8 December 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 05257)
It isn’t the Atlantic audience that distresses me; for it is the only audience that I sit down before in perfect serenity (for the simple reason that it don’t require a “humorist” to paint himself stripèd & stand on his head every fifteen minutes.) The trouble was, that I was only bent on “working up an atmosphere” & that is to me a most fidgety & irksome thing sometimes. I avoid it, unsually, but in this case it was absolutely necessary, else every reader would be applying the Ⓐemendationatmosphere of his own river or sea experiences, & that would spoil everything. shirt wouldn’t fit, you know.1explanatory note
I could have sent this Article 2 a week ago, or more, but I couldn’t bring myself to the trouble drudgery of revising & correcting it. I have been at that tedious work 3 hours, now, & it only took by George but I am glad it is over.2explanatory note
Say—I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted—otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist. Tell Ⓐemendationme what day & date you want Nos. 3 & 4, & I will tackle & revise them & they’ll be there to the minute.
I Ⓐemendationcould wind up with No. 4, but there are some things more, which I am powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person who would quit authorizing Ⓐemendationin a minute to go to piloting, if the madam would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time.3explanatory note
My wife was afraid to write you—so I said with simplicity, “I will give you the language—& ideas.” Through the infinite grace of God there has not been such another insurrection in the family before th as followed this. However, the letter was written, & promptly, too— whereas, heretofore she has remained afraid to do such things.4explanatory note
With kind regards to Mrs. Howells,
A response to the concluding remarks of Howells’s letter of 3 December (see 2 Dec 74 to Howells, n. 1click to open link).
Clemens presumably enclosed the manuscript, or soon sent it under separate cover, for the second (February) installment of “Old Times” (SLC 1875 [MT02539]).
Clemens expressed his preference for piloting in the sixth (June) installment of “Old Times” and often elsewhere (see L4 , 58 n. 3; SLC 1875 [MT02544], 721).
Olivia wrote (MH-H):
Very many thanks, Mr Howells, for the copy of “A Foregone Conclusion” which reached me yesterday—
Mr Clemens and I have thoroughly enjoyed the story each month as it came to us in The Atlantic—
I wanted Mr Clemens to write you when we had finished the last chapters, that if you would come and study closely our home life, you would find here a woman who was able to maintain the “operatic pitch” without encouragement—I don’t know why he was unwilling to do it, I am sure it would have increased your sense of his manly dignity—
We are looking forward with very pleasant anticipations to the time when you and Mrs Howells will visit us—We hope to be entirely settled by Christmas and after that we shall be anxious to see you here, and show you our babies and our new home—
Please give my kind regards to Mrs Howells—
Howells had inscribed the gift copy: “Mrs. S. L. Clemens with the best regards of W. D. Howells, Cambridge, Dec. 4, 1874” (Sotheby 1973, lot 291). In her third paragraph, Olivia alluded to a passage in the final chapter:
People are never equal to the romance of their youth in after life, except by fits, and Ferris especially could not keep himself at what he called the operatic pitch of their brief betrothal and the early days of their marriage. With his help, or even his encouragement, his wife might have been able to maintain it. (Howells 1874–75, 259–60)
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B). The letter quoted in note 4, Olivia Clemens to Howells, 6 Dec 74, is in the Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 [98]).
L6 , 305–7; MTL , 1:236–37; MTHL , 1:49–50.
see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.