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This text has been superseded by a newly published text
MTPDocEd
To William Dean Howells
21 June 1877 • 2nd of 2 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 11173)
(SUPERSEDED)
slc/mt                        farmington avenue, hartford.
My Dear Howells:

Never mind about Harte—I mean never mind about being bothered with the letter. I had to have an outlet to my feelings—I saw none but through you—but of course the thing would be disagreeable to you. I must try to get somebody to plead with the President who is in the political line of business & won’t mind it. I have partly framed a public letter of advice to Harte, (to print when he is appointed.) I told him, when we were writing the play together, that nobody would appoint him to an office, or ought to.

To-night I read a little of my Bermuda MS to our little domestic crowd & got no applause—they are a dull lot—then I read the W your Wilden Mann article in the current number, which was received with shrieks of laughter & extravagant praise—Oh, a name goes for everything with these people. If I had written it they wouldn’t have seen anything in it. Yet there are good things in it—I admit that.

They all want you & Mrs. Howells to come any time this summer & stay a week with us here at the farm on the summit of the hill, & longer if you can. Perfectly glorious here—perfectly bewitching. Can you? Will you? Won’t you? Come—say yes. Love to you both.

Ys Ever,
Mark.
Textual Commentary
Previous Publication:

Christie’s catalog, 14 December 1984, lot 135, partial publication; Murphy 1985, 90–91; Sotheby’s catalog, 29 October 1996, no. 6904, lot 209, partial publication; MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:

Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs (apparently) purchased the MS in 1984 from Christie’s and sold it through Sotheby’s in October 1996 to CU-MARK.