path: root/old/mt6lt10.txt

**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters Vol. 6, by Mark Twain**
#59 in our series by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!

Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers.

Please do not remove this.

This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book.
Do not change or edit it without written permission.  The words
are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they
need about what they can legally do with the texts.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*

Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below.  We need your donations.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541

As of 12/12/00 contributions are only being solicited from people in:
Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana,
Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

As the requirements for other states are met,
additions to this list will be made and fund raising
will begin in the additional states.  Please feel
free to ask to check the status of your state.

International donations are accepted,
but we don't know ANYTHING about how 
to make them tax-deductible, or 
even if they CAN be made deductible, 
and don't have the staff to handle it
even if there are ways.

These donations should be made to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109


Title: Letters Vol. 6

Author: Mark Twain

Release Date: April, 2002  [Etext #3198]
[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
[The actual date this file first posted = 02/19/01]

Edition: 10

Language: English

**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters Vol. 6, by Mark Twain**
******This file should be named mt6lt10.txt or mt6lt10.zip******

Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, mt6lt11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mt6lt10a.txt

This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>

Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after
the official publication date.

Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our sites at:
http://gutenberg.net
http://promo.net/pg


Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement
can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext02
or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02

Or /etext01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext
files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
manage to get some real funding.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana,
Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

As the requirements for other states are met,
additions to this list will be made and fund raising
will begin in the additional states.

These donations should be made to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109


Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541,
has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal
Revenue Service (IRS).  Donations are tax-deductible to the extent
permitted by law.  As the requirements for other states are met,
additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the
additional states.

All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation.  Mail to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Avenue
Oxford, MS 38655-4109  [USA]


We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


***


Example command-line FTP session:

ftp ftp.ibiblio.org
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc.
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may 
receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the 
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this etext,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word
     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
     let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.  

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, 
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END*





This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>





Letters Vol. 6
by Mark Twain





VOLUME VI.
MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS  1907-1910


XLVI

LETTERS 1907-08.  A DEGREE FROM OXFORD.  THE NEW HOME AT REDDING

     The author, J. Howard Moore, sent a copy of his book, The Universal
     Kinship, with a letter in which he said: "Most humorists have no
     anxiety except to glorify themselves and add substance to their
     pocket-books by making their readers laugh.  You have shown, on many
     occasions, that your mission is not simply to antidote the
     melancholy of a world, but includes a real and intelligent concern
     for the general welfare of your fellowman."

     The Universal Kinship was the kind of a book that Mark Twain
     appreciated, as his acknowledgment clearly shows.


                         To Mr. J. Howard Moore:

                                                       Feb. 2, '07.
DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several days of deep pleasure
and satisfaction; it has compelled my gratitude at the same time, since
it saves me the labor of stating my own long-cherished opinions and
reflections and resentments by doing it lucidly and fervently and
irascibly for me.

There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the mentality
of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance by a thousand
grades; but in the matter of the morals which they left us we have gone
backward as many grades.  That evolution is strange, and to me
unaccountable and unnatural.  Necessarily we started equipped with their
perfect and blemishless morals; now we are wholly destitute; we have no
real, morals, but only artificial ones--morals created and preserved by
the forced suppression of natural and hellish instincts.  Yet we are dull
enough to be vain of them. Certainly we are a sufficiently comical
invention, we humans.
                         Sincerely Yours,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     Mark Twain's own books were always being excommunicated by some
     librarian, and the matter never failed to invite the attention and
     amusement of the press, and the indignation of many correspondents.
     Usually the books were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the morals of which
     were not regarded as wholly exemplary.  But in 1907 a small library,
     in a very small town, attained a day's national notoriety by putting
     the ban on Eve's Diary, not so much on account of its text as for
     the chaste and exquisite illustrations by Lester Ralph.  When the
     reporters came in a troop to learn about it, the author said: "I
     believe this time the trouble is mainly with the pictures.  I did
     not draw them.  I wish I had--they are so beautiful."

     Just at this time, Dr. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, was giving a
     literary talk to the Teachers' Club, of Hartford, dwelling on the
     superlative value of Mark Twain's writings for readers old and
     young.  Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, an old Hartford friend, wrote Clemens
     of the things that Phelps had said, as consolation for Eve's latest
     banishment.  This gave him a chance to add something to what he had
     said to the reporters.


                      To Mrs. Whitmore, in Hartford:

                                                       Feb. 7, 1907.
DEAR MRS. WHITMORE,--But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book
of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected
youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it
delights me and doesn't anger me.  But even if it angered me such words
as those of Professor Phelps would take the sting all out.  Nobody
attaches weight to the freaks of the Charlton Library, but when a man
like Phelps speaks, the world gives attention.  Some day I hope to meet
him and thank him for his courage for saying those things out in public.
Custom is, to think a handsome thing in private but tame it down in the
utterance.

I hope you are all well and happy; and thereto I add my love.
                              Sincerely yours,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     In May, 1907, Mark Twain was invited to England to receive from
     Oxford the degree of Literary Doctor.  It was an honor that came to
     him as a sort of laurel crown at the end of a great career, and
     gratified him exceedingly.  To Moberly Bell, of the London Times,
     he expressed his appreciation.  Bell had been over in April and
     Clemens believed him concerned in the matter.


                       To Moberly Bell, in London:

                                        21 FIFTH AVENUE, May 3, '07
DEAR MR. BELL,--Your hand is in it! and you have my best thanks.
Although I wouldn't cross an ocean again for the price of the ship that
carried me, I am glad to do it for an Oxford degree.  I shall plan to
sail for England a shade before the middle of June, so that I can have a
few days in London before the 26th.
                                   Sincerely,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     He had taken a house at Tuxedo for the summer, desiring to be near
     New York City, and in the next letter he writes Mr. Rogers
     concerning his London plans.  We discover, also, in this letter that
     he has begun work on the Redding home and the cost is to come
     entirely out of the autobiographical chapters then running in the
     North American Review.  It may be of passing interest to note here
     that he had the usual house-builder's fortune.  He received thirty
     thousand dollars for the chapters; the house cost him nearly double
     that amount.


                      To H. H. Rogers, in New York:

                                                            TUXEDO PARK,
                                                            May 29, '07.
DEAR ADMIRAL,--Why hang it, I am not going to see you and Mrs. Rogers at
all in England!  It is a great disappointment.  I leave there a month
from now--June 29.  No, I shall see you; for by your itinerary you are
most likely to come to London June 21st or along there.  So that is very
good and satisfactory.  I have declined all engagements but two--Whitelaw
Reid (dinner) June 21, and the Pilgrims (lunch), June 25.  The Oxford
ceremony is June 26.  I have paid my return passage in the Minne-
something, but it is just possible that I may want to stay in England a
week or two longer--I can't tell, yet.  I do very much want to meet up
with the boys for the last time.

I have signed the contract for the building of the house on my
Connecticut farm and specified the cost limit, and work has been begun.
The cost has to all come out of a year's instalments of Autobiography in
the N. A. Review.

Clara, is winning her way to success and distinction with sure and steady
strides.  By all accounts she is singing like a bird, and is not afraid
on the concert stage any more.

Tuxedo is a charming place; I think it hasn't its equal anywhere.

Very best wishes to you both.
                                   S. L. C.


     The story of Mark Twain's extraordinary reception and triumph in
     England has been told. --[Mark Twain; A Biography, chaps.  cclvi-
     cclix]-- It was, in fact, the crowning glory of his career.  Perhaps
     one of the most satisfactory incidents of his sojourn was a dinner
     given to him by the staff of Punch, in the historic offices at 10
     Bouverie Street where no other foreign visitor had been thus
     honored--a notable distinction.  When the dinner ended, little joy
     Agnew, daughter of the chief editor, entered and presented to the
     chief guest the original drawing of a cartoon by Bernard Partridge,
     which had appeared on the front page of Punch.  In this picture the
     presiding genius of the paper is offering to Mark Twain health, long
     life, and happiness from "The Punch Bowl."

