The Yankee had come from the press, and Howells had praised it in the “Editor’s Study” in Harper’s Magazine.  He had given it his highest commendation, and it seems that his opinion of it did not change with time.  “Of all fanciful schemes of fiction it pleases me most,” he in one place declared, and again referred to it as “a greatly imagined and symmetrically developed tale.”

In more than one letter to Goodman, Clemens had urged him to come East without delay.  “Take the train, Joe, and come along,” he wrote early in December.  And we judge from the following that Joe had decided to come.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Hartford, Dec. 23, ’89.  Dear Howells,—­The magazine came last night, and the Study notice is just great.  The satisfaction it affords us could not be more prodigious if the book deserved every word of it; and maybe it does; I hope it does, though of course I can’t realize it and believe it.  But I am your grateful servant, anyway and always.

I am going to read to the Cadets at West Point Jan. 11.  I go from here to New York the 9th, and up to the Point the 11th.  Can’t you go with me?  It’s great fun.  I’m going to read the passages in the “Yankee” in which the Yankee’s West Point cadets figure—­and shall covertly work in a lecture on aristocracy to those boys.  I am to be the guest of the Superintendent, but if you will go I will shake him and we will go to the hotel.  He is a splendid fellow, and I know him well enough to take that liberty.

And won’t you give me a day or two’s visit toward the end of January?  For two reasons:  the machine will be at work again by that time, and we want to hear the rest of the dream-story; Mrs. Clemens keeps speaking about it and hankering for it.  And we can have Joe Goodman on hand again by that time, and I want you to get to know him thoroughly.  It’s well worth it.  I am going to run up and stay over night with you as soon as I can get a chance.

We are in the full rush of the holidays now, and an awful rush it is, too.  You ought to have been here the other day, to make that day perfect and complete.  All alone I managed to inflict agonies on Mrs:  Clemens, whereas I was expecting nothing but praises.  I made a party call the day after the party—­and called the lady down from breakfast to receive it.  I then left there and called on a new bride, who received me in her dressing-gown; and as things went pretty well, I stayed to luncheon.  The error here was, that the appointed reception-hour was 3 in the afternoon, and not at the bride’s house but at her aunt’s in another part of the town.  However, as I meant well, none of these disasters distressed me. 
                         Yrs ever
                                   mark.

The Yankee did not find a very hearty welcome in England.  English readers did not fancy any burlesque of their Arthurian tales, or American strictures on their institutions.  Mark Twain’s publishers had feared this, and asked that the story be especially edited for the English edition.  Clemens, however, would not listen to any suggestions of the sort.

To Messrs. Chatto & Windus, in London, Eng.: