To William Dean Howells
2 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS: MH-H, UCCL 01203)

Tuesday Morning

Here is that critique. I see that I didn’t know what I was talking about in trying to give you some account of it. 1 I wish you would find out, if you can, whether the Howellses, or Howells, will be here over Sunday. I wouldn’t miss being here myself, if they were to be, for a good deal.

Yrs

Joe

Howells, didn’t I tell you that this Jo Twichell couldn’t be kept out? He was going to exchange with some New Jersey preacher Sunday the 14th, till he heard that you are coming. Now if you can manage to stay here Sunday & several days after, it would be so splendid of you. Meantime, you see, the weather would settle, & then Mrs. Howells could travel so much more comfortably.2

Ys [Ever]

Mark

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 The “critique” that Twichell sent to Clemens does not survive. On about 1 March, Twichell pasted the original of it—a portion of a lengthy article by the Reverend William L. Gage, pastor of Hartford’s Pearl Street Congregational Church—in his journal, identifying its source as the Chicago Advance of 25 February 1875. The excerpt—a laudatory description of several Hartford ministers, among them Horace Bushnell, Nathaniel J. Burton, and Edwin Pond Parker—included the following remarks about Twichell himself (after the paragraph on Parker):

From him my mind runs to his intimate friend, our “glorious” brother Twichell, still profanely called Joe by those who know him best. That adjective and that pet name are at once the epitome and the eulogy of his character, and all that I might write would simply expand what those two words hint. One of the noblest of all the Bereans of Connecticut, his love and honor are in all our hearts. A rising name is his; a young man still growing, and every year giving us more and more proof of his rare nature. (Twichell, 1:62)

The Hartford Courant reprinted the Advance article as “The Hartford Ministers’ Meeting” on Tuesday, 2 March (2), and it was presumably this reprinting, or just the “critique” portion of it, that Twichell enclosed with his note that day to Clemens. It is likely that Clemens forwarded the note to Howells immediately, but it is not known if he also sent the “critique.” Bereans were members of a Protestant sect, of Scottish origin, that followed Calvinist doctrines. Twichell, Bushnell, Burton, and Parker were all Congregationalists.

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2 According to the Hartford Courant of 2 March, “the most violent snow storm of the season began yesterday and continued all day and evening. Nearly a foot of snow fell. There was scarcely any business transacted, everybody who could keeping within doors.” The newspaper reported train delays “on the Boston and Albany road.” It snowed again on 10 March, the day before the Howellses arrived (Hartford Courant: “The Storm,” 2 Mar 75, 2; “Brief Mention,” 11 Mar 75, 2).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 [98]).

Previous publication: L6, 401–402; MTHL, 1:69.

Provenance:see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.

Emendations and textual notes:

Ever • E[] [illegible; ink too dry]