     A short time after his return to America he received a pretty
     childish letter from little Miss Agnew acknowledging a photograph he
     had sent her, and giving a list of her pets and occupations.  Such a
     letter always delighted Mark Twain, and his pleasure in this one is
     reflected in his reply.


                      To Miss Joy Agnew, in London:

                                                  TUXEDO PARK, NEW YORK.
Unto you greetings and salutation and worship, you dear, sweet little
rightly-named Joy!  I can see you now almost as vividly as I saw you that
night when you sat flashing and beaming upon those sombre swallow-tails.

     "Fair as a star when only one
     Is shining in the sky."

Oh, you were indeed the only one--there wasn't even the remotest chance
of competition with you, dear!  Ah, you are a decoration, you little
witch!

The idea of your house going to the wanton expense of a flower garden!--
aren't you enough?  And what do you want to go and discourage the other
flowers for?  Is that the right spirit? is it considerate? is it kind?
How do you suppose they feel when you come around--looking the way you
look?  And you so pink and sweet and dainty and lovely and supernatural?
Why, it makes them feel embarrassed and artificial, of course; and in my
opinion it is just as pathetic as it can be.  Now then you want to
reform--dear--and do right.

Well certainly you are well off, Joy:

3 bantams;
3 goldfish;
3 doves;
6 canaries;
2 dogs;
1 cat;

All you need, now, to be permanently beyond the reach of want, is one
more dog--just one more good, gentle, high principled, affectionate,
loyal dog who wouldn't want any nobler service than the golden privilege
of lying at your door, nights, and biting everything that came along--and
I am that very one, and ready to come at the dropping of a hat.

Do you think you could convey my love and thanks to your "daddy" and Owen
Seaman and those other oppressed and down-trodden subjects of yours, you
darling small tyrant?

On my knees!  These--with the kiss of fealty from your other subject--

                                                  MARK TWAIN


     Elinor Glyn, author of Three Weeks and other erotic tales, was in
     America that winter and asked permission to call on Mark Twain.  An
     appointment was made and Clemens discussed with her, for an hour or
     more, those crucial phases of life which have made living a complex
     problem since the days of Eve in Eden.  Mrs. Glyn had never before
     heard anything like Mark Twain's wonderful talk, and she was anxious
     to print their interview.  She wrote what she could remember of it
     and sent it to him for approval.  If his conversation had been
     frank, his refusal was hardly less so.


                    To Mrs. Elinor Glyn, in New York:

                                                       Jan. 22, '08.
DEAR MRS. GLYN, It reads pretty poorly--I get the sense of it, but it is
a poor literary job; however, it would have to be that because nobody can
be reported even approximately, except by a stenographer.
Approximations, synopsized speeches, translated poems, artificial flowers
and chromos all have a sort of value, but it is small.  If you had put
upon paper what I really said it would have wrecked your type-machine.
I said some fetid, over-vigorous things, but that was because it was a
confidential conversation.  I said nothing for print.  My own report of
the same conversation reads like Satan roasting a Sunday school.  It, and
certain other readable chapters of my autobiography will not be published
until all the Clemens family are dead--dead and correspondingly
indifferent.  They were written to entertain me, not the rest of the
world.  I am not here to do good--at least not to do it intentionally.
You must pardon me for dictating this letter; I am sick a-bed and not
feeling as well as I might.
                              Sincerely Yours,
                                             S. L. CLEMENS.


     Among the cultured men of England Mark Twain had no greater admirer,
     or warmer friend, than Andrew Lang.  They were at one on most
     literary subjects, and especially so in their admiration of the life
     and character of Joan of Arc.  Both had written of her, and both
     held her to be something almost more than mortal.  When, therefore,
     Anatole France published his exhaustive biography of the maid of
     Domremy, a book in which he followed, with exaggerated minuteness
     and innumerable footnotes, every step of Joan's physical career at
     the expense of her spiritual life, which he was inclined to cheapen,
     Lang wrote feelingly, and with some contempt, of the performance,
     inviting the author of the Personal Recollections to come to the
     rescue of their heroine.  "Compare every one of his statements with
     the passages he cites from authorities, and make him the laughter of
     the world" he wrote.  "If you are lazy about comparing I can make
     you a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this
     amazing novelist says that they say.  When I tell you that he thinks
     the Epiphany (January 6, Twelfth Night) is December 25th--Christmas
     Day-you begin to see what an egregious ass he is.  Treat him like
     Dowden, and oblige"--a reference to Mark Twain's defense of Harriet
     Shelley, in which he had heaped ridicule on Dowden's Life of the
     Poet--a masterly performance; one of the best that ever came from
     Mark Twain's pen.

     Lang's suggestion would seem to have been a welcome one.


                        To Andrew Lang, in London:

                                        NEW YORK, April 25, 1908.
DEAR MR. LANG,--I haven't seen the book nor any review of it, but only
not very-understandable references to it--of a sort which discomforted
me, but of course set my interest on fire.  I don't want to have to read
it in French--I should lose the nice shades, and should do a lot of gross
misinterpreting, too.  But there'll be a translation soon, nicht wahr?
I will wait for it.  I note with joy that you say: "If you are lazy about
comparing, (which I most certainly am), I can make you a complete set of
what the authorities say, and of what this amazing novelist says that
they say."

Ah, do it for me!  Then I will attempt the article, and (if I succeed in
doing it to my satisfaction,) will publish it.  It is long since I
touched a pen (3 « years), and I was intending to continue this happy
holiday to the gallows, but--there are things that could beguile me to
break this blessed Sabbath.
                    Yours very sincerely,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     Certainly it is an interesting fact that an Englishman--one of the
     race that burned Joan--should feel moved to defend her memory
     against the top-heavy perversions of a distinguished French author.

     But Lang seems never to have sent the notes.  The copying would have
     been a tremendous task, and perhaps he never found the time for it.
     We may regret to-day that he did not, for Mark Twain's article on
     the French author's Joan would have been at least unique.

     Samuel Clemens could never accustom himself to the loss of his wife.
     From the time of her death, marriage-which had brought him his
     greatest joy in life-presented itself to him always with the thought
     of bereavement, waiting somewhere just behind.  The news of an
     approaching wedding saddened him and there was nearly always a
     somber tinge in his congratulations, of which the following to a
     dear friend is an example:


                   To Father Fitz-Simon, in Washington:

                                                  June 5, '08.
DEAR FATHER FITZ-SIMON,--Marriage--yes, it is the supreme felicity of
life, I concede it.  And it is also the supreme tragedy of life.  The
deeper the love the surer the tragedy.  And the more disconsolating when
it comes.

And so I congratulate you.  Not perfunctorily, not lukewarmly, but with a
fervency and fire that no word in the dictionary is strong enough to
convey.  And in the same breath and with the same depth and sincerity,
I grieve for you.  Not for both of you and not for the one that shall go
first, but for the one that is fated to be left behind.  For that one
there is no recompense.--For that one no recompense is possible.

There are times--thousands of times--when I can expose the half of my
mind, and conceal the other half, but in the matter of the tragedy of
marriage I feel too deeply for that, and I have to bleed it all out or
shut it all in.  And so you must consider what I have been through, and
am passing through and be charitable with me.

Make the most of the sunshine! and I hope it will last long--ever so
long.

I do not really want to be present; yet for friendship's sake and because
I honor you so, I would be there if I could.
                         Most sincerely your friend,
                                             S. L. CLEMENS.


