."

I hope you are worse. You will never be riper for a purely
intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a
worn-out material body on top of your soul.

Yours ever,
W. D. HOWELLS.

On the margin of this letter Clemens had written:

I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day
is good to keep, ain't it, Paine?

January 24th he wrote again of his contentment:

Life continues here the same as usual. There isn't a fault in it
--good times, good home, tranquil contentment all day & every day
without a break. I know familiarly several very satisfactory people
& meet them frequently: Mr. Hamilton, the Sloanes, Mr. & Mrs. Fells,
Miss Waterman, & so on. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering
my situation.

On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health
might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he
wished Stormfield kept open so that he might come to it at any time. And
he added:

Yesterday Mr. Allen took us on an excursion in Mr. Hamilton's big
motor-boat. Present: Mrs. Allen, Mr. & Mrs. & Miss Sloane, Helen,
Mildred Howells, Claude, & me. Several hours' swift skimming over
ravishing blue seas, a brilliant sun; also a couple of hours of
picnicking & lazying under the cedars in a secluded place.

The Orotava is arriving with 260 passengers--I shall get letters by
her, no doubt.

P. S.--Please send me the Standard Unabridged that is on the table in
my bedroom. I have no dictionary here.

There is no mention in any of these letters of his trouble; but he was
having occasional spasms of pain, though in that soft climate they would
seem to have come with less frequency, and there was so little to disturb
him, and much that contributed to his peace. Among the callers at the
Bay House to see him was Woodrow Wilson, and the two put in some pleasant
hours at miniature golf, "putting" on the Allen lawn. Of course a
catastrophe would come along now and then--such things could not always
be guarded against. In a letter toward the end of February he wrote:
It is 2.30 in the morning & I am writing because I can't sleep.
I can't sleep because a professional pianist is coming to-morrow
afternoon to play for me. My God! I wouldn't allow Paderewski or
Gabrilowitsch to do that. I would rather have