11 November 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (Sanborn 1920, pp. 10–11, UCCL 10423)
I am very much obliged to you for that book, &Ⓐemendation I want to thank you for making it; for I see that you feel about these things just as I do. I have glanced at one page only, thus far, (Page 11), but the way you sail into the Adjective there, warms my heart. I have always wished that somebody would expose the adjective, for it certainly richly deserves it. It is just as you say: the Adjective is a (n) regular, irregular, numeral, cardinal, ordinal, distributive, indeclinable, bloody nuisance “from——.” Yes, that is just where it is from; you couldn’t have said a truer thing; &Ⓐemendation it is where it will go to, one of these days, if my supplications are answered.
(You shouldn’t say “(n)”——half the people wont understand it; say it right out plain, “d—n”). It will gain you millions of friends. Yes, &Ⓐemendation I immensely like your idea of bunching all those things together under “singular” &Ⓐemendation “plural,” &Ⓐemendation cursing them in body, &Ⓐemendation comprehensively—three eloquent dashes to each lot. In a new edition, if you should want any help, in the way of harsh names &Ⓐemendation vicious epithets, you just leave the Adjective to me—leave it to me with the utmost confidence. I can pour out as much as ten pages of Billingsgate on it without going dry. I will give it such another dressing down that it will be ashamed to show its face in literature again for a hundred years.
Sanborn 1920, pp. 10–11.