3 June 1877 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: VtMIM, UCCL 01437)
My Dear Aldrich: Behold I have come home from a pleasure trip to Bermuda to find I could have had one without going all that distance or taking all that trouble. Both of us, the wife & I, are as sorry as to two people can be that we missed those good times which you & Madame prepared for the elect. Mrs. Clemens was moved to accept the invitation & go along alone.1explanatory note
Day after tomorrow we leave for the hills beyond Elmira, N.Y., for the summer, where I shall hope to write a book of some sort or other to beat the people wh with. A work similar to your new one in the Atlantic is what I mean, though I have not heard what the nature of that one is. Immoral, I suppose.2explanatory note Well, you are right. Such books sell best, Howells says. Howells says he is going to make his next book indelicate. He says he thinks there is money in it. He says there is a large class of the young, in schools & seminaries who—But you let him tell you. He has ciphered it all down to a demonstration.
With the warmest remembrances to the pair of you—
Clemens replied to the following invitation from Aldrich and his wife, Lilian (CU-MARK):
Ponkapog, Mass.
May 24th 1877
My dear Clemens:
Edwin Booth and his wife are to pass two days with us at Ponkapog next week; we have invited Howells and wife to come out also, and we want you and Mrs Clemens to give us a couple of days at the same time. Our good friend and neighbor, Mr. Henry L. Pierce, has placed his bachelor establishment at our disposal, so we have plenty of rooms, and can make you all as comfortable as princes. We have planned a fish-dinner under the pines across the Pond, for one thing, and count on having the jolliest time generally that has been known in this century.
Mrs Aldrich will add a postscript to this, setting the day for you to come. You should leave Hartford by the earliest train coming this way. Please telegraph me at once (to the care of Hon. Henry L. Pierce, 209 State street, Boston) what hour you can conveniently be in Boston, and I will write you what train to take for Ponkapog. I must know this so as to send a carriage to the station, which, by some oversight, is located two miles from my Palace. Don=t let anything prevent you and Madame from giving us the joy of your presence.
With the warmest remembrances to you both, I am,
Ever yours
T. B. Aldrich.
Thursday afternoon.
Mrs. A. was unable to go to town to-day on account of the rain. I shall send you word to-morrow what day the Booths will come. In the meanwhile please let me know if you will hold yourselves in readiness to come.
T. B. A.
Ponkapog, Massachusetts, was the village near Boston where since 1874 the Aldriches had owned a remodeled farmhouse (AutoMT3, 573). Edwin Booth’s wife was the former Mary McVicker, a fellow actor. Henry L. Pierce (1825–96), owner of the Baker Chocolate Company, was mayor of Boston in 1873 and 1878, and a U.S. congressman from 1873 to 1877.
MS, VtMIM.
MTL , 1:296, partial publication; MicroPUL, reel 1.
Acquired by VtMIM on 16 August 1938.