MARK.

Howells sent back a comforting letter. "I have no idea of dropping

you out of the Atlantic," he wrote; "and Mr. Houghton has still

less, if possible. You are going to help and not hurt us many a

year yet, if you will.... You are not going to be floored by it;

there is more justice than that, even in this world."

Howells added that Charles Elliot Norton had expressed just the

right feeling concerning the whole affair, and that many who had not

heard the speech, but read the newspaper reports of it, had found it

without offense.

Clemens wrote contrite letters to Holmes, Emerson, and Longfellow,

and received most gracious acknowledgments. Emerson, indeed, had

not heard the speech: His faculties were already blurred by the

mental mists that would eventually shut him in. Clemens wrote again

to Howells, this time with less anguish.

****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

453

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete