nder way for a fresh
start in the morning; and in three days' time had built a new bust which
was a trifle better than the old one--and to-morrow we shall put the
finishing touches on it, and it will be about as good a one as nearly
anybody can make.

Yrs Ever
MARK.

If you run across anybody who wants a bust, be sure and recommend
Gerhardt on my say-so.

But Howells was determinedly for Blaine. "I shall vote for
Blaine," he replied. "I do not believe he is guilty of the
things they accuse him of, and I know they are not proved
against him. As for Cleveland, his private life may be no
worse than that of most men, but as an enemy of that
contemptible, hypocritical, lop-sided morality which says a
woman shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and man none,
I want to see him destroyed politically by his past. The
men who defend him would take their wives to the White House
if he were president, but if he married his concubine--'made
her an honest woman' they would not go near him. I can't
stand that."

Certainly this was sound logic, in that day, at least. But
it left Clemens far from satisfied.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Sept. 17, '84.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of
your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country
and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well; but as certainly
a man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor--the party or the
country come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at
all--I only urge you to not soil yourself by voting for Blaine.

When you wrote before, you were able to say the charges against him were
not proven. But you know now that they are proven, and it seems to
me that that bars you and all other honest and honorable men (who are
independently situated) from voting for him.

It is not necessary to vote for Cleveland; the only necessary thing
to do, as I understand it, is that a man shall keep himself clean, (by
withholding his vote for an improper man) even though the party and the
country go to destruction in consequence. It is not parties that make or
save countries or that build them to greatness--it is clean men, clean
ordinary citizens, rank and file, the masses. Clean m