16 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01208)
Well, all that was necessary to make that visit perfect was to know that you & Mrs. Howells enjoyed it. Sunday morning Mrs. Clemens said, “Nothing could have been added to that visit to make it more charming, except days.” And presently she said she felt fresher & stronger than usual”——& I was able to say “You look it.”—which was the case. My most secret reason for not going to the Aldrich lunch was that I g Ⓐemendation had got intell◇ectualⒶemendation friction enough out of your visit to be able to go to work Monday. Which turned out to be correct—I wrote 4000 words yesterday.
Today I am proposing to bang away again.
I’ll remember & not divulge the Longfellow matter.
I found it was the wet-nurseⒶemendation who had drank 200 bottles of the 252—so I have been making an awful ra row in the servants’ quarters, this morning, & clearing the atmosphere. My beer will be respected, now, I hope, for I do not wish to resort to bloodshed.2explanatory note
Old Twichell dropped in Saturday night in the hope that you had remained over. I guess that same hope moved him to cancel his “exchange.”3explanatory note
Jolly times to you all & the Aldriches—& the kindest remembrances from us to Mrs Howells.
Clemens answered the following letter (CU-MARK):
The lunch, hosted by James Osgood, was a farewell to Aldrich, who was about to leave for Europe (see 20 Feb 75 to Osgood, n. 1click to open link). On 11 March Aldrich had suggested that if Osgood wanted to expand his guest list, he could invite “any of these gentlemen: Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Mark Twain, Edwin Booth” (Anderson 1909, lot 28). Howells had learned of the existence of proofsheets—or privately printed copies—of “Morituri Salutamus,” Longfellow’s poem for the fiftieth anniversary of his class at Bowdoin. It was collected in The Masque of Pandora, which Osgood published in 1875 ( MTHL , 1:70 n. 3; Hart 1983, 507).
The wet nurse—Clara’s fifth and last—was Maria McLaughlin (see 11 July 74 to JLC, n. 2click to open link). Clemens described her in 1906:
No. 5 was apparently Irish, with a powerful strain of Egyptian in her. . . . She stood six feet in her stockings, she was perfect in form & contour, raven-haired, dark as an Indian, stately, carrying her head like an empress, she had the martial port & stride of a grenadier, & the pluck & strength of a battalion of them. In professional capacity the cow was a poor thing compared to her, & not even the pump was qualified to take on airs where she was. She was as independent as the flag, she was indifferent to morals & principles, she disdained company, & marched in a procession by herself. She was as healthy as iron, she had the appetite of a crocodile, the stomach of a cellar, & the digestion of a quartz-mill. Scorning the adamantine law that a wet-nurse must partake of delicate things only, she devoured anything & everything she could get her hands on, shoveling into her person fiendish combinations of fresh pork, lemon pie, boiled cabbage, ice cream, green apples, pickled tripe, raw turnips, & washing the cargo down with freshets of coffee, tea, brandy, whisky, turpentine, kerosene—anything that was liquid; she smoked pipes, cigars, cigarettes, she whooped like a Pawnee & swore like a demon; & then she would go up stairs loaded as described & perfectly delight the baby with a bouquet which ought to have killed it at thirty yards, but which only made it happy & fat & contented & boozy. No child but this one ever had such grand & wholesome service. The giantess raided my tobacco & cigar department every day; no drinkable thing was safe from her if you turned your back a moment. (SLC 1906, 36–38)
In 1907 he remembered her as Maria McManus, called her “a delight, a darling, a never failing interest,” and claimed: “In the shortest month in the year she drank two hundred and fifty-eight pints of my beer, without invitation, leaving only forty-two for me. I think it was the dryest month I ever spent since I first became a theoretical teetotaler” (AD, 11 Apr 1907, CU-MARK). For Olivia’s remarks on McLaughlin, see 18 Apr 75 to OLC, n. 2.click to open link
MS, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 ]98]).
L6 , 414–416; MTHL , 1:70–72.
see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.