To
William Dean Howells
23 March 1878 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS, correspondence cards, in pencil: MH-H, UCCL 01548)
23d
slc
My Dear Howells—
No, we won’t simultane with Canada unless Houghton can get the Canadian [copyright] transferred immediately to himself or some personal friend of his in Canada. ‸Won’t he try?‸
O dear! Orion’s MS book has come & I’ve read it all through. There are good places in it, but oh, the manifest apprentice hand!
And that reminds me—ungrateful dog that I am—that I owe as much to your training as the count rude country job printer owes to the city boss who takes him in hand & teaches him the right ‸right‸ way to handle his art. I was talking to Mrs. Clemens about this the other day & grieving because I had never mentioned it to you, thereby seeming to ignore it or be unaware of it. Nothing that has passed under your eye needs any revision before going into a volume, while all my other stuff does require so much.
I’m glad you like this last sketch—I begin to like it myself, now.
The trunks are being packed—the furniture is boxed—we depart out of this home next Wednesday. But for the madam’s sleepless nights when I am away, I should certainly ring your door bell this evening at 7. Mrs. C. is full of pleasure over Mrs. Howells’s letter.
Yrs Ever
Mark.
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MTHL, 1:225–26.
Provenance:See Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
copyright • copy-|right
