The whole matter is a dreadful subject--let me drop it here--at least on
paper.
Penitently yrs,
MARK.


Howells sent back a comforting letter. "I have no idea of dropping
you out of the Atlantic," he wrote; "and Mr. Houghton has still
less, if possible. You are going to help and not hurt us many a
year yet, if you will.... You are not going to be floored by it;
there is more justice than that, even in this world."

Howells added that Charles Elliot Norton had expressed just the
right feeling concerning the whole affair, and that many who had not
heard the speech, but read the newspaper reports of it, had found it
without offense.

Clemens wrote contrite letters to Holmes, Emerson, and Longfellow,
and received most gracious acknowledgments. Emerson, indeed, had
not heard the speech: His faculties were already blurred by the
mental mists that would eventually shut him in. Clemens wrote again
to Howells, this time with less anguish.


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Friday, 1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Your letter was a godsend; and perhaps the welcomest
part of it was your consent that I write to those gentlemen; for you