(Dear, dear Carrie, indeed! And not a line from him since Christmas.)
Here’s my right hand being held up:—Please listen!
To-day for the first time in six weeks I’ve had my trunks unpacked and have sat down at my desk clothed in my ordinarily sane mind, and been able to find pen ’n ink ’n paper to write with and on. I’ve moved four times since I lived in Waverly Place; and have been driven from post-office to pillow by the—noise of elevated trains, waggons (notice the English two g’s), trams (also English), and cries of hucksters (mostly Dagoes). At last I have found a quiet haven; and the first thing I do (of course) is to dig your last two (please don’t make it “two last”) letters and read ’em some more.
I have answered your letters and written you dozens in the spirit; but when it comes to spreading the ink, I know I’ve been as the old darky song goes, “A liar and a conjurer, too.” There are periods of time when the sight of a pen or an ink bottle strikes me to stone. Will it be some slight excuse for not having written to one of whom I have thought by every mail, if I assert that not for months have I written a line for publication except one little short 2,000-word rotten story? It be true.
Oh, some sort of nervous condition—can’t sleep nor nothin’! Oh, yes, ma’am, thank you; feelin’ heaps better now. I live within a few doors of Broadway, but on such a quiet street that the little clock on my desk ticking sounds as loud as a cricket chirping under the honeysuckle vine on your porch on a fall night.
Don’t you think you might come up this way some time? Ain’t there some of your folks that live around here? Seems to me there was. I’d rather see you than to have a bushel of diamonds. And if I can get a string on you I’ll tie more magnolias and gumdrops to it than Roseboro ever saw. Say—please come, won’t you? I do so long to see a human—a Heaven-sent, home-bred, ideal-owning, scrumptious, sweet, wholesome human with a heart such as I know you are—or, in the words of the poet, “one of whom you are which.” The folks up here are all right and lots of ’em are good to know, but—they ain’t got tar on their heels, Miss Carrie, ma’am.
I’ve been thinking of running down to the Bluest Ridge for two or three weeks as soon as it gets warmer here. I want to go up somewhere in the mountings and have a quiet time with the sunrises and the squirrels, and I want to see some morning glories on a board fence. I’ve tried the dinky little hills they call mountains up here, and they ain’t no good. You can’t take forty steps in the wildwood without stumbling over a sardine box or a salmon can; and the quantity of Ikeys and Rebeccas that you scare up in the shady dells is sure something fierce.
If I happen down in your range of mountings may I drop in and see you? I need to get away from town for a while, and I certainly would rather be there than anywhere I know of.
Why don’t you cut loose and come to N. Y.? This is the only place to live. You can choose the kind of life you want and live it, and get all there is of existence. Come on and get in with the bunch! You can get a studio in a top story and raise tomatters on the roof if you must have ’em. I’ll help you tend to ’em. Come on and learn the beauty of a quiet life. Get away from the feverish round of gayeties that you’ve been accustomed to—men taking you out rowing (wasn’t he tall and dark, with a drooping moustache?) and men coming in the Pullman cars and sitting close by your side—oh, I haven’t forgotten about it! Often I’ve gotten out a couple of dozen sheets of paper and started to write to you, when I’d think: oh, what’s the use—she won’t want to hear from me—somebody’s ripping the buttonholes out of his collar trying to pull up car windows for her, or pulling on the wrong oar and rowing the boat into a mud bank where they’ll sit for hours until some plowman plods along and drags them out.
Please, dear Carrie, write to me some more. If you had saved all the letters I’ve written to you in the spirit you’d have a stack as high as the big sunflower by the garden gate. Write and tell me exactly what you think about when you take your hair down and sit on the rug at 11:30 P. M. before the fireplace. And I’ll tell you what I think about when I set the bottle of Scotch on the table and light the last cigar at 2 A. M., when the distant cars and cabs sound like the ripples of your mountain streams on a still summer night.