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overfull. A letter written a week before he sailed is full
of the hurry and strain of these last days.
*
****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:
WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, June 1, 1867.
DEAR FOLKS,--I know I ought to write oftener (just got your last,) and
more fully, but I cannot overcome my repugnance to telling what I am
doing or what I expect to do or propose to do. Then, what have I left to
write about? Manifestly nothing.
It isn't any use for me to talk about the voyage, because I can have no
faith in that voyage till the ship is under way. How do I know she will
ever sail? My passage is paid, and if the ship sails, I sail in
her--but I make no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going
clothing--have made no preparation whatever--shall not pack my trunk
till the morning we sail. Yet my hands are full of what I am going to do
the day before we sail--and what isn't done that day will go undone.
All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to
move--move--move! Half a dozen times I have wished I had sailed long
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