HARTFORD, Oct. 19, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--That is a perfectly superb notice. You can easily
believe that nothing ever gratified me so much before. The newspaper
praises bestowed upon the "Innocents Abroad" were large and generous,
but somehow I hadn't confidence in the critical judgement of the parties
who furnished them. You know how that is, yourself, from reading the
newspaper notices of your own books. They gratify a body, but they
always leave a small pang behind in the shape of a fear that the
critic's good words could not safely be depended upon as authority.
Yours is the recognized critical Court of Last Resort in this country;
from its decision there is no appeal; and so, to have gained this decree
of yours before I am forty years old, I regard as a thing to be right
down proud of. Mrs. Clemens says, "Tell him I am just as grateful to him
as I can be." (It sounds as if she were grateful to you for heroically
trampling the truth under foot in order to praise me but in reality it
means that she is grateful to you for being bold enough to utter a truth
which she fully believes all competent people know, but which none has
heretofore been brave enough to utter.) You see, the thing that gravels
her is that I am so persistently glorified as a mere buffoon, as if that
entirely covered my case--which she denies with venom.

The other day Mrs. Clemens was planning a visit to you, and so I am
waiting with a pleasurable hope for the result of her deliberations. We
are expecting visitors every day, now, from New York; and afterward
some are to come from Elmira. I judge that we shall then be free to
go Bostonward. I should be just delighted; because we could visit in
comfort, since we shouldn't have to do any shopping--did it all in New
York last week, and a tremendous pull it was too.

Mrs. C. said the other day, "We will go to Cambridge if we have to walk;
for I don't believe we can ever get the Howellses to come here again
until we have been there." I was gratified to see that there was one
string, anyway, that could take her to Cambridge. But I will do her
the justice to say that she is always wanting to go to Cambridge,
independent of the selfish desire to get a visit out of you by it. I
want her to get started, now, before children's diseases are fashionable
again, because they always play such hob with visiting arrangements.

With love to you all