of a village book-seller on the continent of Europe. For the only
qualification for Membership is intellect and the spirit of good will;
other distinctions, hereditary or acquired, do not count.

May I send you the Constitution and Laws of the Club? I shall be so
pleased if I may. It is a document which one of my daughters typewrites
for me when I need one for a new Member, and she would give her eyebrows
to know what it is all about, but I strangle her curiosity by saying:
"There are much cheaper typewriters than you are, my dear, and if you try
to pry into the sacred mysteries of this Club one of your prosperities
will perish sure."

My favorite? It is "Joan of Arc." My next is "Huckleberry Finn," but
the family's next is "The Prince and the Pauper." (Yes, you are right
--I am a moralist in disguise; it gets me into heaps of trouble when I
go thrashing around in political questions.)

I wish you every good fortune and happiness and I thank you so much for
your letter.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.


Early in the year Clemens paid a visit to Twichell in Hartford, and
after one of their regular arguments on theology and the moral
accountability of the human race, arguments that had been going on
between them for more than thirty years--Twichell lent his visitor
Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards, to read on the way home.
The next letter was the result.