I can not only look out upon the beautiful snow-storm, past the vigorous blaze of my fire; and upon the snow-veiled buildings which I have sketched; and upon the churchward drifting umbrellas; and upon the buffalo-clad cabmen stamping their feet and thrashing their arms on the corner yonder:  but I also look out upon the spot where the first white men stood, in the neighborhood of four hundred years ago, admiring the mighty stretch of leafy solitudes, and being admired and marveled at by an eager multitude of naked savages.  The discoverer of this region, and namer of it, Jacques Cartier, has a square named for him in the city.  I wish you were here; you would enjoy your birthday, I think.

I hoped for a letter, and thought I had one when the mail was handed in, a minute ago, but it was only that note from Sylvester Baxter.  You must write—­do you hear?—­or I will be remiss myself.

Give my love and a kiss to the children, and ask them to give you my love and a kiss from
                         SAML.

To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: 

Quebec, Sunday. ’81.  Livy darling, I received a letter from Monsieur Frechette this morning, in which certain citizens of Montreal tendered me a public dinner next Thursday, and by Osgood’s advice I accepted it.  I would have accepted anyway, and very cheerfully but for the delay of two days—­for I was purposing to go to Boston Tuesday and home Wednesday; whereas, now I go to Boston Friday and home Saturday.  I have to go by Boston on account of business.

We drove about the steep hills and narrow, crooked streets of this old town during three hours, yesterday, in a sleigh, in a driving snow-storm.  The people here don’t mind snow; they were all out, plodding around on their affairs—­especially the children, who were wallowing around everywhere, like snow images, and having a mighty good time.  I wish I could describe the winter costume of the young girls, but I can’t.  It is grave and simple, but graceful and pretty—­the top of it is a brimless fur cap.  Maybe it is the costume that makes pretty girls seem so monotonously plenty here.  It was a kind of relief to strike a homely face occasionally.

You descend into some of the streets by long, deep stairways; and in the strong moonlight, last night, these were very picturesque.  I did wish you were here to see these things.  You couldn’t by any possibility sleep in these beds, though, or enjoy the food.

Good night, sweetheart, and give my respects to the cubs.

SAML.

It had been hoped that W. D. Howells would join the Canadian excursion, but Howells was not very well that autumn.  He wrote that he had been in bed five weeks, “most of the time recovering; so you see how bad I must have been to begin with.  But now I am out of any first-class pain; I have a good appetite, and I am as abusive and peremptory as Guiteau.”  Clemens, returning to Hartford, wrote him a letter that explains itself.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: