15 October 1881 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 02053)
Slash away, with entire freedom; & the more you slash, the better I shall like it & the more I shall be cordially obliged to you. Alter any and everything you choose—don’t hesitate.
The news from Winny is most acceptable & welcome. I do hope w she will go straight on, now, to sound health, without an interruption.
I am hard at work on Capt. Ned Wakeman’s adventures in heaven— merely for the love of it; for laws bless you, it can’t ever be published. At least not unless I trim it like everything & then father it on some good man—say Osgood. This is my purpose at present.
Twichell & I walked out to the Tower & back, yesterday. Hee mentioned that a Yale scientist believes we shall contrive away a wayⒶemendation to communicate with the people in other planets by & by—(by my system of Mental Telegraphy, maybe.) No other way will be possible, because they only thoughts could be transmitted—not language, since neither of us could understand the other. As for myself, I have no difficulty in believing that our newspapers will by & by will contain news, not 24 hours old, from Jupiter et al—mainly astronomical corrections & weather indications; with now & then an irritating a sarcastic fling at the only true religion.
References
- Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- MTHL. Mark Twain–Howells Letters. Edited by Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson, with the assistance of Frederick Anderson. 2 vols. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1960
MS, MH-H (shelf mark bMS Am 1784 [98], 94).
MTHL, 1:376–77.
See Howells Letters in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.