     The new home at Redding was completed in the spring of 1908, and on
     the 18th of June, when it was entirely fitted and furnished, Mark
     Twain entered it for the first time.  He had never even seen the
     place nor carefully examined plans which John Howells had made for
     his house.  He preferred the surprise of it, and the general
     avoidance of detail.  That he was satisfied with the result will be
     seen in his letters.  He named it at first "Innocence at Home";
     later changing this title to "Stormfield."

     The letter which follows is an acknowledgment of an interesting
     souvenir from the battle-field of Tewksbury (1471), and some relics
     of the Cavalier and Roundhead Regiments encamped at Tewksbury in
     1643.


                          To an English admirer:

                              INNOCENCE AT HOME, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
                                                  Aug. 15, '08.
DEAR SIR,--I highly prize the pipes, and shall intimate to people that
"Raleigh" smoked them, and doubtless he did.  After a little practice I
shall be able to go further and say he did; they will then be the most
interesting features of my library's decorations.  The Horse-shoe is
attracting a good deal of attention, because I have intimated that the
conqueror's horse cast it; it will attract more when I get my hand in and
say he cast it, I thank you for the pipes and the shoe; and also for the
official guide, which I read through at a single sitting.  If a person
should say that about a book of mine I should regard it as good evidence
of the book's interest.
                              Very truly yours,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     In his philosophy, What Is Man?, and now and again in his other
     writings, we find Mark Twain giving small credit to the human mind
     as an originator of ideas.  The most original writer of his time, he
     took no credit for pure invention and allowed none to others.  The
     mind, he declared, adapted, consciously or unconsciously; it did not
     create.  In a letter which follows he elucidates this doctrine.  The
     reference in it to the "captain" and to the kerosene, as the reader
     may remember, have to do with Captain "Hurricane" Jones and his
     theory of the miracles of "Isaac and of the prophets of Baal," as
     expounded in Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion.

     By a trick of memory Clemens gives The Little Duke as his suggestion
     for The Prince and the Pauper; he should have written The Prince and
     the Page, by the same author.


                    To Rev. F. Y. Christ, in New York:

                                        REDDING, CONN., Aug., '08.
DEAR SIR,--You say "I often owe my best sermons to a suggestion received
in reading or from other exterior sources."  Your remark is not quite in
accordance with the facts.  We must change it to--"I owe all my thoughts,
sermons and ideas to suggestions received from sources outside of myself.
The simplified English of this proposition is--"No man's brains ever
originated an idea."  It is an astonishing thing that after all these
ages the world goes on thinking the human brain machinery can originate a
thought.

It can't.  It never has done it.  In all cases, little and big, the
thought is born of a suggestion; and in all cases the suggestions come to
the brain from the outside.  The brain never acts except from exterior
impulse.

A man can satisfy himself of the truth of this by a single process,--let
him examine every idea that occurs to him in an hour; a day; in a week
--in a lifetime if he please.  He will always find that an outside
something suggested the thought, something which he saw with his eyes or
heard with his ears or perceived by his touch--not necessarily to-day,
nor yesterday, nor last year, nor twenty years ago, but sometime or
other.  Usually the source of the suggestion is immediately traceable,
but sometimes it isn't.

However, if you will examine every thought that occurs to you for the
next two days, you will find that in at least nine cases out of ten you
can put your finger on the outside suggestion--And that ought to convince
you that No. 10 had that source too, although you cannot at present hunt
it down and find it.

The idea of writing to me would have had to wait a long time if it waited
until your brain originated it.  It was born of an outside suggestion--
Sir Thomas and my old Captain.

The hypnotist thinks he has invented a new thing--suggestion.  This is
very sad.  I don't know where my captain got his kerosene idea.  (It was
forty-one years ago, and he is long ago dead.) But I know that it didn't
originate in his head, but it was born from a suggestion from the
outside.

Yesterday a guest said, "How did you come to think of writing 'The Prince
and the Pauper?'  I didn't.  The thought came to me from the outside--
suggested by that pleasant and picturesque little history-book, Charlotte
M. Yonge's "Little Duke," I doubt if Mrs. Burnett knows whence came to
her the suggestion to write "Little Lord Fauntleroy," but I know; it came
to her from reading "The Prince and the Pauper."  In all my life I have
never originated an idea, and neither has she, nor anybody else.

Man's mind is a clever machine, and can work up materials into ingenious
fancies and ideas, but it can't create the material; none but the gods
can do that.  In Sweden I saw a vast machine receive a block of wood, and
turn it into marketable matches in two minutes.  It could do everything
but make the wood.  That is the kind of machine the human mind is.  Maybe
this is not a large compliment, but it is all I can afford.....
                         Your friend and well-wisher
                                             S. L. CLEMENS.


                To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in Fair Hawn, Mass.:

                                        REDDING, CONN, Aug. 12, 1908.
DEAR MRS. ROGERS, I believe I am the wellest man on the planet to-day,
and good for a trip to Fair Haven (which I discussed with the Captain of
the New Bedford boat, who pleasantly accosted me in the Grand Central
August 5) but the doctor came up from New York day before yesterday, and
gave positive orders that I must not stir from here before frost.  It is
because I was threatened with a swoon, 10 or 12 days ago, and went to New
York a day or two later to attend my nephew's funeral and got horribly
exhausted by the heat and came back here and had a bilious collapse.  In
24 hours I was as sound as a nut again, but nobody believes it but me.

This is a prodigiously satisfactory place, and I am so glad I don't have
to go back to the turmoil and rush of New York.  The house stands high
and the horizons are wide, yet the seclusion is perfect.  The nearest
public road is half a mile away, so there is nobody to look in, and I
don't have to wear clothes if I don't want to.  I have been down stairs
in night-gown and slippers a couple of hours, and have been photographed
in that costume; but I will dress, now, and behave myself.

That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my
brain.  .  .  Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for
it.  I wish Henry Rogers would come here, and I wish you would come with
him.  You can't rest in that crowded place, but you could rest here, for
sure!  I would learn bridge, and entertain you, and rob you.
                         With love to you both,
                                        Ever yours,
                                                  S.  L.  C.


     In the foregoing letter we get the first intimation of Mark Twain's
     failing health.  The nephew who had died was Samuel E. Moffett, son
     of Pamela Clemens.  Moffett, who was a distinguished journalist--an
     editorial writer on Collier's Weekly, a man beloved by all who knew
     him--had been drowned in the surf off the Jersey beach.


                 To W. D. Howells, Kittery Point, Maine:

                                                       Aug. 12, '08.
DEAR HOWELLS,--Won't you and Mrs. Howells and Mildred come and give us as
many days as you can spare, and examine John's triumph?  It is the most
satisfactory house I am acquainted with, and the most satisfactorily
situated.

But it is no place to work in, because one is outside of it all the time,
while the sun and the moon are on duty.  Outside of it in the loggia,
where the breezes blow and the tall arches divide up the scenery and
frame it.

It's a ghastly long distance to come, and I wouldn't travel such a
distance to see anything short of a memorial museum, but if you can't
come now you can at least come later when you return to New York, for the
journey will be only an hour and a half per express-train.  Things are
gradually and steadily taking shape inside the house, and nature is
taking care of the outside in her ingenious and wonderful fashion--and
she is competent and asks no help and gets none.  I have retired from New
York for good, I have retired from labor for good, I have dismissed my
stenographer and have entered upon a holiday whose other end is in the
cemetery.
                    Yours ever,
                                   MARK.


     From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter
     inclosing an incompleted list of the world's "One Hundred Greatest
     Men," men who had exerted "the largest visible influence on the life
     and activities of the race."  The writer asked that Mark Twain
     examine the list and suggest names, adding "would you include Jesus,
     as the founder of Christianity, in the list?"

     To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to
     the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.  The
     question he answered in detail.


                      To-----------, Buffalo, N.  Y.

                              Private.  REDDING, CONN, Aug. 28, '08.
DEAR SIR,--By "private," I mean don't print any remarks of mine.

                            ..................
I like your list.

