HARTFORD, Jan. 28 '82.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Nobody knows better than I, that there are times when
swearing cannot meet the emergency. How sharply I feel that, at this
moment. Not a single profane word has issued from my lips this mornin--I
have not even had the impulse to swear, so wholly ineffectual would
swearing have manifestly been, in the circumstances. But I will tell you
about it.

About three weeks ago, a sensitive friend, approaching his revelation
cautiously, intimated that the N. Y. Tribune was engaged in a kind of
crusade against me. This seemed a higher compliment than I deserved; but
no matter, it made me very angry. I asked many questions, and gathered,
in substance, this: Since Reid's return from Europe, the Tribune
had been flinging sneers and brutalities at me with such persistent
frequency "as to attract general remark." I was an angered--which is
just as good an expression, I take it, as an hungered. Next, I learned
that Osgood, among the rest of the "general," was worrying over these
constant and pitiless attacks. Next came the testimony of another
friend, that the attacks were not merely "frequent," but "almost daily."
Reflect upon that: "Almost daily" insults, for two months on a stretch.
What would you have done?

As for me, I did the thing which was the natural thing for me to do,
that is, I set about contriving a plan to accomplish one or the other
of two things: 1. Force a peace; or 2. Get revenge. When I got my plan
finished, it pleased me marvelously. It was in six or seven sections,
each section to be used in its turn and by itself; the assault to begin
at once with No. 1, and the rest to follow, one after the other, to keep
the communication open while I wrote my biography of Reid. I meant to
wind up with this latter great work, and then dismiss the subject for
good.

Well, ever since then I have worked day and night making notes and
collecting and classifying material. I've got collectors at work in
England. I went to New York and sat three hours taking evidence while
a stenographer set it down. As my labors grew, so also grew my
fascination. Malice and malignity faded out of me--or maybe I drove them
out of me, knowing that a malignant book would hurt nobody but the fool
who wrote it. I got thoroughly in love with this work; for I saw that
I was going to write a book which the very devils and angels themselves
would delight to read, and which would draw disapproval from nobo