XIV. LETTERS 1874. MISSISSIPPI CHAPTERS. VISITS TO BOSTON. A JOKE ON ALDRICH.
“Couldn't you send me some such story as that colored one
for our January number—that is, within a month?” wrote
Howells, at the end of September, and during the week
following Mark Twain struggled hard to comply, but without
result. When the month was nearly up he wrote:
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Oct. 23, 1874.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,—I have delayed thus long, hoping I might do something for the January number and Mrs. Clemens has diligently persecuted me day by day with urgings to go to work and do that something, but it's no use—I find I can't. We are in such a state of weary and endless confusion that my head won't go. So I give it up.....
Yrs ever,
MARK.
But two hours later, when he had returned from one of the long walks
which he and Twichell so frequently took together, he told a
different story.
Later, P.M. HOME, 24th '74.