Confound you, Joe Twichell & I roamed about Bermuda day & night & never ceased to gabble & enjoy. AboutⒶemendation half the talk was—“It is a burning shame that Howells isn’t here;” “Nobody could get at the very meat & marrow of this pervading charm & deliciousness like Howells;” “How Howells would revel in the quaintness, & the simplicity of this people & the Sabbath repose of this land!” “What an imperishable sketch Howells would make of Capt. West the whaler, & Capt. Hope with the patient, pathetic face, wanderer in all the oceans for 43 years, lucky in none; coming home defeated once more, now, minus his ship—resigned, uncomplaining, being used to this;” “What a rattling chapter Howells would make out of the small boy Alfred, with his alert eye & military brevity & exactness of speech; & out of the old landlady; & her sacred onions; & the visiting & her daughter; & the visiting clergyman; & the ancient pianos of Hamilton & the venerable music in vogue there—& forty other things which we shall leave untouched or touch but lightly upon, we not being worthy;” “Dam Howells for not being here!” (this usually from me, not Twichell.)1explanatory note

O, your insufferable pride, which will have a fall some day! If you had gone with us & let me pay the $50 which the trip, & the board & the various nick-nacks & mementoesⒶemendation the excursion would cost, I would have picked up enough droppings from your conversation to pay me 500 per cent profit in the way of the several magazine articles which I could have written, whereas I can now write only one or two & am therefore largely out of pocket by your proud ways. Ponder these things. Lord, what a perfectly bewitching excursion it was! I traveled under an assumed name & was never molested with a polite attention from anybody.2explanatory note Love to you all.