To F. N. Doubleday, in New York:

DEAR DOUBLEDAY,--I did not know you were going to England: I would have
freighted you with such messages of homage and affection to Kipling. And
I would have pressed his hand, through you, for his sympathy with me in
my crushing loss, as expressed by him in his letter to Gilder. You know
my feeling for Kipling and that it antedates that expression.

I was glad that the boys came here to invite me to the house-warming and
I think they understood why a man in the shadow of a calamity like mine
could not go.

It has taken three months to repair and renovate our house--corner of
9th and 5th Avenue, but I shall be in it in io or 15 days hence. Much
of the furniture went into it today (from Hartford). We have not seen
it for 13 years. Katy Leary, our old housekeeper, who has been in our
service more than 24 years, cried when she told me about it to-day. She
said "I had forgotten it was so beautiful, and it brought Mrs. Clemens
right back to me--in that old time when she was so young and lovely."

Jean and my secretary and the servants whom we brought from Italy
because Mrs. Clemens liked them so well, are still keeping house in the
Berkshire hills--and waiting. Clara (nervously wrecked by her mother's
death) is in the hands of a specialist in 69th St., and I shall not be
allowed to have any communication with her--even telephone--for a year.
I am in this comfortable little hotel, and still in bed--for I dasn't
budge till I'm safe from my pet devil, bronchitis.

Isn't it pathetic? One hour and ten minutes before Mrs. Clemens died
I was saying to her "To-day, after five months search, I've found the
villa that will content you: to-morrow you will examine the plans and
give it your consent and I will buy it." Her eyes danced with pleasure,
for she longed for a home of her own. And there, on that morrow, she lay
white and cold. And unresponsive to my reverent caresses--a new thing
to me and a new thing to her; that had not happened before in five and
thirty years.

I am coming to see you and Mrs. Doubleday by and bye. She loved and
honored Mrs. Doubleday and her work.

Always yours,
MARK.

It was a presidential year and the air was thick with politics.
Mark Twain was no longer actively interested in the political
situation; he was only disheartened by the hollowness and pretense