Your friend and well-wisher
S. L. CLEMENS.


To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in Fair Hawn, Mass.:

REDDING, CONN, Aug. 12, 1908.
DEAR MRS. ROGERS, I believe I am the wellest man on the planet to-day,
and good for a trip to Fair Haven (which I discussed with the Captain of
the New Bedford boat, who pleasantly accosted me in the Grand Central
August 5) but the doctor came up from New York day before yesterday, and
gave positive orders that I must not stir from here before frost. It is
because I was threatened with a swoon, 10 or 12 days ago, and went to New
York a day or two later to attend my nephew's funeral and got horribly
exhausted by the heat and came back here and had a bilious collapse. In
24 hours I was as sound as a nut again, but nobody believes it but me.

This is a prodigiously satisfactory place, and I am so glad I don't have
to go back to the turmoil and rush of New York. The house stands high
and the horizons are wide, yet the seclusion is perfect. The nearest
public road is half a mile away, so there is nobody to look in, and I
don't have to wear clothes if I don't want to. I have been down stairs
in night-gown and slippers a couple of hours, and have been photographed
in that costume; but I will dress, now, and behave myself.

That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my
brain. . . Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for
it. I wish Henry Rogers would come here, and I wish you would come with
him. You can't rest in that crowded place, but you could rest here, for
sure! I would learn bridge, and entertain you, and rob you.