pumped himself out once a week and failed to run "emptyings" before the
year was finished.

As to that "Noah's Ark" book, I began it in Edinburgh in 1873;--[This is
not quite correct. The "Noah's Ark" book was begun in Buffalo in 1870.]
I don't know where the manuscript is now. It was a Diary, which
professed to be the work of Shem, but wasn't. I began it again several
months ago, but only for recreation; I hadn't any intention of carrying
it to a finish
--or even to the end of the first chapter, in fact.

As to the book whose action "takes place in Heaven." That was a small
thing, ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.") It lay in my
pigeon-holes 40 years, then I took it out and printed it in Harper's
Monthly last year.
S. L. C.


In the next letter we get a pretty and peaceful picture of
"Rest-and-be-Thankful." These were Mark Twain's balmy days. The
financial drain of the type-machine was heavy but not yet exhausting, and
the prospect of vast returns from it seemed to grow brighter each day.
His publishing business, though less profitable, was still prosperous,
his family life was ideal. How gratefully, then, he could enter into the
peace of that "perfect day."


To Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Ia.:

ON THE HILL NEAR ELMIRA, July 10, '87.