The "largest visible influence."

These terms require you to add Jesus.  And they doubly and trebly require
you to add Satan.  From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a
vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised
over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined.  Ninety-
nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the remaining
fraction of it from Jesus.  During those 1500 years the fear of Satan and
Hell made 99 Christians where love of God and Heaven landed one.  During
those 1500 years, Satan's influence was worth very nearly a hundred times
as much to the business as was the influence of all the rest of the Holy
Family put together.

You have asked me a question, and I have answered it seriously and
sincerely.  You have put in Buddha--a god, with a following, at one time,
greater than Jesus ever had: a god with perhaps a little better evidence
of his godship than that which is offered for Jesus's.  How then, in
fairness, can you leave Jesus out?  And if you put him in, how can you
logically leave Satan out?  Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but
it is the lightning that does the work.
                              Very truly yours,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     The "Children's Theatre" of the next letter was an institution of
     the New York East Side in which Mark Twain was deeply interested.
     The children were most, if not all, of Hebrew parentage, and the
     performances they gave, under the direction of Alice M. Herts, were
     really remarkable.  It seemed a pity that lack of funds should have
     brought this excellent educational venture to an untimely end.

     The following letter was in reply to one inclosing a newspaper
     clipping reporting a performance of The Prince and the Pauper, given
     by Chicago school children.


                       To Mrs. Hookway, in Chicago:
                                                  Sept., 1908.
DEAR MRS. HOOKWAY,--Although I am full of the spirit of work this
morning, a rarity with me lately--I must steal a moment or two for a word
in person: for I have been reading the eloquent account in the Record-
Herald and am pleasurably stirred, to my deepest deeps.  The reading
brings vividly back to me my pet and pride.  The Children's Theatre of
the East side, New York.  And it supports and re-affirms what I have so
often and strenuously said in public that a children's theatre is easily
the most valuable adjunct that any educational institution for the young
can have, and that no otherwise good school is complete without it.

It is much the most effective teacher of morals and promoter of good
conduct that the ingenuity of man has yet devised, for the reason that
its lessons are not taught wearily by book and by dreary homily, but by
visible and enthusing action; and they go straight to the heart, which is
the rightest of right places for them.  Book morals often get no further
than the intellect, if they even get that far on their spectral and
shadowy pilgrimage: but when they travel from a Children's Theatre they
do not stop permanently at that halfway house, but go on home.

The children's theatre is the only teacher of morals and conduct and high
ideals that never bores the pupil, but always leaves him sorry when the
lesson is over.  And as for history, no other teacher is for a moment
comparable to it: no other can make the dead heroes of the world rise up
and shake the dust of the ages from their bones and live and move and
breathe and speak and be real to the looker and listener: no other can
make the study of the lives and times of the illustrious dead a delight,
a splendid interest, a passion; and no other can paint a history-lesson
in colors that will stay, and stay, and never fade.

It is my conviction that the children's theatre is one of the very, very
great inventions of the twentieth century; and that its vast educational
value--now but dimly perceived and but vaguely understood--will presently
come to be recognized.  By the article which I have been reading I find
the same things happening in the Howland School that we have become
familiar with in our Children's Theatre (of which I am President, and
sufficiently vain of the distinction.) These things among others;

1.  The educating history-study does not stop with the little players,
but the whole school catches the infection and revels in it.

2.  And it doesn't even stop there; the children carry it home and infect
the family with it--even the parents and grandparents; and the whole
household fall to studying history, and bygone manners and customs and
costumes with eager interest.  And this interest is carried along to the
studying of costumes in old book-plates; and beyond that to the selecting
of fabrics and the making of clothes.  Hundreds of our children learn,
the plays by listening without book, and by making notes; then the
listener goes home and plays the piece--all the parts! to the family.
And the family are glad and proud; glad to listen to the explanations and
analyses, glad to learn, glad to be lifted to planes above their dreary
workaday lives.  Our children's theatre is educating 7,000 children--and
their families.  When we put on a play of Shakespeare they fall to
studying it diligently; so that they may be qualified to enjoy it to the
limit when the piece is staged.

3.  Your Howland School children do the construction-work, stage-
decorations, etc.  That is our way too.  Our young folks do everything
that is needed by the theatre, with their own hands; scene-designing,
scene-painting, gas-fitting, electric work, costume-designing--costume
making, everything and all things indeed--and their orchestra and its
leader are from their own ranks.

The article which I have been reading, says--speaking of the historical
play produced by the pupils of the Howland School--

"The question naturally arises, What has this drama done for those who so
enthusiastically took part?--The touching story has made a year out of
the Past live for the children as could no chronology or bald statement
of historical events; it has cultivated the fancy and given to the
imagination strength and purity; work in composition has ceased to be
drudgery, for when all other themes fall flat a subject dealing with some
aspect of the drama presented never fails to arouse interest and a rapid
pushing of pens over paper."

That is entirely true.  The interest is not confined to the drama's
story, it spreads out all around the period of the story, and gives to
all the outlying and unrelated happenings of that period a fascinating
interest--an interest which does not fade out with the years, but remains
always fresh, always inspiring, always welcome.  History-facts dug by the
job, with sweat and tears out of a dry and spiritless text-book--but
never mind, all who have suffered know what that is.  .  .
                                   I remain, dear madam,
                                             Sincerely yours,
                                                       S. L. CLEMENS.


     Mark Twain had a special fondness for cats.  As a boy he always
     owned one and it generally had a seat beside him at the table.
     There were cats at Quarry Farm and at Hartford, and in the house at
     Redding there was a gray mother-cat named Tammany, of which he was
     especially fond.  Kittens capering about were his chief delight.
     In a letter to a Chicago woman he tells how those of Tammany
     assisted at his favorite game.


               To Mrs. Mabel Larkin Patterson, in Chicago:

                                             REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
                                                       Oct. 2, '08.
DEAR MRS. PATTERSON,--The contents of your letter are very pleasant and
very welcome, and I thank you for them, sincerely.  If I can find a
photograph of my "Tammany" and her kittens, I will enclose it in this.

One of them likes to be crammed into a corner-pocket of the billiard
table--which he fits as snugly as does a finger in a glove and then he
watches the game (and obstructs it) by the hour, and spoils many a shot
by putting out his paw and changing the direction of a passing ball.
Whenever a ball is in his arms, or so close to him that it cannot be
played upon without risk of hurting him, the player is privileged to
remove it to anyone of the 3 spots that chances to be vacant.

Ah, no, my lecturing days are over for good and all.
                                        Sincerely yours,
                                                  S. L. CLEMENS.


     The letter to Howells which follows was written a short time before
     the passage of the copyright extension bill, which rendered Mark
     Twain's new plan, here mentioned, unneeded--at least for the time.


                      To W. D. Howells, in New York:

                                             Monday, Oct. 26, '08.
Oh, I say!  Where are you hiding, and why are you hiding?  You promised
to come here and you didn't keep your word.  (This sounds like
astonishment--but don't be misled by that.)

Come, fire up again on your fiction-mill and give us another good
promise.  And this time keep it--for it is your turn to be astonished.
Come and stay as long as you possibly can.  I invented a new copyright
extension scheme last Friday, and sat up all night arranging its details.
It will interest you.  Yesterday I got it down on paper in as compact a
form as I could.  Harvey and I have examined the scheme, and to-morrow or
next day he will send me a couple of copyright-experts to arrange about
getting certain statistics for me.

Authors, publishers and the public have always been damaged by the
copyright laws.  The proposed amendment will advantage all three--the
public most of all.  I think Congress will pass it and settle the vexed
question permanently.

I shall need your assent and the assent of about a dozen other authors.
Also the assent of all the large firms of the 300 publishers.  These
authors and publishers will furnish said assent I am sure.  Not even the
pirates will be able to furnish a serious objection, I think.

