Howells wrote his words of sympathy, adding: “The character which
now remains a memory was one of the most perfect ever formed on the
earth,” and again, after having received Clemens's letter: “I cannot
speak of your wife's having kept that letter of mine where she did.
You know how it must humiliate a man in his unworthiness to have
anything of his so consecrated. She hallowed what she touched, far
beyond priests.”
*****
To W. D. Howells, in New York:
VILLA DI QUARTO, '04.
June 12, 6 p. m.
DEAR HOWELLS,--We have to sit and hold our hands and wait--in the
silence and solitude of this prodigious house; wait until June 25, then
we go to Naples and sail in the Prince Oscar the 26th. There is a
ship 12 days earlier (but we came in that one.) I see Clara twice a
day--morning and evening--greeting--nothing more is allowed. She keeps
her bed, and says nothing. She has not cried yet. I wish she could cry.
It would break Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourselves from
all the friends that call--though of course only intimates come.
Intimates--but they are not the old old friends, the friends of the old,
old times when we laughed.
Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in
the old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all,
everything, and ease my heart.
Think--in 3 hours it will be a week!--and soon a month; and by and by a
year. How fast our dead fly from us.
She loved you so, and was always as pleased as a child with any notice
you took of her.
Soon your wife will be with you, oh fortunate man! And John, whom mine
was so fond of. The sight of him was such a delight to her. Lord, the
old friends, how dear they are.