editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.
Dear Clemens:
I have just simmered down to-day after nearly two weeks of arduous journeying and junketing. First I went to Quebec to my sister’s wedding, which was a very pleasant affair, and then I got back to Cambridge in time for the President’s visit to Boston, and then in Newport. Nothing can give you an adequate notion of the cordiality of his welcome, and you would have liked to see how perfectly he did his part. I was with his suite a great deal, breakfasted with him and met him at the Mayor’s dinner.
My feeling was that on every occasion he was far the simplest and greatest man (except Longfellow and Emerson) present.— His son Webb and the young ladies of the party expressed their great regret at the failure of your attempt to see him in Washington. W. said his father would have been so glad to meet you, and the family would have been pleased to have you ‸call‸ at the White House.— Mrs. Howells kept your two letters ‸about B. H.‸ for me. I think now there is no danger of the national calamity you feared, and I don=t believe there ever was much. So I understood from W. H.
I’ve been reading aloud to my wife your Bermuda papers. That they’re delightfully entertaining goes without saying; but we also found that you gave us the only realizing sense of Bermuda that we’ve ever had. I know that they will be a great success.—The fog has cleared off, and we’re in raptures with Conanicut. Would that we could bring this ‸your‸ hill-top both to our shore!—That joke you put into Twichell’s mouth advising you to make the most of a place that was like heaven, about killed us.
Yours ever
W.D. Howells
