Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 2, Ms 0156, Box 2, Folder 23k, letters from Charles Dudley Warner to Miss Dodge and HHJ, 1876.
Transcribed by Gloria Helmuth, 2003.

Letterhead:
Nook Farm.
Hartford, Conn.

July 23, 1876

I suppose, my dear Miss Dodge, that you have heard the latest? It is no use trying to tell a New Yorker anything. It came to me from a Doctor of Divinity who was at the Philological, so that I know it is true. The question is, Why is Mr. Jackson of Colorado Springs, the husband of H.H., like Orpheus? I would tell you the answer, but I am afraid it would shock both Mrs. Runkle and H.H., and I have special reasons for wanting to keep on good terms with both of them just now.

The fact is that Sue and I have meditated a plan, which we will not have frustrated. Do you know whether H.H. still even goes about incog, or H.H.? This is it: - You talk and Mrs Runkle thinks of visiting H.H. in Princeton Mass. Now, I don't expect gossiping of a woman, but if you will look in the west you must see that you cannot pass into Mass. and not call here without a direct insult to us. If you are a human being you cant. I don't know when Princeton Week is, and I don't care; H.H. has a way of getting herself into the most uncomfortable places. But our plan is that you and Mrs R shall come here, ostensibly on your way to Princeton and that H.H. shall visit you here, you then are nothing more, if you didn't get enough of each others society together here, you could then go on to Princeton together and have it out woman fashion. I shall write to Mrs. Runkle by this visit. She is more reasonable (to persuade) than you, and all that will be left for you to do will be to fix the early day, name the happy day as H.H. - was it not H.H.? - says in one of her poems. Then you will, won't you, write H.H . (I have not the least idea where to find her, and convey our pressing and longing invitation we urge her to visit you here. Can't you, now, see the elements of a good time in the conjunction of these such people? With half our love and all our affection

Yours Sincerely

Chas. Dudley Warren

I send this to [S…?] for I cant make out in which [colonel?] place you are hiding.

Letterhead:
Nook Farm.
Hartford, Conn.

Aug 7, 1876

Dear Mrs. Jackson,

There is no law to prevent a brilliant woman hiding her summer light in an out of the way place like Princeton - you Americans seem to have very little law anyway - and then endeavoring to attract the world with an unconscious portion, by the chorus of rhetoric. And I suppose there is no way to compel you to come here - habeas corpus; I understand, doesn't work anymore under this personal Grant government. You would not, I dare say, stop one hour on your way to the Centennial. You would go around by the Lord knows what route & arrive Hartford. And all that lonely shame of ours for bringing you three together has come to ashes. Mrs. Runkle will go no where, till she changes her mind. I am almost about her; I never before knew her not willing to promise to go - but Mrs. Dodge thinks she might, about the first of September, if and if. And we cannot go to Princeton, although your plan looks very tempting on paper. And probably Mr. Bowles would not go any now readily on my account. I fear I offended him mortally the other day by a flippant round about his politics. You know he goes for Hayes and Hendricks or Tilden and Wheeler, I cant made out which, and Adams also. I suppose I should be found of him, though, if he went for the D. Do you know what a great difference there is in going for and going to that Enemy of Man?

Would any thing induce you to stop-over from a your pretended way to Philadelphia? It goes heavily into my eternal loss that I am never to see you. Is your husband a man of reason? Couldn't he persuade you to come here with him? Will you ask him, with our regards?

Yours sincerely,

Chas. Dudley Warner