Come along.  This place seemed at its best when all around was summer-
green; later it seemed at its best when all around was burning with the
autumn splendors; and now once more it seems at its best, with the trees
naked and the ground a painter's palette.
                                   Yours ever,
                                             MARK.


     Clemens was a great admirer of the sea stories of W. W. Jacobs and
     generally kept one or more of this author's volumes in reach of his
     bed, where most of his reading was done.  The acknowledgment that
     follows was sent when he had finished Salthaven.


                       To W. W. Jacobs, in England:

                                                       REDDING, CONN,
                                                       Oct. 28, '08.
DEAR MR. JACOBS,--It has a delightful look.  I will not venture to say
how delightful, because the words would sound extravagant, and would
thereby lose some of their strength and to that degree misrepresent me.
It is my conviction that Dialstone Lane holds the supremacy over all
purely humorous books in our language, but I feel about Salthaven as the
Cape Cod poet feels about Simon Hanks:

               "The Lord knows all things, great and small,
               With doubt he's not perplexed:
               'Tis Him alone that knows it all
               But Simon Hanks comes next."

The poet was moved by envy and malice and jealousy, but I am not: I place
Salthaven close up next to Dialstone because I think it has a fair and
honest right to that high position.  I have kept the other book moving;
I shall begin to hand this one around now.

And many thanks to you for remembering me.

This house is out in the solitudes of the woods and the hills, an hour
and a half from New York, and I mean to stay in it winter and summer the
rest of my days.  I beg you to come and help occupy it a few days the
next time you visit the U.S.
                         Sincerely yours,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     One of the attractions of Stormfield was a beautiful mantel in the
     billiard room, presented by the Hawaiian Promotion Committee.  It
     had not arrived when the rest of the house was completed, but came
     in time to be set in place early in the morning of the owner's
     seventy-third birthday.  It was made of a variety of Hawaiian woods,
     and was the work of a native carver, F. M. Otremba.  Clemens was
     deeply touched by the offering from those "western isles"--the
     memory of which was always so sweet to him.


                         To Mr. Wood, in Hawaii:

                                                       Nov. 30, '08.
DEAR MR. WOOD,--The beautiful mantel was put in its place an hour ago,
and its friendly "Aloha" was the first uttered greeting my 73rd birthday
received.  It is rich in color, rich in quality, and rich in decoration,
therefore it exactly harmonizes with the taste for such things which was
born in me and which I have seldom been able to indulge to my content.
It will be a great pleasure to me, daily renewed, to have under my eye
this lovely reminder of the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored
in any ocean, and I beg to thank the Committee for providing me that
pleasure.
                    Sincerely Yours,
                              S. L. CLEMENS.




XLVII

LETTERS, 1909.  TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS.  LIFE AT STORMFIELD.  COPYRIGHT
EXTENSION.  DEATH OF JEAN CLEMENS

     Clemens remained at Stormfield all that winter.  New York was sixty
     miles away and he did not often care to make the journey.  He was
     constantly invited to this or that public gathering, or private
     party, but such affairs had lost interest for him.  He preferred the
     quiet of his luxurious home with its beautiful outlook, while for
     entertainment he found the billiard afternoons sufficient.  Guests
     came from the city, now and again, for week-end visits, and if he
     ever was restless or lonely he did not show it.

     Among the invitations that came was one from General O. O. Howard
     asking him to preside at a meeting to raise an endowment fund for a
     Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.  Closing
     his letter, General Howard said, "Never mind if you did fight on the
     other side."


                         To General O. O. Howard:

                                        STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
                                                            Jan, 12, '09.
DEAR GENERAL HOWARD,--You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking
me to preside, and it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to
decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that
object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln
Memorial University.  The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of all
the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln,
serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people.

I hope you will meet with complete success, and I am sorry I cannot be
there to witness it and help you rejoice.  But I am older than people
think, and besides I live away out in the country and never stir from
home, except at geological intervals, to fill left-over engagements in
mesozoic times when I was younger and indiscreeter.

You ought not to say sarcastic things about my "fighting on the other
side."  General Grant did not act like that.  General Grant paid me
compliments.  He bracketed me with Zenophon--it is there in his Memoirs
for anybody to read.  He said if all the confederate soldiers had
followed my example and adopted my military arts he could never have
caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion.  General
Grant was a fair man, and recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced,
and you have hurt my feelings.
          But I have an affection for you, anyway.
                                   MARK TWAIN.


     One of Mark Twain's friends was Henniker-Heaton, the so-called
     "Father of Penny Postage" between England and America.  When, after
     long years of effort, he succeeded in getting the rate established,
     he at once bent his energies in the direction of cheap cable service
     and a letter from him came one day to Stormfield concerning his new
     plans.  This letter happened to be over-weight, which gave Mark
     Twain a chance for some amusing exaggerations at his expense.


                      To Henniker-Heaton, in London:

                                   STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
                                             Jan.  18, 1909.
DEAR HENNIKER-HEATON,--I do hope you will succeed to your heart's desire
in your cheap-cablegram campaign, and I feel sure you will.  Indeed your
cheap-postage victory, achieved in spite of a quarter-century of
determined opposition, is good and rational prophecy that you will.
Wireless, not being as yet imprisoned in a Chinese wall of private cash
and high-placed and formidable influence, will come to your aid and make
your new campaign briefer and easier than the other one was.

Now then, after uttering my serious word, am I privileged to be frivolous
for a moment?  When you shall have achieved cheap telegraphy, are you
going to employ it for just your own selfish profit and other people's
pecuniary damage, the way you are doing with your cheap postage?  You get
letter-postage reduced to 2 cents an ounce, then you mail me a 4-ounce
letter with a 2-cent stamp on it, and I have to pay the extra freight at
this end of the line.  I return your envelope for inspection.  Look at
it.  Stamped in one place is a vast "T," and under it the figures "40,"
and under those figures appears an "L," a sinister and suspicious and
mysterious L.  In another place, stamped within a circle, in offensively
large capitals, you find the words "DUE 8 CENTS."  Finally, in the midst
of a desert space up nor-noreastard from that circle you find a figure
"3" of quite unnecessarily aggressive and insolent magnitude--and done
with a blue pencil, so as to be as conspicuous as possible.  I inquired
about these strange signs and symbols of the postman.  He said they were
P. O. Department signals for his instruction.

"Instruction for what?"

"To get extra postage."

"Is it so?  Explain.  Tell me about the large T and the 40.

"It's short for Take 40--or as we postmen say, grab 40"

Go on, please, while I think up some words to swear with."

"Due 8 means, grab 8 more."

"Continue."

"The blue-pencil 3 was an afterthought.  There aren't any stamps for
afterthoughts; the sums vary, according to inspiration, and they whirl in
the one that suggests itself at the last moment.  Sometimes they go
several times higher than this one.  This one only means hog 3 cents
more.  And so if you've got 51 cents about you, or can borrow it--"

"Tell me: who gets this corruption?"

"Half of it goes to the man in England who ships the letter on short
postage, and the other half goes to the P.O.D.  to protect cheap postage
from inaugurating a deficit."

"-------------------"

"I can't blame you; I would say it myself in your place, if these ladies
were not present.  But you see I'm only obeying orders, I can't help
myself."

"Oh, I know it; I'm not blaming you.  Finally, what does that L stand
for?"

"Get the money, or give him L.  It's English, you know."

"Take it and go.  It's the last cent I've got in the world -------."

After seeing the Oxford pageant file by the grand stand, picture after
picture, splendor after splendor, three thousand five hundred strong, the
most moving and beautiful and impressive and historically-instructive
show conceivable, you are not to think I would miss the London pageant of
next year, with its shining host of 15,000 historical English men and
women dug from the misty books of all the vanished ages and marching in
the light of the sun--all alive, and looking just as they were used to
look!  Mr. Lascelles spent yesterday here on the farm, and told me all
about it.  I shall be in the middle of my 75th year then, and interested
in pageants for personal and prospective reasons.

