27 February 1885 • Philadelphia, Pa. (MS: NN-BGC, UCCL 02605)
To-night in Baltimore, tomorrow afternoon & night in Washington, & my four-months platform campaingn is ended at last. It has been a curious experience. It is has taught me that Cable’s gifts of mind are greater & higher than I had suspected. But—
That “but” is pointing toward his religion. You will never never know, never divine, guess, imagine, how loathsome a thing the Christian religion can be made untihl you come to know & study Cable dailyⒶemendation & hourly. Mind you, I like him; he is pleasant company; I rage & swear at him sometimes, but we do not quarrelll; we get along mightilyy happily together; but in him & his person I have learned to hate all religions. He has taught me to abhor & detest the Sabbath-day & hunt up new & troublesomeⒶemendation ways to dishonor it.
Nat Goodwin was on the train yesterday. He plays in Washington all the coming week. He is very anxious to get our Sellers play & play it under changed names. I said the only thing I could do would be to write to you. Well, I’ve done it. I shall return to New York Monday, I think, & fool around there one or two days, mainly at Webster’s office; so if you write me at once there (658 B’way) I’ll get it.
I sold the right to dramatize & play Tom Sawyer on a royalty & it is to be exploited presently in New York. I have not seen the MS; so I don’t know anything about it.
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
MS, NN-BGC.
MTL, 2:450; MTHL, 2:520–21; “Letters of the 1880’s (Continuation),”Twainian, 39.2 (March–April 1980): 1.
See Howells Letters in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.