neasy
about him."

I do wish I could have been present and heard Charley Clark. When he
can't light up a dark place nobody can.

With lots of love to you all.
MARK.

Mrs. Clemens had her bad days and her good days-days when there
seemed no ray of light, and others that seemed almost to promise
recovery. The foregoing letter to Twichell, and the one which
follows, to Richard Watson Gilder, reflect the hope and fear that
daily and hourly alternated at Villa Quarto

*****

To Richard Watson Gilder, in New York:

VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE,
May 12, '04.

DEAR GILDER,--A friend of ours (the Baroness de Nolda) was here this
afternoon and wanted a note of introduction to the Century, for she has
something to sell to you in case you'll want to make her an offer after
seeing a sample of the goods. I said "With pleasure: get the goods
ready, send the same to me, I will have Jean type-write them, then I
will mail them to the Century and tonight I will write the note to Mr.
Gilder and start it along. Also write me a letter embodying what
you have been saying to me about the goods and your proposed plan of
arranging and explaining them, and I will forward that to Gilder too."

As to the Baroness. She is a German; 30 years old; was married at 17;
is very pretty-indeed I might say very pretty; has a lot of sons (5)
running up from seven to 12 years old. Her husband is a Russian. They
live half the time in Russia and the other half in Florence, and supply
population alternately to the one country and then to the other. Of
course it is a family that speaks languages. This occurs at their
table--I know it by experience: It is Babel come again. The other day,
when no guests were present to keep order, the tribes were all talking
at once, and 6 languages were being traded in; at last the littlest boy
lost his temper and screamed out at the top of his voice, with angry
sobs: "Mais, vraiment, io non capisco gar nichts."

The Baroness is a little afraid of her English, therefore she will write
her remarks in French--I said there's a plenty of translators in New
York. Examine her samples and drop her a line.

For two entire days, now, we have not been anxious about Mrs. Clemens
(unberufen). After 20 months of bed-ridden solitude and bodily misery
s