ch girls. Then there was a
nigger-minstrel show, of the genuine old sort, and I enjoyed that, too,
for the nigger-show was always a passion of mine. This one was created
and managed by a Quaker doctor from Philada., (23 years old) and he was
the middle man. There were 9 others--5 Americans from 5 States and a
Scotchman, 2 Englishmen and an Irishman--all post-graduate-medical young
fellows, of course--or, it could be music; but it would be bound to be
one or the other.

It's quite true--I don't read you "as much as I ought," nor anywhere
near half as much as I want to; still I read you all I get a chance to.
I saved up your last story to read when the numbers should be complete,
but before that time arrived some other admirer of yours carried off the
papers. I will watch admirers of yours when the Silver Wedding journey
begins, and that will not happen again. The last chance at a bound book
of yours was in London nearly two years ago--the last volume of your
short things, by the Harpers. I read the whole book twice through and
some of the chapters several times, and the reason that that was as far
as I got with it was that I lent it to another admirer of yours and he
is admiring it yet. Your admirers have ways of their own; I don't know
where they get them.

Yes, our project is to go home next autumn if we find we can afford
to live in New York. We've asked a friend to inquire about flats and
expenses. But perhaps nothing will come of it. We do afford to live
in the finest hotel in Vienna, and have 4 bedrooms, a dining-room, a
drawing-room, 3 bath-rooms and 3 Vorzimmers, (and food) but we couldn't
get the half of it in New York for the same money ($600 a month).

Susy hovers about us this holiday week, and the shadows fall all about
us of

"The days when we went gipsying
A long time ago."

Death is so kind, so benignant, to whom he loves; but he goes by us
others and will not look our way. We saw the "Master of Palmyra" last
night. How Death, with the gentleness and majesty, made the human
grand-folk around him seem little and trivial and silly!

With love from all of us to all of you.

MARK.

XXXVIII. LETTERS, 1899, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. VIENNA. LONDON. A SUMMER
IN SWEDEN.

The beginning of 1899 found the Clemens family still in Vienna,
occupying handsome apartments at the Hotel Krantz. Their rooms, so often
thronged with gay