Hartford, Jan. 8, ’80.  My dear Howells,—­Am waiting for Patrick to come with the carriage.  Mrs. Clemens and I are starting (without the children) to stay indefinitely in Elmira.  The wear and tear of settling the house broke her down, and she has been growing weaker and weaker for a fortnight.  All that time—­in fact ever since I saw you—­I have been fighting a life-and-death battle with this infernal book and hoping to get done some day.  I required 300 pages of Ms, and I have written near 600 since I saw you—­and tore it all up except 288.  This I was about to tear up yesterday and begin again, when Mrs. Perkins came up to the billiard room and said, “You will never get any woman to do the thing necessary to save her life by mere persuasion; you see you have wasted your words for three weeks; it is time to use force; she must have a change; take her home and leave the children here.”

I said, “If there is one death that is painfuller than another, may I get it if I don’t do that thing.”

So I took the 288 pages to Bliss and told him that was the very last line I should ever write on this book. (A book which required 2600 pages of Ms, and I have written nearer four thousand, first and last.)

I am as soary (and flighty) as a rocket, to-day, with the unutterable joy of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has been roosting for more than a year and a half.  Next time I make a contract before writing the book, may I suffer the righteous penalty and be burnt, like the injudicious believer.

I am mighty glad you are done your book (this is from a man who, above all others, feels how much that sentence means) and am also mighty glad you have begun the next (this is also from a man who knows the felicity of that, and means straightway to enjoy it.) The Undiscovered starts off delightfully—­I have read it aloud to Mrs. C. and we vastly enjoyed it.

Well, time’s about up—­must drop a line to Aldrich. 
                                             Yrs ever,
          
                                             Mark.

In a letter which Mark Twain wrote to his brother Orion at this period we get the first hint of a venture which was to play an increasingly important part in the Hartford home and fortunes during the next ten or a dozen years.  This was the type-setting machine investment, which, in the end, all but wrecked Mark Twain’s finances.  There is but a brief mention of it in the letter to Orion, and the letter itself is not worth preserving, but as references to the “machine” appear with increasing frequency, it seems proper to record here its first mention.  In the same letter he suggests to his brother that he undertake an absolutely truthful autobiography, a confession in which nothing is to be withheld.  He cites the value of Casanova’s memories, and the confessions of Rousseau.  Of course, any literary suggestion