Of course the petition never reached Congress.  Holmes’s comment that governments were not in the habit of setting themselves up as high moral examples, except for revenue, was shared by too many others.  The petition was tabled, but Clemens never abandoned his purpose and lived to see most of his dream fulfilled.  Meantime, Howells’s notice of the Sketches appeared in the Atlantic, and brought grateful acknowledgment from the author.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

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
                                        Yrs Ever
                                             S. L. Clemens.