I beg you to give my best thanks to the Bath Club for the offer of its
hospitalities, but I shall not be able to take advantage of it, because I
am to be a guest in a private house during my stay in London.
                              Sincerely yours,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     It was in 1907 that Clemens had seen the Oxford Pageant--during the
     week when he had been awarded his doctor's degree.  It gave him the
     greatest delight, and he fully expected to see the next one, planned
     for 1910.

     In the letter to Howells which follows we get another glimpse of
     Mark Twain's philosophy of man, the irresponsible machine.


                      To W. D. Howells, in New York:

                                        STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN.,
                                                  Jan.  18, '09.
DEAR HOWELLS,--I have to write a line, lazy as I am, to say how your Poe
article delighted me; and to say that I am in agreement with
substantially all you say about his literature.  To me his prose is
unreadable--like Jane Austin's.  No, there is a difference.  I could read
his prose on salary, but not Jane's.  Jane is entirely impossible.  It
seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

Another thing: you grant that God and circumstances sinned against Poe,
but you also grant that he sinned against himself--a thing which he
couldn't do and didn't do.

It is lively up here now.  I wish you could come.
                                   Yrs ever,
                                             MARK


                      To W. D. Howells, in New York:

                                        STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
                                        3 in the morning, Apl. 17, '09.
                                                  [Written with pencil].
My pen has gone dry and the ink is out of reach.  Howells, Did you write
me day-before-day before yesterday, or did I dream it?  In my mind's eye
I most vividly see your hand-write on a square blue envelop in the
mailpile.  I have hunted the house over, but there is no such letter.
Was it an illusion?

I am reading Lowell's letter, and smoking.  I woke an hour ago and am
reading to keep from wasting the time.  On page 305, vol.  I.  I have
just margined a note:

"Young friend!  I like that!  You ought to see him now."

It seemed startlingly strange to hear a person call you young.  It was a
brick out of a blue sky, and knocked me groggy for a moment.  Ah me, the
pathos of it is, that we were young then.  And he--why, so was he, but he
didn't know it.  He didn't even know it 9 years later, when we saw him
approaching and you warned me, saying, "Don't say anything about age--he
has just turned fifty, and thinks he is old and broods over it."

[Well, Clara did sing!  And you wrote her a dear letter.]

Time to go to sleep.
                         Yours ever,
                                        MARK.


                            To Daniel Kiefer:

                                                       [No date.]
DANL KIEFER ESQ.  DEAR SIR,--I should be far from willing to have a
political party named after me.

I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed its members to
have political aspirations or to push friends forward for political
preferment.
                    Yours very truly,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     The copyright extension, for which the author had been working so
     long, was granted by Congress in 1909, largely as the result of that
     afternoon in Washington when Mark Twain had "received" in "Uncle
     Joe" Cannon's private room, and preached the gospel of copyright
     until the daylight faded and the rest of the Capitol grew still.
     Champ Clark was the last to linger that day and they had talked far
     into the dusk.  Clark was powerful, and had fathered the bill.  Now
     he wrote to know if it was satisfactory.


                      To Champ Clark, in Washington:

                              STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN., June 5, '09.
DEAR CHAMP CLARK--Is the new copyright law acceptable to me?
Emphatically, yes!  Clark, it is the only sane, and clearly defined, and
just and righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United
States.  Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no
trouble in arriving at that decision.

The bill which was before the committee two years ago when I was down
there was the most stupefying jumble of conflicting and apparently
irreconcilable interests that was ever seen; and we all said "the case is
hopeless, absolutely hopeless--out of this chaos nothing can be built."
But we were in error; out of that chaotic mass this excellent bill has
been instructed; the warring interests have been reconciled, and the
result is as comely and substantial a legislative edifice as lifts its
domes and towers and protective lightning rods out of the statute book,
I think.  When I think of that other bill, which even the Deity couldn't
understand, and of this one which even I can understand, I take off my
hat to the man or men who devised this one.  Was it R. U. Johnson?  Was
it the Author's League?  Was it both together?  I don't know, but I take
off my hat, anyway.  Johnson has written a valuable article about the new
law--I enclose it.

At last--at last and for the first time in copyright history we are ahead
of England!  Ahead of her in two ways: by length of time and by fairness
to all interests concerned.  Does this sound like shouting?  Then I must
modify it: all we possessed of copyright-justice before the fourth of
last March we owed to England's initiative.
                                   Truly Yours,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     Because Mark Twain amused himself with certain aspects of Christian
     Science, and was critical of Mrs. Eddy, there grew up a wide
     impression that he jeered at the theory of mental healing; when, as
     a matter of fact, he was one of its earliest converts, and never
     lost faith in its power.  The letter which follows is an excellent
     exposition of his attitude toward the institution of Christian
     Science and the founder of the church in America.


                  To J. Wylie Smith, Glasgow, Scotland:

                                        "STORMFIELD," August 7, 1909
DEAR SIR,--My view of the matter has not changed.  To wit, that Christian
Science is valuable; that it has just the same value now that it had when
Mrs. Eddy stole it from Quimby; that its healing principle (its most
valuable asset) possesses the same force now that it possessed a million
years ago before Quimby was born; that Mrs. Eddy.  .  .  organized that
force, and is entitled to high credit for that.  Then, with a splendid
sagacity she hitched it to.  .  .  a religion, the surest of all ways to
secure friends for it, and support.  In a fine and lofty way--
figuratively speaking--it was a tramp stealing a ride on the lightning
express.  Ah, how did that ignorant village-born peasant woman know the
human being so well?  She has no more intellect than a tadpole--until it
comes to business then she is a marvel!  Am I sorry I wrote the book?
Most certainly not. You say you have 500 (converts) in Glasgow.  Fifty
years from now, your posterity will not count them by the hundred, but by
the thousand.  I feel absolutely sure of this.
                         Very truly yours,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     Clemens wrote very little for publication that year, but he enjoyed
     writing for his own amusement, setting down the things that boiled,
     or bubbled, within him: mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of
     human deportment, human superstition and human creeds.  The "Letters
     from the Earth" referred to in the following, were supposed to have
     been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a
     friend, describing the absurdities of mankind.  It is true, as he
     said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the
     manuscript contains some of his mgt delicious writing.  Miss
     Wallace, to whom the next letter is written, had known Mark Twain in
     Bermuda, and, after his death, published a dainty volume entitled
     Mark Twain in the Happy Island.


                                   "STORMFIELD," REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
                                                       Nov.  13, '09.
DEAR BETSY,--I've been writing "Letters from the Earth," and if you will
come here and see us I will--what?  Put the MS in your hands, with the
places to skip marked?  No.  I won't trust you quite that far.  I'll read
messages to you.  This book will never be published--in fact it couldn't
be, because it would be felony to soil the mails with it, for it has much
Holy Scripture in it of the kind that .  .  .  can't properly be read
aloud, except from the pulpit and in family worship.  Paine enjoys it,
but Paine is going to be damned one of these days, I suppose.

The autumn splendors passed you by?  What a pity.  I wish you had been
here.  It was beyond words!  It was heaven and hell and sunset and
rainbows and the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, and you
couldn't look at it and keep the tears back.  All the hosannahing strong
gorgeousnesses have gone back to heaven and hell and the pole, now, but
no matter; if you could look out of my bedroom window at this moment, you
would choke up; and when you got your voice you would say: This is not
real, this is a dream.  Such a singing together, and such a whispering
together, and such a snuggling together of cosy soft colors, and such
kissing and caressing, and such pretty blushing when the sun breaks out
and catches those dainty weeds at it--you remember that weed-garden of
mine?--and then--then the far hills sleeping in a dim blue trance--oh,
hearing about it is nothing, you should be here to see it.

