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29 December 1883 • Hartford, Conn.
(MS facsimile: Pook & Pook, 11–12 October 2013, lot 619, UCCL 13568)
Hartford, Dec 29/83.
Dear J. B.
“Supposing you were Cable”––which I’ll be dern’d if I do––I would say to you thus:
“Dear young struggler, such letters-commendatory are not valuable, & I believe I have never written one. But if you will ask old Mr. J. B. Pond to drop Howells a note and ask said Howells to mail to him a letters which I wrote to said Howells a few weeks ago, said Pond will find in said letter a remark about said Cable aforesaid to the effect that the to-wit Cable is about the best amateur reader I have yet heard & will doubtless by & by become the best professional reader on the platform. Furthermore, said remark, if printed with the heading, “Extract from a private letter from Mark Twain to W.D. Howells” will be valuable because it is an unsolicited private opinion.
Now J. B. you just go & act accordingly, while I remain
Yours Truly as aforesaid
S. L. Clemens
Address
W.D. Howells,
4 Louisburg Square, Boston