22 August 1874 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 02472)
I have just finished reading the Foregone Conclusion to Mrs. Clemens, & we think you have even outdone yourself.1explanatory note I should think that this must be the daintiest, truest, most admirable workmanship that was ever put on a story. The creatures of God do not act out their natures more unerringly than yours do. If your genuine stories can die, I wonder by what right old Walter Scott’s artificialities shall continue to live.2explanatory note
But what I originally started to write about, was the fact that I saw Pope in Buffalo, who told David Ⓐemendation Gray & me that he had received his first act & that it was a most noble & altogether perfect piece of work. I was not surprised, but I was gratified to see that he was not a swine who trampled calmly over pearls, mistaking them for paebbles. I argue well from his appreciation.3explanatory note
I brought Mrs. Clemens back from her trip in a dreadfully broken down condition—so by the doctor’s orders we unpacked the trunks sorrowfully to lie idle here another month instead of going at once to Hartford & proceeding at once to furnish the new house which is now finished. We hate to have it gon longer desolate & tenantless, but cannot help it.
By & by, if the madam gets strong again, we are hoping to have the Grays there, & you & Aldrich there, & your & the Aldrich house-holds & Osgood down to engage in an orgy with them.4explanatory note
The third installment of Howells’s novel, in the Atlantic Monthly for September (see 21 June 74 to Howells, n. 1click to open link).
For a survey of Clemens’s reading of and generally negative remarks on Scott, see Gribben, 2:612–18.
On 12 August, the day the Clemenses left Buffalo, Howells notified Charles Pope that he had completed his translation of Sansone. As previously arranged, Pope sent his payment to Clemens, who was instructed not to forward it to Howells until Pope approved the work (Howells 1979, 64 n. 3; see 22? July 74 to Howells, nn. 1, 2click to open link).
Howells, the Aldriches, and Osgood had visited Hartford in March 1874 (see 4 Mar 74 to Howells, n. 1click to open link, and 24 Mar 74 to Aldrich, n. 12click to open link).
References
- New York Public Library, Albert A. and Henry W. Berg Collection, New York
- 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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 6: 1874–1875. Edited by Michael B. Frank and Harriet Elinor Smith. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 2002
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. 3 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. [Volume numbers in citations are to this edition; page numbers are the same in all editions.] 1912
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. “Some Mark Twain Letters to William Dean Howells and Others.” Harper’s Monthly Magazine 134 (May): 781–94. 1917
- Paine, Albert Bigelow, ed. Mark Twain’s Letters. Edited by Albert Bigelow Paine. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1917
- 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
- Howells, William Dean. W. D. Howells, Selected Letters, Volume 2: 1873–1881. Edited and annotated by George Arms and Christoph K. Lohmann. Textual editors Christoph K. Lohmann and Jerry Herron. Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1979
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).
L6 , 209–210; MTB , 1:510, excerpt; Paine 1917, 783; MTL , 1:222; MTHL , 1:21-22.
see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.