going, also, but I doubted it, believing he was in
liquor when he wrote it. In my opinion, this universal applause over
his book is going to land that man in a Retreat inside of two months. I
notice the papers say mighty fine things about your book, too. You ought
to try to get into the same establishment with Howells. But applause
does not affect me--I am always calm--this is because I am used to it.

Well, good-bye, my boy, and good luck to you. Mrs. Clemens asks me to
send her warmest regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich--which I do, and add
those of

Yrs ever
MARK.

While Mark Twain was a journalist in San Francisco, there was a
middle-aged man named Soule, who had a desk near him on the Morning
Call. Soule was in those days highly considered as a poet by his
associates, most of whom were younger and less gracefully poetic.
But Soule's gift had never been an important one. Now, in his old
age, he found his fame still local, and he yearned for wider
recognition. He wished to have a volume of poems issued by a
publisher of recognized standing. Because Mark Twain had been one
of Soule's admirers and a warm friend in the old days, it was
natural that Soule should turn to him now, and equally natural that
Clemens should turn to Howells.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Sunday, Oct. 2 '80.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Here's a letter which I wrote you to San Francisco the
second time you didn't go there.... I told Soule he needn't write you,
but simply send the MS. to you. O dear, dear, it is dreadful to be an
unrecognized poet. How wise it was in Charles Warren Stoddard to take in
his sign and go for some other calling while still young.

I'm laying for that Encyclopedical Scotchman--and he'll need to lock the
door behind him, when he comes in; otherwise when he hears my proposed
tariff his skin will probably crawl away with him. He is accustomed
to seeing the publisher impoverish the author--that spectacle must
be getting stale to him--if he contracts with the undersigned he will
experience a change in that programme that will make the enamel peel off
his teeth for very surprise--and joy. No, that last is what Mrs. Clemens
thinks--but it's not so. The proposed work is growing, mightily, in my
estimation, day by day; and I'm not going to throw it away for any mere
t