30 March 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02551)
Yes, must have nice pictures, & a generous sufficientcy of them, too. Make the limit the figure you suggest—$2,800.
Please send me the enclosed dam book. Got the others. Much obliged.
Howells don’t seem to have no taste. The Earl’s literary excrement charmed me like Fanny Hill. I just wallowed in it. I do not think you ought to publish it yourself, but I do think you g ought to use your influence with Aldrich. ButⒶemendation you never will. You are as dainty & effeminate as Howells; so I know perfectly well that you will simply urinate on the Earl’s MS & send it back to him without further other comment. It is what Howells used to do with poems of sentiment when I sent him any.
written on back of letter as folded:
I returned Earl’s MS to you today.
MS, NN-BGC.
MTLP, 135–36.
Sometime before 1939 the MS was purchased by businessman William T. H. Howe (1874–1939); in 1940 Dr. Albert A. Berg bought and donated the Howe Collection to NN.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.