Letters to James Redpath, in Boston: 

Hartford, Tuesday Aug. 8, 1871.  Dear red,—­I am different from other women; my mind changes oftener.  People who have no mind can easily be steadfast and firm, but when a man is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea of foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo.  See?  Therefore, if you will notice, one week I am likely to give rigid instructions to confine me to New England; next week, send me to Arizona; the next week withdraw my name; the next week give you full untrammelled swing; and the week following modify it.  You must try to keep the run of my mind, Redpath, it is your business being the agent, and it always was too many for me.  It appears to me to be one of the finest pieces of mechanism I have ever met with.  Now about the West, this week, I am willing that you shall retain all the Western engagements.  But what I shall want next week is still with God.

Let us not profane the mysteries with soiled hands and prying eyes of
sin. 
                              Yours,
          
                              Mark.

P. S. Shall be here 2 weeks, will run up there when Nasby comes.

                                        Elmira, N. Y. Sept. 15, 1871. 
Dear Redpath,—­I wish you would get me released from the lecture at Buffalo.  I mortally hate that society there, and I don’t doubt they hired me.  I once gave them a packed house free of charge, and they never even had the common politeness to thank me.  They left me to shift for myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard.  Get me rid of Buffalo!  Otherwise I’ll have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture there.  I can get sick easy enough, by the simple process of saying the word—­well never mind what word—­I am not going to lecture there. 
                              Yours,
                                   Mark.

Buffalo, Sept. 26, 1871. 
Dear Redpath,—­We have thought it all over and decided that we can’t
possibly talk after Feb. 2.

We shall take up our residence in Hartford 6 days from now
                              Yours
                                   Mark.

XI.

Letters 1871-72.  Removal to Hartford.  A lecture tour.  “Roughing it.” 
First letter to Howells

The house they had taken in Hartford was the Hooker property on Forest Street, a handsome place in a distinctly literary neighborhood.  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and other well-known writers were within easy walking distance; Twichell was perhaps half a mile away.

It was the proper environment for Mark Twain.  He settled his little family there,