Good!  I wish I could go on the platform and read.  And I could, if it
could be kept out of the papers.  There's a charity-school of 400 young
girls in Boston that I would give my ears to talk to, if I had some more;
but--oh, well, I can't go, and it's no use to grieve about it.

This morning Jean went to town; also Paine; also the butler; also Katy;
also the laundress.  The cook and the maid, and the boy and the
roustabout and Jean's coachman are left--just enough to make it lonesome,
because they are around yet never visible.  However, the Harpers are
sending Leigh up to play billiards; therefore I shall survive.
                              Affectionately,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     Early in June that year, Clemens had developed unmistakable symptoms
     of heart trouble of a very serious nature.  It was angina pectoris,
     and while to all appearances he was as well as ever and usually felt
     so, he was periodically visited by severe attacks of acute "breast
     pains" which, as the months passed, increased in frequency and
     severity.  He was alarmed and distressed--not on his own account,
     but because of his daughter Jean--a handsome girl, who had long been
     subject to epileptic seizures.  In case of his death he feared that
     Jean would be without permanent anchorage, his other daughter,
     Clara--following her marriage to Ossip Gabrilowitsch in October--
     having taken up residence abroad.

     This anxiety was soon ended.  On the morning of December 24th, jean
     Clemens was found dead in her apartment.  She was not drowned in her
     bath, as was reported, but died from heart exhaustion, the result of
     her malady and the shock of cold water.
     [Questionable diagnosis!  D.W.]

     The blow to her father was terrible, but heavy as it was, one may
     perhaps understand that her passing in that swift, painless way must
     have afforded him a measure of relief.


                    To Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, in Europe:

                                                  REDDING, CONN.,
                                                  Dec.  29, '09.
O, Clara, Clara dear, I am so glad she is out of it and safe--safe!  I am
not melancholy; I shall never be melancholy again, I think.  You see, I
was in such distress when I came to realize that you were gone far away
and no one stood between her and danger but me--and I could die at any
moment, and then--oh then what would become of her!  For she was wilful,
you know, and would not have been governable.

You can't imagine what a darling she was, that last two or three days;
and how fine, and good, and sweet, and noble-and joyful, thank Heaven!--
and how intellectually brilliant.  I had never been acquainted with Jean
before.  I recognized that.

But I mustn't try to write about her--I can't.  I have already poured my
heart out with the pen, recording that last day or two.

I will send you that--and you must let no one but Ossip read it.

Good-bye.
               I love you so!
                         And Ossip.
                                   FATHER.


The writing mentioned in the last paragraph was his article 'The Death of
Jean,' his last serious writing, and one of the world's most beautiful
examples of elegiac prose. --[Harper's Magazine, Dec., 1910, and later in
the volume, 'What Is Man and Other Essays.'




XLVIII

LETTERS OF 1910.  LAST TRIP TO BERMUDA.  LETTERS TO PAINE.
THE LAST LETTER

     Mark Twain had returned from a month's trip to Bermuda a few days
     before Jean died.  Now, by his physician's advice, he went back to
     those balmy islands.  He had always loved them, since his first trip
     there with Twichell thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House,"
     the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome
     guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home.
     Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and
     presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading
     the ideal life, and am immeasurably content."

     By his wish, the present writer and his family were keeping the
     Stormfield house open for him, in order that he might be able to
     return to its comforts at any time.  He sent frequent letters--one
     or two by each steamer--but as a rule they did not concern matters
     of general interest.  A little after his arrival, however, he wrote
     concerning an incident of his former visit--a trivial matter--but
     one which had annoyed him.  I had been with him in Bermuda on the
     earlier visit, and as I remember it, there had been some slight
     oversight on his part in the matter of official etiquette--something
     which doubtless no one had noticed but himself.


                       To A. B. Paine, in Redding:

                                             BAY HOUSE, Jan. 11, 1910.

DEAR PAINE,-- .  .  .  There was a military lecture last night at the
Officer's Mess, prospect, and as the lecturer honored me with a special
and urgent invitation and said he wanted to lecture to me particularly,
I being "the greatest living master of the platform-art," I naturally
packed Helen and her mother into the provided carriage and went.

As soon as we landed at the door with the crowd the Governor came to me
at once and was very cordial, and apparently as glad to see me as he said
he was.  So that incident is closed.  And pleasantly and entirely
satisfactorily.  Everything is all right, now, and I am no longer in a
clumsy and awkward situation.

I "met up" with that charming Colonel Chapman, and other officers of the
regiment, and had a good time.

Commandant Peters of the "Carnegie" will dine here tonight and arrange a
private visit for us to his ship, the crowd to be denied access.
                    Sincerely Yours,
                                        S. L. C.


     "Helen" of this letter was Mr. and Mrs. Allen's young daughter,
     a favorite companion of his walks and drives.  "Loomis" and "Lark,"
     mentioned in the letters which follow, were Edward E. Loomis--his
     nephew by marriage--named by Mark Twain as one of the trustees of
     his estate, and Charles T. Lark, Mark Twain's attorney.


                      To A.  B.  Paine, in Redding:

                                             HAMILTON, Jan. 21, '10.
DEAR PAINE,--Thanks for your letter, and for its contenting news of the
situation in that foreign and far-off and vaguely-remembered country
where you and Loomis and Lark and other beloved friends are.

I have a letter from Clara this morning.  She is solicitous, and wants me
well and watchfully taken care of.  My, she ought to see Helen and her
parents and Claude administer that trust!

Also she says: "I hope to hear from you or Mr. Paine very soon."

I am writing her, and I know you will respond to your part of her prayer.
She is pretty desolate now, after Jean's emancipation--the only kindness
God ever did that poor unoffending child in all her hard life.
                              Ys ever
                                        S. L. C.


     Send Clara a copy of Howells's gorgeous letter.  I want a copy of my
     article that he is speaking of.


     The "gorgeous letter" was concerning Mark Twain's article, "The
     Turning-point in My Life" which had just appeared in one of the
     Harper publications.  Howells wrote of it, "While your wonderful
     words are warm in my mind yet, I want to tell you what you know
     already: that you never wrote anything greater, finer, than that
     turning-point paper of yours."

     From the early Bermuda letters we may gather that Mark Twain's days
     were enjoyable enough, and that his malady was not giving him
     serious trouble, thus far.  Near the end of January he wrote: "Life
     continues here the same as usual.  There isn't a flaw in it.  Good
     times, good home, tranquil contentment all day and every day,
     without a break.  I shouldn't know how to go about bettering my
     situation."  He did little in the way of literary work, probably
     finding neither time nor inclination for it.  When he wrote at all
     it was merely to set down some fanciful drolleries with no thought
     of publication.


               To Prof. William Lyon Phelps, Yale College:

                                             HAMILTON, March 12.
DEAR PROFESSOR PHELPS,--I thank you ever so much for the book--[Professor
Phelps's Essays on Modern Novelists.]--which I find charming--so charming
indeed, that I read it through in a single night, and did not regret the
lost night's sleep.  I am glad if I deserve what you have said about me:
and even if I don't I am proud and well contented, since you think I
deserve it.

Yes, I saw Prof. Lounsbury, and had a most pleasant time with him.  He
ought to have staid longer in this little paradise--partly for his own
sake, but mainly for mine.

I knew my poor Jean had written you.  I shall not have so dear and sweet
a secretary again.

Good health to you, and all good fortune attend you.
                         Sincerely yours,
                                   S. L. CLEMENS.


     He would appear to have written not many letters besides those to
     Mrs. Gabrilowitsch and to Stormfield, but when a little girl sent
     him a report of a dream, inspired by reading The Prince and the
     Pauper, he took the time and trouble to acknowledge it, realizing,
     no doubt, that a line from him would give the child happiness.


