Cambridge, Jan. 16, 1876.
My dear Clemens:I’m ever so sorry to hear of your sickness, which seems a thing altogether out of character with you, and hardly fair on a man who has made so many other people feel well. How do you pretend to justify it?— I wish Mrs. Howells and I could go down to Hartford next Saturday; I’d had a sneaking desire for an invitation some time; but now when it comes, and I haven’t disgraced myself by hinting for it, why we’re neither of us in a position to accept it. We’ve invited Ward the sculptor to visit us, and he’s half accepted, and may accept the other half, and come at a day’s notice. Besides, as I printed my story along, I found that I had to reconstruct the last three numbers almost entirely, and to write them all over. This has almost killed me, and I haven’t finished the work yet, and I couldn’t leave home on any account till it is done. Thanks and heartfelt regrets from both of us.
Our contributor’s story is a very good one, as I think you’ll say when you read it, but I don’t believe it’ll interfere with anything you’re doing. At any rate, I want you to make me judge in the matter, and send me your MS. as soon as you can.
Mrs. Howells joins me in regards to both of you.
Ever yours
W. D. Howells.
I’m glad to hear that the Sketches have done so well. Get Bliss to hurry out Tom Sawyer. That boy is going to make a prodigious hit.
