of the holidays. One lives and learns. I find it takes 7
binderies four months to bind 325,000 books.

This is a good book to publish. I heard a canvasser say, yesterday, that
while delivering eleven books he took 7 new subscriptions. But we shall
be in a hell of a fix if that goes on--it will "ball up" the binderies
again.

Yrs ever
MARK.

November 30th that year was Mark Twain's fiftieth birthday, an event
noticed by the newspapers generally, and especially observed by many
of his friends. Warner, Stockton and many others sent letters;
Andrew Lang contributed a fine poem; also Oliver Wendell. Holmes
--the latter by special request of Miss Gilder--for the Critic.
These attentions came as a sort of crowning happiness at the end of
a golden year. At no time in his life were Mark Twain's fortunes
and prospects brighter; he had a beautiful family and a perfect
home. Also, he had great prosperity. The reading-tour with Cable
had been a fine success. His latest book, The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, had added largely to his fame and income.
The publication of the Grant Memoirs had been a dazzling triumph.
Mark Twain had become recognized, not only as America's most
distinguished author, but as its most envied publisher. And now,
with his fiftieth birthday, had come this laurel from Holmes, last
of the Brahmins, to add a touch of glory to all the rest. We feel
his exaltation in his note of acknowledgment.

*****

To Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Boston:

DEAR MR. HOLMES,--I shall never be able to tell you the half of how
proud you have made me. If I could you would say you were nearly paid
for the trouble you took. And then the family: If I can convey the
electrical surprise and gratitude and exaltation of the wife and the
children last night, when they happened upon that Critic where I had,
with artful artlessness, spread it open and retired out of view to see
what would happen--well, it was great and fine and beautiful to see, and
made me feel as the victor feels when the shouting hosts march by;
and if you also could have seen it you would have said the account was
squared. For I have brought them up in your company, as in the company
of a warm and friendly and beneficent but far-distant sun; and so, for
you to do this thing was for the sun to send down out of the skies the
m