18 February 1884 • Hartford, Conn. (MS, in pencil: NPV, UCCL 02920)
See the enclosed, from Mr. Howells. , (& return it.)
You need not show the play to Goodwin. Simply tell him Howells objects to changing Sellers’s name; that Howells has thought the thing over & arrived at the conclusion that it could do non real good to change the name, for the character would remain Sellers. OVER
inserted on the verso:
Say I disagree with Howells, but I bow to the decision of course, for he may be right; & is entitled to have his objection respected by me, anyway.
Now that is all you need say to Goodwin. If he should wish to combat that objection, let him do it himself, or by letter to Howells; or do it through you to Howells. See? i’m entirely out of the fight. The next time I interest myself in the play, it will be when I am armed with written authority to do exactly as I please with it.
I have written Howells a letter which will probably make him inextinguishably ashamed of his letter; & of the infantile objection which he makes to Goodwin; & of the preposterous idea that the Mallorys can make a thing or a man respectable where our names couldn’t. And doubtless it will also make him ashamed of having placed me in the awkward position of having to shut d to stop negociations with an actor without having any decent explanation to offer why I act so.
You see I have offered the only explanation I could offer—Howells’s objection to change of name. Now it remains for Howells to do the rest of the explaining—& he won’t find it any holiday job, if he has to tackle it.
When the copying of the Sellers play is finished, keep the new copy—yes, keep both until Howells asks for one.
newspaper clipping attached at top of enclosed letter:
Mr. John T. Raymond was too ill to appear
in Toronto on the 1st inst., and Mr. William
Cullington played Col. Sellers very acceptably.
Then why not Cullington?
W. D. H.
This didn’t go th◊◊ last night, and this morning I have your two letters about Goodwin. I see that he wants the name of the character changed. The more I think of that, the more I feel that it would be useless. It would still be Sellers, and the change of name would make menⒶemendation and newspapers mad to no purpose.
I confess that it would be extremely distasteful to me to have my name and connected in any way with Goodwin’s. I was willing to consent if he went about under the wing of a respectable hen like the Madison Square management; but I cannot stand the thought of him “on his own hook.” His name has been connected with low flung burlesques, and his family appear before the public habitually in nothing but stocking[s]; at Montreal, I saw him in a play so indecent that I was obliged to leave the theatre with Mrs. Howells.
You will say that Raymond is as great a blackguard, or greater. This may be true, but Raymond is identified with Sellers—not an ignoble figure. Decent people throng to see him, and no bad smell attaches to him out of the profession. It would be one thing to let him or some perfectly unknown man have the play, and quite another to let G. have it.
You may have reasoned it out in another way. If you have don’t let me stand in your road. The life of the play is yours Sellers, and Sellers is yours. Pay me a sum outright for my work, when you’ve arranged with G., and let the play go to the public as yours solely and entirely; no one knows yet that I’ve helpt you.
It is It’s only just to Webster to say that Mallory thought of Goodwin himself, and mentioned him; Webster didn’t mention him at all to Mallory, although he had done so to me. He saw M. only in my presence.
MS, in pencil, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Special Collections, NPV, is source text for the letter. MS, William Dean Howells to SLC, 15 February 1884, NPV, is source text for the enclosure.
MTBus, 235–36, without the enclosure.
see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.