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burden. Before sailing, Howells had written: "Do you suppose you
can do your share of the reading at Elmira, while you are writing at
the Mississippi book?"
In a letter from London, Howells writes of the good times he is
having over there with Osgood, Hutton, John Hay, Aldrich, and Alma
Tadema, excursioning to Oxford, feasting, especially "at the Mitre
Tavern, where they let you choose your dinner from the joints
hanging from the rafter, and have passages that you lose yourself in
every time you try to go to your room.... Couldn't you and Mrs.
Clemens step over for a little while?... We have seen lots of
nice people and have been most pleasantly made of; but I would
rather have you smoke in my face, and talk for half a day just for
pleasure, than to go to the best house or club in London." The
reader will gather that this could not be entirely soothing to a man
shackled by a contract and a book that refused to come to an end.
*
****
To W. D. Howells, in London:
HARTFORD, CONN. Oct 30, 1882.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I do not expect to find you, so I shan't spend many
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