HARTFORD, June 4, '83.

DEAR COLONEL DE WINTON,--I very much want to send a little book to her
Royal Highness--the famous Portuguese phrase book; but I do not know the
etiquette of the matter, and I would not wittingly infringe any rule of
propriety. It is a book which I perfectly well know will amuse her "some
at most" if she has not seen it before, and will still amuse her "some
at least," even if she has inspected it a hundred times already. So
I will send the book to you, and you who know all about the proper
observances will protect me from indiscretion, in case of need, by
putting the said book in the fire, and remaining as dumb as I generally
was when I was up there. I do not rebind the thing, because that would
look as if I thought it worth keeping, whereas it is only worth glancing
at and casting aside.

Will you please present my compliments to Mrs. De Winton and Mrs.
Mackenzie?--and I beg to make my sincere compliments to you, also, for
your infinite kindnesses to me. I did have a delightful time up there,
most certainly.

Truly yours
S. L. CLEMENS.

P. S. Although the introduction dates a year back, the book is only just
now issued. A good long delay.

S. L. C.

Howells, writing from Venice, in April, manifested special interest
in the play project: "Something that would run like Scheherazade,
for a thousand and one nights," so perhaps his book was going
better. He proposed that they devote the month of October to the
work, and inclosed a letter from Mallory, who owned not only a
religious paper, The Churchman, but also the Madison Square Theater,
and was anxious for a Howells play. Twenty years before Howells had
been Consul to Venice, and he wrote, now: "The idea of my being here
is benumbing and silencing. I feel like the Wandering Jew, or the
ghost of the Cardiff giant."

He returned to America in July. Clemens sent him word of welcome,
with glowing reports of his own undertakings. The story on which he
was piling up MS. was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, begun
seven years before at Quarry Farm. He had no great faith in it
then, and though he had taken it up again in 1880, his interest had
not lasted to its conclusion. This time, however, he was in the
proper spirit, and the story would be finished.