In his reprieve he was like some wild thing that had regained liberty.
He refers to Susy's recent illness and to Mrs. Clemens's own poor state of health.
Dear, dear Susy! My strength reproaches me when I think of her and
you.
It is an unspeakable pity that you should be without any one to go about with the girls, & it troubles me, & grieves me, & makes me curse & swear; but you see, dear heart, I've got to stick right where I am till I find out whether we are rich or whether the poorest person we are acquainted with in anybody's kitchen is better off than we are. . I stand on the land-end of a springboard, with the family clustered on the other end; if I take my foot——
He realized his hopes to her as a vessel trying to make port; once he wrote:
The ship is in sight now ….
When the anchor is down then I shall say:
"Farewell—a long farewell—to business! I will never touch it again!"
I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it; I will swim in ink! 'Joan of Arc'—but all this is premature; the anchor is not down yet.
Sometimes he sent her impulsive cables calculating to sustain hope. Mrs.
Clemens, writing to her sister in January, said: