28 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NHyF, UCCL 11401)
Gra Mrs. Gray’s brave letter excited our admiration of her character as much as it grieved us that she should need to make the sacrifice which is the testimony of her fortitude. To have to give up your home is only next in hardship to having to give up your babies.1explanatory note Ten days ago I had a great tree cut down, which stood within five steps of the house, because I thought it was dead; & it turned out that it was all perfectly sound except one big branch near the top. A stranger would not think we had not trees enough, still; but I find myself keeping away from the windows on that side because that stump is such a reproach to me. That maple was part of our home, you see; & it is gone. How one can abide parting with all of his home So I comprehend & realize one little fraction of what it is to part with all of one’s home.
But we must & we will hope that some happy turn will enable you to take that sign from off your door-post Ⓐemendation & keep your home. We will not consent to think of a stranger sheltering himself in that nest. There is only one harder thing than being homeless, & that is, being in debt. So it is some little comfort to know that if you lose the home you will save at least save yourself from that other distress—a distress so exquisite, so respiteless, so relentless, that it stands out by itself, among tortures of the mind, like cancer among the tortures of the body. I suffered it once, ten years ago, & I think I have forgotten all the circumstances of that time but that one.2explanatory note It remains St. Peter’s still, strong & black, after Rome has melted into the level Campagna, & even the mountains are become vague & hazy.
Mr. s. & Mrs. Howells were here the other day, & the only pang about their visit was that it was too short.3explanatory note What a perfectly delightful multitude those two people are! They fill the whole house & all the region round about with a mighty comfortable pleasantness. But you know what they are; at least you know Howells; I forgo et whether he said she was at your house or not. In the spring, if you can only come here, & Mrs. Clemens’s strength continues to improve as it does now, Howells will come down, & Mrs. H., too, if she can, & we shall have a restful good time—& you will see the Twichells. (I speak of the Spring as if it were not already here—& it is, but only in the almanac.)4explanatory note
Day before yesterday the most notable feature of the furniture for my study came at last, & the place looked almost complete. But alas for human hopes & plans, I had to move out yesterday & write in a bedroom; & tomorrow I shall move my inkstand permanently into Ⓐemendation a corner of the billiard room. If ever the babies get beyond fretting & crying (the nursery adjoins the study), then I shall move back again.
Yesterday I began a novel. I suppose I am a fool, but I simply couldn’t help it. The characters & incidents have been galloping through my head for three months, & there seems to be no way to get them out but to write them out. My conscience is easy, for few people would have fought against this thing as long as I have done. I certainly won’t finish it, though, until I shall have completed one of my other books.5explanatory note
Mrs. Clemens sends her love to you two, & will write soon. She is threatened with dipththeria Ⓐemendation to-day & can’t go into the nursery—she don’t enjoy that.
Martha Gray’s letter, which informed the Clemenses that she and her husband were forced to sell their house, has not been found. In April 1873, David Gray, co-owner of the Buffalo Courier, had suffered “financial embarrassments that had come upon him, in connection with his newspaper interest.” Presumably, these difficulties had not “come out, all right,” as he had hoped (Larned, 1:139).
In the fall of 1865 Clemens fell into debt while living in San Francisco ( RI 1993, 405, 701; L1, 324–25).
Although the temperature was as low as twenty-nine degrees on the morning of Sunday, 28 March, “beautiful spring weather” had been noted three days earlier, and “Blue birds made their appearance on Saturday” (Hartford Courant: “Brief Mention,” 26 Mar 75, 2, 29 Mar 75, 1; Hartford Times: “The News,” 29 Mar 75, 2).
The new novel has not been identified. The “other books” were Sketches, New and Old, which Clemens was about to submit to the American Publishing Company, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which he finished in July 1875.
MS, David Gray Papers, General Services Administration National Archives and Record Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. (NHyF).
L6 , 429–430.
The David Gray Papers—donated to NHyF by David Gray, Jr.—include several dozen letters written to his father and mother. Among these are nine letters from Clemens, one from Clemens and Olivia, and one from Olivia alone.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.