Letters to James
Redpath, in Boston:
Hartford,
Tuesday Aug. 8, 1871. Dear red,—I
am different from other women; my mind changes oftener.
People who have no mind can easily be steadfast and
firm, but when a man is loaded down to the guards
with it, as I am, every heavy sea of foreboding or
inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo.
See? Therefore, if you will notice, one week
I am likely to give rigid instructions to confine
me to New England; next week, send me to Arizona;
the next week withdraw my name; the next week give
you full untrammelled swing; and the week following
modify it. You must try to keep the run of my
mind, Redpath, it is your business being the agent,
and it always was too many for me. It appears
to me to be one of the finest pieces of mechanism
I have ever met with. Now about the West, this
week, I am willing that you shall retain all the Western
engagements. But what I shall want next week
is still with God.
Let us not profane the mysteries with soiled hands
and prying eyes of
sin.
Yours,
Mark.
P. S. Shall be here 2 weeks, will run up there when
Nasby comes.
Elmira,
N. Y. Sept. 15, 1871.
Dear Redpath,—I wish you would
get me released from the lecture at Buffalo.
I mortally hate that society there, and I don’t
doubt they hired me. I once gave them a packed
house free of charge, and they never even had the
common politeness to thank me. They left me to
shift for myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard.
Get me rid of Buffalo! Otherwise I’ll
have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture
there. I can get sick easy enough, by the simple
process of saying the word—well never mind
what word—I am not going to lecture there.
Yours,
Mark.
Buffalo,
Sept. 26, 1871.
Dear Redpath,—We have thought
it all over and decided that we can’t
possibly talk after Feb. 2.
We shall take up our residence in Hartford 6 days
from now
Yours
Mark.
Letters 1871-72. Removal to Hartford.
A lecture tour. “Roughing
it.”
First letter to Howells
The house they had taken in Hartford
was the Hooker property on Forest Street, a handsome
place in a distinctly literary neighborhood.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and
other well-known writers were within easy walking
distance; Twichell was perhaps half a mile away.
It was the proper environment for Mark
Twain. He settled his little family there,
