To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:
ELMIRA, NEW YORK, U. S. June 22, 1876.
DEAR FRIEND THE DOCTOR,—It was a perfect delight to see the well-known handwriting again! But we so grieve to know that you are feeling miserable. It must not last—it cannot last. The regal summer is come and it will smile you into high good cheer; it will charm away your pains, it will banish your distresses. I wish you were here, to spend the summer with us. We are perched on a hill-top that overlooks a little world of green valleys, shining rivers, sumptuous forests and billowy uplands veiled in the haze of distance. We have no neighbors. It is the quietest of all quiet places, and we are hermits that eschew caves and live in the sun. Doctor, if you'd only come!
I will carry your letter to Mrs. C. now, and there will be a glad woman, I tell you! And she shall find one of those pictures to put in this for Mrs. Barclays and if there isn't one here we'll send right away to Hartford and get one. Come over, Doctor John, and bring the Barclays, the Nicolsons and the Browns, one and all!
Affectionately,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.
From May until August no letters appear to have passed between
Clemens and Howells; the latter finally wrote, complaining of the
lack of news. He was in the midst of campaign activities, he said,
writing a life of Hayes, and gaily added: “You know I wrote the life
of Lincoln, which elected him.” He further reported a comedy he had
completed, and gave Clemens a general stirring up as to his own
work.
Mark Twain, in his hillside study, was busy enough. Summer was his
time for work, and he had tried his hand in various directions. His
mention of Huck Finn in his reply to Howells is interesting, in that
it shows the measure of his enthusiasm, or lack of it, as a gauge of
his ultimate achievement
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Aug. 9, 1876.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,—I was just about to write you when your letter came—and not one of those obscene postal cards, either, but reverently, upon paper.