persecuted me
day by day with urgings to go to work and do that something, but it's
no use--I find I can't. We are in such a state of weary and endless
confusion that my head won't go. So I give it up.....

Yrs ever,
MARK.

But two hours later, when he had returned from one of the long walks
which he and Twichell so frequently took together, he told a
different story.

Later, P.M. HOME, 24th '74.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I take back the remark that I can't write for the Jan.
number. For Twichell and I have had a long walk in the woods and I got
to telling him about old Mississippi days of steam-boating glory and
grandeur as I saw them (during 5 years) from the pilothouse. He said
"What a virgin subject to hurl into a magazine!" I hadn't thought of
that before. Would you like a series of papers to run through 3 months
or 6 or 9?--or about 4 months, say?

Yrs ever,
MARK.

Howells himself had come from a family of pilots, and rejoiced in
the idea. A few days later Mark Twain forwarded the first
instalment of the new series--those wonderful chapters that begin,
now, with chapter four in the Mississippi book. Apparently he was
not without doubt concerning the manuscript, and accompanied it with
a brief line.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

DEAR HOWELLS,--Cut it, scarify it, reject it handle it with entire
freedom.

Yrs ever,
MARK.

But Howells had no doubts as to the quality of the new find. He
declared that the "piece" about the Mississippi was capital, that it
almost made the water in their ice-pitcher turn muddy as he read it.
"The sketch of the low-lived little town was so good that I could
have wished that there was more of it. I want the sketches, if you
can make them, every month."

The "low-lived little town" was Hannibal, and the reader can turn to
the vivid description of it in the chapter already mentioned.

In the same letter Howells refers to a "letter from Limerick," which
he declares he shall keep until he has shown it around--especially
to Aldrich and Osgood.

The "letter from Limerick" has to do with a special episode.
Mention has just been made of Mark Twain's walk with Twic