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