29 September 1874 • Hartford, Conn. (MS facsimile: Sotheby’s, New York, sale of 13 December 2018, lot 231, UCCL 12808)
Many thanks for your letter & enclosures. If I had the time I would hurl myself in the drama,s wholesale. But I must go on with my book. I do not know whether I could fit Mr. & Mrs. Barney Williams with characters or not, but I still think I could fit Bijou—though I must not be thinking about dramas, with this big book on my shoulders.
I have written & asked Raymond to cross my name off the Mark Smith Benefit list, because I shall find it so difficult to leave home.
Look here. You go & see McCullough about that piece. That is what I was going to do, but was so driven I couldn’t. I mean go & see him & make a trade on the merits of the piece, for you see I think I wouldn’t want my name associated with it as being the re-dresser of a character thrown in to make by-play while the scenes are shifted. See? But there’s meat in that play.
We trade affec We swap affections with you.
I enclose the P. M. I see I have been trying to turn it into a magazine article, again, which I had forgotten.
MS facsimile, Sotheby’s, New York, sale of 13 December 2018, lot 231.
Paine had this letter transcribed (his TS is now in CU-MARK), but its whereabouts since then are unknown.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.