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 1/2 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.