It The only notices of the Tramp which I have seen are yours & Howells’s—the deep & pleasurable surprise which these have given me, is a thing which cannot be expressed in words. You will remember, maybe, how I felt about “Roughing It”—that it would be considered pretty poor stuff, & that therefore I had better not let the press get a chance at it; well, I felt the same way about this one; so I sent copies to only you & Howells, & to no other journalists, knowing I could depend upon you both for what I fully expected of you, viz., the most profound & generous silence regarding the work. When Howells came out with two pages of compliment, the surprise of it took my breath away—& now you have surprised me, too, & in the same delightful way.

Bless me, what an effect other people’s opinions do have upon us! These two notices have totally & honestly changed my opinion of the book. I can pick it up, now, & read it with pleasure; whereas, before, the very sight of it was intolerable to me. Many a time I had cursed myself for not attributing the translation of the Lorelei to some other person—but your commendation has turned it into very good poetry indeed. In talking with you & Howells, I always dodged the saying of anything definite about the book, for I did not want to inflict upon you any of the distress I was feeling about it myself.

I am effectually barred from questioning the excellence of your & Howells’s judgement by the unassailable logic of figures: up to now, we have printed 50,000 copies, & they are sold. This is a considerably bigger sale than I have made on any previous book in the same length of time. And the sales go briskly on.

We expect to arrive in Elmira for the summer, six days hence—next Wednesday evening. Ⓐemendation (via New York—Erie road.) Mrs. Clemens is to be confined about the middle of July; & et either before or after that we do hope you & Mrs. Gray will give us a visit at the farm. o It ain’t so far to come as Hartford, so we have hopes that you will be able to manage it.

With a powerful of love from all the Clemenses to all the Grays,