DEAR CLEMENS,--While your wonderful words are warm in my mind yet I
want to tell you what you know already: that you never wrote
anything greater, finer, than that turning-point paper of yours.
I shall feel it honor enough if they put on my tombstone "He was
born in the same century and general section of Middle Western
country with Dr. S. L. Clemens, Oxon., and had his degree three
years before him through a mistake of the University."
I hope you are worse. You will never be riper for a purely
intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a
worn-out material body on top of your soul.
Yours ever,
W. D. HOWELLS.
On the margin of this letter Clemens had written:
I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day
is good to keep, ain't it, Paine?
January 24th he wrote again of his contentment:
Life continues here the same as usual. There isn't a fault in it
--good times, good home, tranquil contentment all day & every day
without a break. I know familiarly several very satisfactory people
& meet them frequently: Mr. Hamilton, the Sloanes, Mr. & Mrs. Fells,
Miss Waterman, & so on. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering
my situation.
On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health
might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he
wished Stormfield kept open so that he might come to it at any time.
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