That is, Clemens decided it would be inappropriate to ask Howells to trade on his wife’s relationship to Hayes to prevent Harte’s appointment to a consulship. Despite the fact that Clemens withdrew his request, his two letters to Howells did eventually reach President Hayes. They were sent by Laura Mitchell, Elinor Howells’s cousin and the president’s “favorite niece,” to Webb Cook Hayes (1856–1934), the president’s son, who was serving as his secretary (Francis Murphy 1985, 88; Howells 1979a, 463). Birchard Hayes (Webb’s older brother) reported his father’s answer to Elinor Howells (CU-MARK):

UCLC 39070

Elinor Howells’s brother was Frederick G. Mead (1848–90). Howells forwarded Birchard’s letter to Clemens on 12 July. He did not share Clemens’s dislike of Harte. In April 1878 Hayes solicited his opinion on the “appointment of Bret Harte [as] consul at Nice,” having heard “sinister things about him from Mark Twain.” Howells replied on 9 April:

I am reluctant to say anything about the matter you refer to me, but I will do so at your request. Personally, I have a great affection for the man, and personally I know nothing to his disadvantage. He spent a week with us in Cambridge when he first came East, and we all liked him. He was lax about appointments, but that is a common fault. After he went away, he began to contract debts, and was arrested for debt in Boston. (I saw this.) He is notorious for borrowing and was notorious for drinking. This is report. He never borrowed of me, nor drank more than I, (in my presence) and yesterday I saw his doctor who says his habits are good, now; and I have heard the same thing from others. From what I hear he is really making an effort to reform. It would be a godsend to him, if he could get such a place; for he is poor, and he writes with difficulty and very little. He has had the worst reputation as regards punctuality, solvency and sobriety; but he has had a terrible lesson in falling from the highest prosperity to the lowest adversity in literature, and—you are [a] good enough judge of men to know whether he will profit by it or not.

Personally, I should be glad of his appointment, and I should have great hopes of him—and fears. It would be easy to recall him, if he misbehaved, and a hint of such a fate would be useful to him.

—I must beg that you will not show this letter to anyone whatever, but will kindly return it to me at Cambridge. (Howells 1979b, 194–95)

Howells may have feared that his friendship with Clemens would be jeopardized if his support were made public. Harte’s faults did not prevent Hayes from appointing him consul in Crefield, Germany, in May 1878, where he served until 1880.

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2Clemens is not known to have written any “public letter” about Harte. Their play was Ah Sin.

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3Howells’s article was “At the Sign of the Savage,” published in the Atlantic Monthly for July 1877. In it a blustery American traveler in Vienna leaves his wife at their hotel and then has difficulty rejoining her because on the night of their arrival a carriage driver had taken them to the “Gastof zum Wilden Manne,” and not to the “Kaiserin Elisabeth,” which they had asked for and where they believed they had registered. The U.S. consul, an old friend of the husband’s, comes to his assistance and when asked glosses “Wilden Manne”: “‘The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I suppose: the Wild Man’” (Howells 1877d, 46).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, in pencil, CU-MARK.

Previous publication:

Christie’s catalog, sale of 14 December 1984, lot 135, partial publication; Francis Murphy 1985, 90–91; Sotheby’s catalog, sale of 29 October 1996, lot 209, partial publication; MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:

Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs (apparently) purchased the MS in 1984 from Christie’s and sold it through Sotheby’s in October 1996 to CU-MARK.