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steamer Gallic. In the seventeen months of his absence he had taken
on a "traveled look" and had added gray hairs. A New York paper
said of his arrival that he looked older than when he went to
Germany, and that his hair had turned quite gray.
Mark Twain had not finished his book of travel in Paris--in fact,
it seemed to him far from complete--and he settled down rather
grimly to work on it at Quarry Farm. When, after a few days no word
of greeting came from Howells, Clemens wrote to ask if he were dead
or only sleeping. Howells hastily sent a line to say that he had
been sleeping "The sleep of a torpid conscience. I will feign that
I did not know where to write you; but I love you and all of yours,
and I am tremendously glad that you are home again. When and where
shall we meet? Have you come home with your pockets full of
Atlantic papers?" Clemens, toiling away at his book, was, as usual,
not without the prospect of other plans. Orion, as literary
material, never failed to excite him.
*
****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Sept. 15, 1879.
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