I hope you are worse. You will never be riper for a purely intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a worn-out material body on top of your soul.
Yours ever,
W. D. HOWELLS.
On the margin of this letter Clemens had written:
I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day is good to keep, ain't it, Paine?
January 24th he wrote again of his contentment:
Life continues here the same as usual. There isn't a fault in it —good times, good home, tranquil contentment all day & every day without a break. I know familiarly several very satisfactory people & meet them frequently: Mr. Hamilton, the Sloanes, Mr. & Mrs. Fells, Miss Waterman, & so on. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering my situation.
On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he wished Stormfield kept open so that he might come to it at any time. And he added:
Yesterday Mr. Allen took us on an excursion in Mr. Hamilton's big motor-boat. Present: Mrs. Allen, Mr. & Mrs. & Miss Sloane, Helen, Mildred Howells, Claude, & me. Several hours' swift skimming over ravishing blue seas, a brilliant sun; also a couple of hours of picnicking & lazying under the cedars in a secluded place.
The Orotava is arriving with 260 passengers—I shall get letters by
her, no doubt.
P. S.—Please send me the Standard Unabridged that is on the table in
my bedroom. I have no dictionary here.