                      To Miss Sulamith, in New York:

                              "BAY HOUSE," BERMUDA, March 21, 1910.
DEAR MISS SULAMITH,--I think it is a remarkable dream for a girl of 13 to
have dreamed, in fact for a person of any age to have dreamed, because it
moves by regular grade and sequence from the beginning to the end, which
is not the habit of dreams.  I think your report of it is a good piece of
work, a clear and effective statement of the vision.

I am glad to know you like the "Prince and the Pauper" so well and I
believe with you that the dream is good evidence of that liking.  I think
I may say, with your sister that I like myself best when I am serious.
                         Sincerely yours,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     Through February, and most of March, letters and reports from him
     were about the same.  He had begun to plan for his return, and
     concerning amusements at Stormfield for the entertainment of the
     neighbors, and for the benefit of the library which he had founded
     soon after his arrival in Redding.  In these letters he seldom
     mentioned the angina pains that had tortured him earlier.  But once,
     when he sent a small photograph of himself, it seemed to us that his
     face had become thin and that he had suffered.  Certainly his next
     letter was not reassuring.


                       To A. B. Paine, in Redding:

DEAR PAINE,--We must look into the magic-lantern business.  Maybe the
modern lantern is too elaborate and troublesome for back-settlement use,
but we can inquire.  We must have some kind of a show at "Stormfield" to
entertain the countryside with.

We are booked to sail in the "Bermudian" April 23rd, but don't tell
anybody, I don't want it known.  I may have to go sooner if the pain in
my breast doesn't mend its ways pretty considerably.  I don't want to die
here for this is an unkind place for a person in that condition.  I
should have to lie in the undertaker's cellar until the ship would remove
me and it is dark down there and unpleasant.

The Colliers will meet me on the pier and I may stay with them a week or
two before going home.  It all depends on the breast pain--I don't want
to die there.  I am growing more and more particular about the place.
                         With love,
                                   S.  L.  C.


     This letter had been written by the hand of his "secretary," Helen
     Allen: writing had become an effort to him.  Yet we did not suspect
     how rapidly the end was approaching and only grew vaguely alarmed.
     A week later, however, it became evident that his condition was
     critical.


DEAR PAINE,--.  .  .  .  I have been having a most uncomfortable time for
the past 4 days with that breast-pain, which turns out to be an affection
of the heart, just as I originally suspected.  The news from New York is
to the effect that non-bronchial weather has arrived there at last,
therefore if I can get my breast trouble in traveling condition I may
sail for home a week or two earlier than has heretofore been proposed:
                         Yours as ever
                                   S. L. CLEMENS,
                                   (per H. S. A.)


     In this letter he seems to have forgotten that his trouble had been
     pronounced an affection of the heart long before he left America,
     though at first it had been thought that it might be gastritis.
     The same mail brought a letter from Mr. Allen explaining fully the
     seriousness of his condition.  I sailed immediately for Bermuda,
     arriving there on the 4th of April.  He was not suffering at the
     moment, though the pains came now with alarming frequency and
     violence.  He was cheerful and brave.  He did not complain.  He gave
     no suggestion of a man whose days were nearly ended.

     A part of the Stormfield estate had been a farm, which he had given
     to Jean Clemens, where she had busied herself raising some live
     stock and poultry.  After her death he had wished the place to be
     sold and the returns devoted to some memorial purpose.  The sale had
     been made during the winter and the price received had been paid in
     cash.  I found him full of interest in all affairs, and anxious to
     discuss the memorial plan.  A day or two later he dictated the
     following letter-the last he would ever send.

     It seemed fitting that this final word from one who had so long
     given happiness to the whole world should record a special gift to
     his neighbors.


                     To Charles T. Lark, in New York:

                                                  HAMILTON, BERMUDA.
                                                  April 6, 1910.
DEAR MR. LARK,--I have told Paine that I want the money derived from the
sale of the farm, which I had given, but not conveyed, to my daughter
Jean, to be used to erect a building for the Mark Twain Library of
Redding, the building to be called the Jean L. Clemens Memorial Building.

I wish to place the money $6,000.00 in the hands of three trustees,--
Paine and two others: H. A. Lounsbury and William E. Hazen, all of
Redding, these trustees to form a building Committee to decide on the
size and plan of the building needed and to arrange for and supervise the
work in such a manner that the fund shall amply provide for the building
complete, with necessary furnishings, leaving, if possible, a balance
remaining, sufficient for such repairs and additional furnishings as may
be required for two years from the time of completion.

Will you please draw a document covering these requirements and have it
ready by the time I reach New York (April 14th).
                              Very sincerely,
                                        S. L. CLEMENS.


     We sailed on the 12th of April, reaching New York on the 14th,
     as he had planned.  A day or two later, Mr. and Mrs. Gabrilowitsch,
     summoned from Italy by cable, arrived.  He suffered very little
     after reaching Stormfield, and his mind was comparatively clear up
     to the last day.  On the afternoon of April 21st he sank into a
     state of coma, and just at sunset he died.  Three days later, at
     Elmira, New York, he was laid beside Mrs. Clemens and those others
     who had preceded him.




                    THE LAST DAY AT STORMFIELD

                         By BLISS CARMAN.

                    At Redding, Connecticut,
                    The April sunrise pours
                    Over the hardwood ridges
                    Softening and greening now
                    In the first magic of Spring.

                    The wild cherry-trees are in bloom,
                    The bloodroot is white underfoot,
                    The serene early light flows on,
                    Touching with glory the world,
                    And flooding the large upper room
                    Where a sick man sleeps.
                    Slowly he opens his eyes,
                    After long weariness, smiles,
                    And stretches arms overhead,
                    While those about him take heart.

                    With his awakening strength,
                    (Morning and spring in the air,
                    The strong clean scents of earth,
                    The call of the golden shaft,
                    Ringing across the hills)
                    He takes up his heartening book,
                    Opens the volume and reads,
                    A page of old rugged Carlyle,
                    The dour philosopher
                    Who looked askance upon life,
                    Lurid, ironical, grim,
                    Yet sound at the core.
                    But weariness returns;
                    He lays the book aside
                    With his glasses upon the bed,
                    And gladly sleeps. Sleep,
                    Blessed abundant sleep,
                    Is all that he needs.

                    And when the close of day
                    Reddens upon the hills
                    And washes the room with rose,
                    In the twilight hush
                    The Summoner comes to him
                    Ever so gently, unseen,
                    Touches him on the shoulder;
                    And with the departing sun
                    Our great funning friend is gone.

                    How he has made us laugh!
                    A whole generation of men
                    Smiled in the joy of his wit.
                    But who knows whether he was not
                    Like those deep jesters of old
                    Who dwelt at the courts of Kings,
                    Arthur's, Pendragon's, Lear's,
                    Plying the wise fool's trade,
                    Making men merry at will,
                    Hiding their deeper thoughts
                    Under a motley array,--
                    Keen-eyed, serious men,
                    Watching the sorry world,
                    The gaudy pageant of life,
                    With pity and wisdom and love?

                    Fearless, extravagant, wild,
                    His caustic merciless mirth
                    Was leveled at pompous shams.
                    Doubt not behind that mask
                    There dwelt the soul of a man,
                    Resolute, sorrowing, sage,
                    As sure a champion of good
                    As ever rode forth to fray.

                    Haply--who knows?--somewhere
                    In Avalon, Isle of Dreams,
                    In vast contentment at last,
                    With every grief done away,
                    While Chaucer and Shakespeare wait,
                    And Moliere hangs on his words,
                    And Cervantes not far off
                    Listens and smiles apart,
                    With that incomparable drawl
                    He is jesting with Dagonet now.

                [Copyright, 1910, by Collier's Weekly.]





End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Letters Vol. 6 by Mark Twain