If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such a sweat to get Him into the Constitution, it would be better all around.
The only man who ever signed my petition with alacrity, and said that the fact that a thing was right was all-sufficient, was Rev. Dr. Bushnell.
I have lost my old petition, (which was brief) but will draft and enclose another—not in the words it ought to be, but in the substance. I want Mr. Lowell to furnish the words (and the ideas too,) if he will do it.
Say—Redpath beseeches me to lecture in Boston in November—telegraphs that Beecher's and Nast's withdrawal has put him in the tightest kind of a place. So I guess I'll do that old “Roughing It” lecture over again in November and repeat it 2 or 3 times in New York while I am at it.
Can I take a carriage after the lecture and go out and stay with you that night, provided you find at that distant time that it will not inconvenience you? Is Aldrich home yet?
With love to you all
Yrs ever,
S. L. C.
Of course the petition never reached Congress. Holmes's comment
that governments were not in the habit of setting themselves up as
high moral examples, except for revenue, was shared by too many
others. The petition was tabled, but Clemens never abandoned his
purpose and lived to see most of his dream fulfilled. Meantime,
Howells's notice of the Sketches appeared in the Atlantic, and
brought grateful acknowledgment from the author.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Oct. 19, 1875.