ut 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.

XI. 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 M