1 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-B, UCCL 02488)
Now you shall find us the most reasonable people in the world. We had thought of precipitating upon you Goeorge Warner & wife one day; Twichell & his jewel of a wife another day, & Chas. Perkins & wife another. Only those—simply members of our family, they are. But I’ll close the door against them all—which will “fix” all of the lot except Twichell, who will no more hesitate to climb in at the back window than nothing.
And you shall go to bed when you please, get up when you please, talk when you please, read when you please. Mrs. Howells may even go to New York Saturday if she feels that she must, but if some gentle, un-annoying coaxing can beguile her into putting that off a few days, we shall be more than glad, for I do wish she & Mrs. Clemens could have a good square chance to get acquainted with each other. But first & last & all the time, we want you to feel untrameledⒶemendation & wholly free from restraint, here.
The date suits—all dates suit.
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, 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
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
MS, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN-B).
L6 , 400–1; MTB , 1:503, excerpt; MTL , 1:216–17; MTHL , 1:68–69.
see Howells Letters in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.