KnⒶemendation Nobody knows, better than I, that there are times when swearing cannot meet the emergency. How sharply I feel that, at this moment. Not a single profane word has issued from my lips this morning—I have not even had the impulse to swear, so wholly ineffectual would swearing have manifestly been, in the circumstances. But I will tell you about it:

During three weeks now

About three weeks ago, a sensitive friend, approaching his revelation cautiously, intimated that the N.Y. Tribune was engaged in a kind of crusade against me. This seemed a higher compliment than I deserved; but no matter, it made me very angry. I asked many questions, & gatheredⒶemendation, in substance, this: Since Reid’s return from Europe, the Tribune had been flinging sneers & brutalities at me with such persistent frequency “as to attract general remark.” I was an angered—which is just as good an expression, I take it, as an hungered. Next, I learned that Osgood, among the rest of the “general,” was worrying over these constant & pitiless attacks. Next came the testimony of another friend, that the attacks were not merely “frequent,” but “almost daily.” Reflect upon that: “Almost daily” insults, for two months on a stretch. What would you have done?

As for me, I did the thing which was the natural thing for me to do; that is, I set about contriving a plan to accomplish one or the other of two things: 1. Force a peace; or, 2, Get revenge. When I got my plan finished, it pleased me marvelously. It was in six or seven sections, each section to be used in its turn & by itself; the assault to be begun at once wilth No. 1, & the rest to follow, one after the other, to keep the communications open while I wrote my biography of Ree id. I meant to wind up with this latter great work, & then dismiss the subject for good.

Well, ever since then I have worked day & night making notes & collecting & classifying material. I’ve got collectors at work in England. I went to New York & sat three hours taking evidence while a stenographer set it down. As my labors grew, so also grew my fascination. Malice & malignity faded out of me—or maybe I drove them out of me, knowing that a malignant book would hurt nobody but the fool whoⒶemendation wrote it. I got to thoroughly in love with this work; for I saw that I was going to write a book which the very devils & angels themselves would delight to read, & which would draw disapproval from nobody but the hero of it., (and Mrs. Clemens,—who is bitter against the whole thing.) One part of my plan was so delicious that I had to try my hand on it right away, just for the luxury of it. I set about it, & sure enough it panned out to admiration. I wrote that chapter most carefully, & I couldn’t find a fault with it. ⟦It was not for the biography—no, it belonged to an immediate & deadlier project.⟧

Well, five days ago, this thought came into my mind—(from Mrs. Clemens’s): “Wouldn’t it be well to make sure that the attacks have been ‘almost daily?’—& to also make sure that their number & character will justify me, in in doing what I am proposing to do?”

I at once set a man to work in New York to seek out & copy every unpleasant reference which had been made to me in the Tribune from Nov. 1 to date. On my own part I began to watch the current numbers, for I had subscribed for the paper.

The result arrived from my New York man this morning. O, what a pitiable wreck of high hopes! “The almost daily” assaults, for two months, consist of—1. Adverse criticism of P. & P. from an engragedⒶemendation idiot in the London Atheneum; 2, Paragraph from some indignant Br Englishman in the Pall Mall g Gazette who pays me the vast compliment of gravely rebuking some imaginary ass who has set me up in the neighborhood of Rabelais; 3, A remark of the Tribune’s about the Montreal dinner, touched with an almost invisible satire; & 4, A remark of the Tribune’s about refusal of Canadian copyright, not complimentary, but not necessarily malicious—& of course adverse criticism which is not malicious is a thing which none but fools irritate themselves about.

There—that is the prodigious bugaboo, in its entirety! Can you conceive of a man’s getting himself ve into a sweat over so diminutive a provocation? I am sure I can’t. What the devil can those friends of mine have been thinking about, to spread these f 3 or 4 harmless things out into two months of daily sneers & affronts? The whole offense, boiled down, amounts to just this: one uncourteous remark of the Tribune about my book—not me—between Nov. 1 & Dec. 20; & a couple of foreign criticisms (of my writings, not me,) between Nov. 1 & Jan. 26! If I can’t th stand that amount of friction, I certainly need reconstruction. Further boiled down, this vast mal outpouring of malice amounts to simply this: one jest from the Tribune (one can make nothing more serious than that out of it.) One jest—& that is all; for the foreign criticisms do not count, they being matters of news, & p◊◊◊ proper for publication in anybody’s newspaper.

And to offset er that one jest, the Tribune paid me one compliment, Dec. 23, by publishing my note declining the New York New England dinner, while merely (in the same breath,) mentioning that similar letters were read from General Sherman & other men whom we all know to be persons of real consequence.

Well, my mountain has brought forth its mouse; & a sufficiently small mouse it is, God knows. And my three weeks’ hard work have got to go into the ignominious pigeon-hole. Confound it, I could have earned ten thousand dollars with infinitely less trouble. However, I shouldn’t have done it; for I am too lazy, now, in my sere & yellow leaf, to be willing to work for anything but love.

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Being now idle once more, I could go to Boston for a day, but House & Koto are coming Monday. They leave again Tuesday. Don’t you think you & Mrs. Howells could leave the children for a day or two & run down here next Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday? Don’t you think that stepping out of the rut for a moment might be both pleasant & wholesome? Mrs. Clemens & I hope you will feel that way about it & say yes to the proposition. Louis Frèchette is coming to visit us Thursday Feb. 2. If you can come, come then, or before, or after—any date will suit us that will suit you.

I kind of envy you people who are permitted for your righteousness’ sake, to dwell in a boarding house; not that I should want to always live in one, but I should like the change occasionally from this housekeeping slavery to that wild independence. A life of don’t-care-a-damn in a boarding house is what I have asked for in many a secret prayer. I shall come by & by & require of you what you have offered me there.

I won’t fret you & worry you by insisting & insisting that you & Mrs. Howells come down here, for nothing is quite so utterly hellish as one of these bowelless & implacable insisters—but I shall yearn for you just the same.

I wish the godly Osgood would drop in on us a little oftener. All our rooms are finished & habitable, now—& there’s rugs enough, you bet! for Mrs. Clemens has been to New York.