Hartford, Oct. 1/83.
My Dear House—
How odd it is! ⟦More “Mental telegraphy?”⟧ Some ten days before you wrote this letter about your friend’s friendly treachery I was writing an immeasurably bitter letter to Twichell for betraying my confidence in the same way. I had been inventing a way to play a historical games—both outdoors & in; & I wrote & described to him my manner of mapping out the English reigns along the garden walks for the children—the gushy & garrulous letter of friend to friend. Conceive my horror when he writes back that the thing places me in such pleasant light that it ought to be published; & that to prevent me from stopping him he will take my letter to the Courant before he mails his own! I telegraphed—but t my letter was already in print & on its wide way about the world.—with some most idiotic errors of fact & date in it, too. Thus he broke up some quite extensive plans of mine, & squandered & rendered useless the material out of which I had meant to build an illustrated small book——but that was the smallest part of the plan which he ruined.
He was silent during 3 weeks, & that angered me further, for I thought he ought to apologize. A few more days elapse, & now he writes me a chipper letter from the mountains chaffing at my concern, & saying he is still calmly convinced that he did the right thing. We shall remain friends, but I shan’t answer his letter just the same. When I trust him again, it will by be my fault.
So you see that when [over-friendly] muggins chooses to destroy you with a kind turn, he can do it, whether you be 300 miles away or 10,000.
I’ve got your proof-slips in a safe place, & nobody has read them but myself. I think they are charming; & am sorry if this piece of friendly scoundrelism has seriously baulked your plan. Blame it, I see, now, how you could beat us all at that letter-game, since you played it at Dickens’s forty or fifty years ago. Mrs. Whitmore brought me 2 jumbled piles of letters the other night & said they would amuse a few hours for me, in the way of digging a couple of long words out of them. One pile contained these: N Y H A A T L B ◊ R. The other, these: H A E A T T N I C R. But they were very simple; they did not occupy an entire minute in the solution.
We are powerful glad to hear from you & Koto; [& the children were delighted with Koto’s pretty gift;] but you talk as if you are in a most crippled way with the gout, & that does not please [us. What] a scourge that disease is. I was hoping better things than this from your return to Japan. Well, we will still try to hope for better things.
Howells is back from Europe, & so is Osgood. We have been at home 2 weeks, & have taken up the slow round of “life” again. We all send love to you & Koto.
Sincerely yours
Mark.
[letter docketed by House:] Clemens S L. | Oct 1. 83 | [rule]
Source text(s):
