, but there is never a moment
that I am not glad, for the sake of the dead, that they have
escaped.

How Livy would love this place! How her very soul would steep
itself thankfully in this peace, this tranquillity, this deep
stillness, this dreamy expanse of woodsy hill & valley! You must
come, Aunt Sue, & stay with us a real good visit. Since June 26 we
have had 21 guests, & they have all liked it and said they would
come again.

To Howells, on the same day, he wrote:

Won't you & Mrs. Howells & Mildred come & give us as many days as
you can spare & examine John's triumph? It is the most satisfactory
house I am acquainted with, & the most satisfactorily situated . .
. . I have dismissed my stenographer, & have entered upon a
holiday whose other end is the cemetery.

CCLXXII

STORMFIELD ADVENTURES

Clemens had fully decided, by this time, to live the year round in the
retirement at Stormfield, and the house at 21 Fifth Avenue was being
dismantled. He had also, as he said, given up his dictations for the
time, at least, after continuing them, with more or less regularity, for
a period of two and a half years, during which he had piled up about half
a million words of comment and reminiscence. His general idea had been
to add portions of this matter to his earlier books as the copyrights
expired, to give them new life and interest, and he felt that he had
plenty now for any such purpose.

He gave his time mainly to his guests, his billiards, and his reading,
though of course he could not keep from writing on this subject and that
as the fancy moved him, and a drawer in one of his dressers began to
accumulate fresh though usually fragmentary manuscripts. . . He read the
daily paper, but he no longer took the keen, restless interest in public
affairs. New York politics did not concern him any more, and national
politics not much. When the Evening Post wrote him concerning the
advisability of renominating Governor Hughes he replied:

If you had asked me two months ago my answer would have been prompt
& loud & strong: yes, I want Governor Hughes renominated. But it is
too late, & my mouth is closed. I have become a citizen & taxpayer
of Connecticut, & could not now, without impertinence, meddle in
matters which are none of my business. I could not do it with
impertinence without trespassing on the monopoly of another.

Howells speaks