o the wanton expense of a flower
garden!--aren't you enough? And what do you want to go and discourage
the other flowers for? Is that the right spirit? is it considerate? is
it kind? How do you suppose they feel when you come around--looking
the way you look? And you so pink and sweet and dainty and lovely and
supernatural? Why, it makes them feel embarrassed and artificial, of
course; and in my opinion it is just as pathetic as it can be. Now then
you want to reform--dear--and do right.

Well certainly you are well off, Joy:

3 bantams;
3 goldfish;
3 doves;
6 canaries;
2 dogs;
1 cat;

All you need, now, to be permanently beyond the reach of want, is one
more dog--just one more good, gentle, high principled, affectionate,
loyal dog who wouldn't want any nobler service than the golden
privilege of lying at your door, nights, and biting everything that came
along--and I am that very one, and ready to come at the dropping of a
hat.

Do you think you could convey my love and thanks to your "daddy" and
Owen Seaman and those other oppressed and down-trodden subjects of
yours, you darling small tyrant?

On my knees! These--with the kiss of fealty from your other subject--

MARK TWAIN

Elinor Glyn, author of Three Weeks and other erotic tales, was in
America that winter and asked permission to call on Mark Twain. An
appointment was made and Clemens discussed with her, for an hour or
more, those crucial phases of life which have made living a complex
problem since the days of Eve in Eden. Mrs. Glyn had never before
heard anything like Mark Twain's wonderful talk, and she was anxious
to print their interview. She wrote what she could remember of it
and sent it to him for approval. If his conversation had been
frank, his refusal was hardly less so.

*****

To Mrs. Elinor Glyn, in New York:

Jan. 22, '08.

DEAR MRS. GLYN, It reads pretty poorly--I get the sense of it, but it
is a poor literary job; however, it would have to be that because
nobody can be reported even approximately, except by a stenographer.
Approximations, synopsized speeches, translated poems, artificial
flowers and chromos all have a sort of value, but it is small. If
you had put upon paper what I really said it would have wrecked your
type-machine. I said so