Hartford, Jan 8/83.
Arthur Gilman, Esq
DrSir:
If total unfitness for such service were a qualification, I could smile at competition. Still there are men in Hartford who are competent, if I but had the time to go & see them think them out & go & see them; but I am putting an octavo to press, & have never suffered so much nor so long with the having this kind of a child before. Let me recommend you to drop a line to Rev. Francis Goodwin, a man with abundant cash, leisure, scholarship, literary taste, lofty aims & enthusiasms, & first-class business talent, inherited direct from his late father, the ‸founder &‸ President of the Connecticut Mutual. If he says no, I can then hunt you up a smaller man.
Truly Yours
S. L. Clemens