ght Mr. Home, the
medium, Lord Dunraven telling many of the remarkable things he had
seen Mr. Home do. I remember I wanted so much to see him float out
of a seven or eight story window, and enter another, which Lord
Dunraven said he had seen him do many times. But Mr. Home had been
very ill, and said his power had left him. My great regret was that
we did not see Carlyle, who was too sad and ill for visits.

Among others they met Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland,
and found him so shy that it was almost impossible to get him to say a
word on any subject.

"The shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remus, I ever met," Clemens once
wrote. "Dr. MacDonald and several other lively talkers were present, and
the talk went briskly on for a couple of hours, but Carroll sat still all
the while, except now and then when he answered a question."

At a dinner given by George Smalley they met Herbert Spencer, and at a
luncheon-party at Lord Houghton's, Sir Arthur Helps, then a world-wide
celebrity.

Lord Elcho, a large, vigorous man, sat at some distance down the
table. He was talking earnestly about the town of Godalming. It
was a deep, flowing, and inarticulate rumble, but I caught the
Godalming pretty nearly every time it broke free of the rumbling,
and as all the strength was on the first end of the word, it
startled me every time, because it sounded so like swearing. In the
middle of the luncheon Lady Houghton rose, remarked to the guests on
her right and on her left, in a matter-of-fact way, "Excuse me, I
have an engagement," and without further ceremony, she went off to
meet it. This would have been doubtful etiquette in America. Lord
Houghton told a number of delightful stories. He told them in
French, and I lost nothing of them but the nubs.

Little Susy and her father thrived on London life, but after a time it
wore on Mrs. Clemens. She delighted in the English cordiality and
culture, but the demands were heavy, the social forms sometimes trying.
Life in London was interesting, and in its way charming, but she did not
enter into it with quite her husband's enthusiasm and heartiness. In the
end they canceled all London engagements and quietly set out for
Scotland. On the way they rested a few days in York, a venerable place
such as Mark Twain always loved to describe. In a letter to Mrs. Langdon
he wrote:

For the present we shall