It was always dangerous to send strangers with letters of
introduction to Mark Twain. They were so apt to arrive at the wrong
time, or to find him in the wrong mood. Howells was willing to risk
it, and that the result was only amusing instead of tragic is the
best proof of their friendship.
To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.:
June 9, '80.
Well, old practical joker, the corpse of Mr. X——has been here, and I have bedded it and fed it, and put down my work during 24 hours and tried my level best to make it do something, or say something, or appreciate something—but no, it was worse than Lazarus. A kind-hearted, well-meaning corpse was the Boston young man, but lawsy bless me, horribly dull company. Now, old man, unless you have great confidence in Mr. X's judgment, you ought to make him submit his article to you before he prints it. For only think how true I was to you: Every hour that he was here I was saying, gloatingly, “O G— d—- you, when you are in bed and your light out, I will fix you” (meaning to kill him)...., but then the thought would follow—“No, Howells sent him—he shall be spared, he shall be respected he shall travel hell-wards by his own route.”
Breakfast is frozen by this time, and Mrs. Clemens correspondingly hot. Good bye.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
“I did not expect you to ask that man to live with you,” Howells
answered. “What I was afraid of was that you would turn him out of
doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him.
After this when I want you to board people, I'll ask you. I am
sorry for your suffering. I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for
bores; but yours is preternaturally keen. I shall begin to be
afraid I bore you. (How does that make you feel?)”
In a letter to Twichell—a remarkable letter—when baby Jean Clemens
was about a month old, we get a happy hint of conditions at Quarry
Farm, and in the background a glimpse of Mark Twain's unfailing
tragic reflection.
To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford: