ing him a chance to see the rest of them applied
to others--all of which is to account for certain mildnesses which
distinguished Edward VI's reign from those that preceded and followed
it.

Imagine this fact--I have even fascinated Mrs. Clemens with this yarn
for youth. My stuff generally gets considerable damning with faint
praise out of her, but this time it is all the other way. She is become
the horseleech's daughter and my mill doesn't grind fast enough to suit
her. This is no mean triumph, my dear sir.

Last night, for the first time in ages, we went to the theatre--to see
Yorick's Love. The magnificence of it is beyond praise. The language
is so beautiful, the passion so fine, the plot so ingenious, the whole
thing so stirring, so charming, so pathetic! But I will clip from the
Courant--it says it right.

And what a good company it is, and how like live people they all acted!
The "thee's" and the "thou's" had a pleasant sound, since it is the
language of the Prince and the Pauper. You've done the country a service
in that admirable work....

Yrs Ever,
MARK.

The play, "Yorick's Love," mentioned in this letter, was one which
Howells had done for Lawrence Barrett.

Onion Clemens, meantime, was forwarding his manuscript, and for once
seems to have won his brother's approval, so much so that Mark Twain
was willing, indeed anxious, that Howells should run the
"autobiography" in the Atlantic. We may imagine how Onion prized
the words of commendation which follow:

*****

To Orion Clemens:

May 6, '80.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--It is a model autobiography.

Continue to develop your character in the same gradual inconspicuous and
apparently unconscious way. The reader, up to this time, may have his
doubts, perhaps, but he can't say decidedly, "This writer is not such
a simpleton as he has been letting on to be." Keep him in that state of
mind. If, when you shall have finished, the reader shall say, "The man
is an ass, but I really don't know whether he knows it or not," your
work will be a triumph.

Stop re-writing. I saw places in your last batch where re-writing had
done formidable injury. Do not try to find those places, else you will
mar them further by trying to better them. It is perilous to revise a
book while it is under way. All of us h