I was mightily delighted with your review of my book, & am very glad that the work impresses you so favorably. I was doubly solicitous—anxious, shall I say?—this time, because the thing was a new departure, both literarily & publicationai llly., be for I went for the bulk of the profits, & so published the volume at my own expense, paying opening with an edition of 25,000 copies, for the manufacture of which I paid $17,500. Yes, I was solicitous, for a while, but that is all gone by, now. I find myself a fine success, as a publisher; & literarily the new departure is a great deal better received than I had any right to hope for.

Miss Gilder wouldn’t have received any such rude letter from me if he she had put some effeminacy into her handwriting & left a lot of the manly strength & military decision out of it. I said to myself, “So it isn’t Miss Gilder that is chief in authority, after all—there’s a Mr. Gilder in that place”—& without the shadow of a doubt in my mind, I wrote my letter. I didn’t write I wouldn’t have written it to a lady; I didn’t write it to a lady—wrote it to a man. I beg you to offer my thoroughly sincere apologies to Miss Gilder, & say to her that no injury, real or imaginary, could provoke me to write a letter like that to any member of her sex, high or low, rich or poor. I have never have done such a thing, & I know myself well enough to know that I never shall. Confound it, I did the very thing I was complaining of other people about—rushed in without right information when right information was easy to get.

Wuhy man, how is a body ever to know where you are living? The newspapers change your residence every three months. When I send you one of my books I simply address it “New York” & trust in God.

Say—will you stop with us a day or two on your way to Boston?—& will you bring Mrs. Boyesen with you? Mrs. Clemens joins me cordially in this double-barreled request, & both of us hope that both of you will say yes, & stick to the contract. Would ask you to bring the little people, too, if we were a little better fixed for room. However, you’ll find our youngster’s a pretty good make-shift for a short spell.

With Mrs. Clemens’s & my kindest regards to both yourself & Mrs. Boyesen,