Private

Jo Twichell brought me your note & told me of his talk with you. He said you didn’t believe you would ever be able to muster a sufficiency of reckless daring to make you comfortable & at ease before an audience. Well, I have thought out g a device whereby I believe we can get around that difficulty. I will explain when I see you.

Jo says you want to go to Canada within a month., or six weeks—well, I forget just exactly what he did say; but he intimated that that trip could be delayed a while, if necessary. If this is so, suppose you meet Osgood & me in New Orleans early in May—say somewhere between the 4 th 1 st & 6th?

It will be well worth your while to do this, because the author who goes to Canada unposted, will not know what course to pursue when he gets there; he will find himself in a hopeless confusion as to what is the correct thing to do. Now Osgood is the only man in America who can lay out your course for you & tell you exactly what to do. Therefore, you just come to New Orleans & have a talk with him.

Our idea is to strike across lots & reach St Louis the 20th of April—traveling thence we propose to drift southward, stopping at some town a few hours or a night, every day, & making notes. , written through my stenographers Ⓐemendation

To escape the interviewers, I shall follow my usual course & use a fictitious name (C. L. Samuel, of New York.) I don’t know what Osgood’s name will be, but he can’t use his own.

If you see your way to meet us in New Orleans, drop me a line, now, & as we approach that city I will telegraph you what day we shall arrive there.

I would go to Atlanta if I could, but shan’t be able. We shall go back up the river to St Paul, & thence by rail X-lots home.

⟦I am making this letter so dreadfully private & confidential because my movements must be kept secret, else I shan’t be able to pick up the kind of book-material I want.⟧

If you are diffident, I suspect that you ought to let Osgood be your magazine-agent. He makes those people pay three or four times as much as an article is worth, whereas I never had the cheek to make them pay more than double.