29 May 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02509)
Confound you, Joe Twichell & I roamed about Bermuda day & night & never ceased to gabble & enjoy. AboutⒶemendation half the talk was—“It is a burning shame that Howells isn’t here;” “Nobody could get at the very meat & marrow of this pervading charm & deliciousness like Howells;” “How Howells would revel in the quaintness, & the simplicity of this people & the Sabbath repose of this land!” “What an imperishable sketch Howells would make of Capt. West the whaler, & Capt. Hope with the patient, pathetic face, wanderer in all the oceans for 43 years, lucky in none; coming home defeated once more, now, minus his ship—resigned, uncomplaining, being used to this;” “What a rattling chapter Howells would make out of the small boy Alfred, with his alert eye & military brevity & exactness of speech; & out of the old landlady; & her sacred onions; & the visiting & her daughter; & the visiting clergyman; & the ancient pianos of Hamilton & the venerable music in vogue there—& forty other things which we shall leave untouched or touch but lightly upon, we not being worthy;” “Dam Howells for not being here!” (this usually from me, not Twichell.)1explanatory note
O, your insufferable pride, which will have a fall some day! If you had gone with us & let me pay the $50 which the trip, & the board & the various nick-nacks & mementoesⒶemendation the excursion would cost, I would have picked up enough droppings from your conversation to pay me 500 per cent profit in the way of the several magazine articles which I could have written, whereas I can now write only one or two & am therefore largely out of pocket by your proud ways. Ponder these things. Lord, what a perfectly bewitching excursion it was! I traveled under an assumed name & was never molested with a polite attention from anybody.2explanatory note Love to you all.
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
- 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
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). “Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion.” Atlantic Monthly 40 (October–December 1877): 443–47, 586–92, 718–24; Atlantic Monthly 41 (January 1878): 12–19 1877–78
- Hoffman, Daniel G. “Jim’s Magic: Black or White.” American Literature 32 (March): 47–54. 1960
MS, NN-BGC.
MTL , 1:294–95; MTHL , 1:178–79.
See Howells Letters in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.