February 4 Tuesday – William Dean Howells, in Rome, replied to Sam’s Jan. 22:

My dear Clemens: / Your wish about your letters comes, I am sorry to say, two months too late. When a biographer asks me for the biographee’s letters, I always give them, if I can find them, which sometimes I can’t; and I saw Paine on such intimate terms with you that I should not have hesitated to offer him all your letters. I could only, as I remember find ten or twelve, from those you had written me during the last five or six years. He said he would have them copied and returned to me, but he has not done so, for I think I told him there was no hurry. You get them of him, and see for yourself how little their tenor could annoy you if they were published after you were gone. The vast bulk of your letters are at Kittery Point, where no one but I could find them, even if I could. I don’t think Paine could abuse the confidence put in him, or would make an indiscreet use of them; but I no more thought of asking you whether I should give them than I thought of asking Mrs. Aldrich whether I should give Aldrich’s very intimate letters to his biographer, when he askt for them. Of course Paine will do exactly what you say about them; he spoke to me with entire judgment and good sense.

      We are having a gay time here in a week’s wet. My wife has not been out of the house since she came into it ten days ago, and Pilla has been three days in bed with the sorest throat in history. She bemoans her absence from Bermuda, where I hope we shall go with you next winter about bronchitis time.

      I suppose we shall like Rome when we get round to it. Meantime, nothing could be more comfortable than this hotel. The nice quiet Americans in it don’t speak above their breaths because the nice quiet English wont speak at all.

      We join in love to each of you.    Yours ever / W. D. Howells  [MTHL 2: 829-30]. Note: source gives Ferris Lowell Greenslet (1875-1959) for his Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1908). At this time he was assoc. editor for Atlantic Monthly. See also Gribben 276.

David Bruce Conklin wrote from Brooklyn to ask Sam for his endorsement, “a few lines touching upon the sentiment depicted in the enclosed illustration of the fine photogravure that is being placed on the market.” The illustration, referred to as “the Library picture” is not in the file [MTP].

Richard S. Graves wrote on St. Joseph News-Press, (Mo.) letterhead after receiving a magazine containing pictures of “Some of the Leading Humorists of America,” and noting he was shown as well as Mark Twain. Graves bet Sam had never heard of him and observed that he’d acquired the title in 38 years while Sam had taken 70 [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Feb. 21, ‘08”

Woodrow Wilson in Bermuda, wrote again to his wife about Mark Twain: “Mark Twain has been down here between boats, and I have seen a good deal of him. He seems to like being with me. Yesterday Mrs. [Mary Allen] Peck gave him a lunch at her house and gathered a most interesting little group of garrison people to meet him. He was in great form and delighted everybody” [R. Baker 268].