Clemens enclosed the manuscript of the first installment of “Old Times on the Mississippi,”
which appeared
in the Atlantic in January 1875. Howells replied (CU-MARK):
UCLC32071
editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.
November 23, 1874.
Dear Clemens:
The deliberation with which I respond to your letters of Friday is but a faint token
of the delight that their
coming gave me. I hope you’re going to let me keep the letter from Limerick: at any
rate I’m going to keep it
till I’ve showed it round—especially to Aldrich and Osgood. I quite agree with Twitchell
about its deliciousness.
(You not like Lamb! When the L. in your name stands for Lamb, and you know very well
that you were christened Charles, and afterwards
changed it to Solomon, for a joke.) Mrs. Howells is simply absurd about it, and thinks
it better than the most tragical mirth in A
Foreg. Conc.
The piece about the Mississippi is capital—it almost made the water in our ice-pitcher
muddy as I
read it, and I hope to send you a proof directly. I don’t think I shall meddle much
with it even in the way of suggestion.
The sketch of the low-lived little town was so good, that I could have wished ever
so much more of it; and perhaps the tearful
watchman’s story might have been abridged—tho this may seem different in print. I
want the sketches, if you can
make them, everymonth.
Don’t say another word about being late at lunch. I hope we know how to forgive a
deadly
injury,—especially when we know what is going to happen to the person when he dies.
Mrs. Howells thanks you ever so much for the fotografs. We both admire the babies,
who seem to have behaved
uncommonly well under fire of the fotografer, and to have come out seriously charming.
We think they and the house the prettiest in the
world. Give our best regards to Mrs. Clemens and the Twitchells.
Your visit was an inexpressible pleasure. We hope for that great day when you shall
bring your wife.
Yours ever
W. D. Howells.
Clemens might have enclosed the photographs for Elinor Howells in his second letter
of November 20, if it was
written late in the day on Saturday, but it is also possible that he sent them in
an unrecovered letter on 21 November (for the
photographs of Susy and Clara, see pp. 682, 683; for the likely image of the Hartford
house see 26 Jan? 75 to Brushclick to open link). Such a letter might have included mention of Twichell’s
response to the Limerick fantasy, as well as commentary on the supposed affinity with
Charles Lamb, although Twichell could have
raised those matters himself in a letter to Howells. Of course Howells knew that Clemens’s
middle name was
“Langhorne,” but his joke may have been a play on the family name “Lampton” (see the
next letter, n. 4).
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, New York (NN-B).
L6 , 294–95; Paine 1917, 784; MTL , 1:230, excerpt; MTHL , 1:42.
see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.