under Livy's charge.
Livy couldn't easily get out of it, and did not want to, on her own
account, but fully expected I would make trouble when I heard of it. But
I didn't. A girl can't well travel alone, so I offered no objection.
She leaves us at Hamburg. So I've got 6 people in my care, now--which is
just 6 too many for a man of my unexecutive capacity. I expect nothing
else but to lose some of them overboard.

We send our loving good-byes to all the household and hope to see you
again after a spell.

Affly Yrs.
SAM.

There are no other American letters of this period. The Clemens
party, which included Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira, sailed as
planned, on the Holsatia, April 11, 1878. As before stated, Bayard
Taylor was on the ship; also Murat Halstead and family. On the eve
of departure, Clemens sent to Howells this farewell word:

"And that reminds me, ungrateful dog that I am, that I owe as much
to your training as the rude country job-printer owes to the city
boss who takes him in hand and teaches him the right way to handle
his art. I was talking to Mrs. Clemens about this the other day,
and grieving because I never mentioned it to you, thereby seeming to
ignore it, or to be unaware of it. Nothing that has passed under
your eye needs any revision before going into a volume, while all my
other stuff does need so much."

A characteristic tribute, and from the heart.

The first European letter came from Frankfort, a rest on their way
to Heidelberg.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN, May 4, 1878.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I only propose to write a single line to say we are
still around. Ah, I have such a deep, grateful, unutterable sense of
being "out of it all." I think I foretaste some of the advantages of
being dead. Some of the joy of it. I don't read any newspapers or care
for them. When people tell me England has declared war, I drop the
subject, feeling that it is none of my business; when they tell me Mrs.
Tilton has confessed and Mr. B. denied, I say both of them have done
that before, therefore let the worn stub of the Plymouth white-wash
brush be brought out once more, and let the faithful spit on their hands
and get to work again regardless of me--for I am out of it all.

We had 2