Yours
MARK.
XI. LETTERS 1871-72. REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. A LECTURE TOUR. “ROUGHING IT.”
FIRST LETTER TO HOWELLS.
The house they had taken in Hartford was the Hooker property on
Forest Street, a handsome place in a distinctly literary
neighborhood. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and
other well-known writers were within easy walking distance; Twichell
was perhaps half a mile away.
It was the proper environment for Mark Twain. He settled his little
family there, and was presently at Redpath's office in Boston, which
was a congenial place, as we have seen before. He did not fail to
return to the company of Nasby, Josh Billings, and those others of
Redpath's “attractions” as long and as often as distance would
permit. Bret Harte, who by this time had won fame, was also in
Boston now, and frequently, with Howells, Aldrich, and Mark Twain,
gathered in some quiet restaurant corner for a luncheon that lasted
through a dim winter afternoon--a period of anecdote, reminiscence,
and mirth. They were all young then, and laughed easily. Howells,
has written of one such luncheon given by Ralph Keeler, a young
Californian--a gathering at which James T. Fields was present
“Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and
aimless and joyful talk-play, beginning and ending nowhere, of eager
laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat-lightning
shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional concentration of our
joint mockeries upon our host, who took it gladly.”
But a lecture circuit cannot be restricted to the radius of Boston.
Clemens was presently writing to Redpath from Washington and points
farther west.
*****
To James Redpath, in Boston:
WASHINGTON, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1871.
DEAR RED,--I have come square out, thrown “Reminiscences” overboard, and
taken “Artemus Ward, Humorist,” for my subject. Wrote it here on Friday
and Saturday, and read it from MS last night to an enormous house. It
suits me and I'll never deliver the nasty, nauseous “Reminiscences” any
more.
Yours,
MARK.
The Artemus Ward lecture lasted eleven days, then he wrote:
*****
To Redpath and Fall, in Boston:
BUFFALO DEPOT, Dec. 8, 1871.
REDPATH & FALL, BOSTON,--Notify all hands that from this time I shall
talk nothing but selections from my forthcoming book “Roughing It.”
Tried it last night. Suits me tip-top.