n the manner in which personality was
expressed in letters. For this reason he adopted, as a boy, the method
of collecting not mere autographs, but letters characteristic of their
writers which should give interesting insight into the most famous men
and women of the day. He secured what were really personality letters.

One of these writers was Mark Twain. The humorist was not kindly
disposed toward autograph collectors, and the fact that in this case the
collector aimed to raise the standard of the hobby did not appease him.
Still, it brought forth a characteristic letter:

"I hope I shall not offend you; I shall certainly say nothing with the
intention to offend you. I must explain myself, however, and I will do
it as kindly as I can. What you ask me to do, I am asked to do as often
as one-half dozen times a week. Three hundred letters a year! One's
impulse is to freely consent, but one's time and necessary occupations
will not permit it. There is no way but to decline in all cases, making
no exceptions, and I wish to call your attention to a thing which has
probably not occurred to you, and that is this: that no man takes
pleasure in exercising his trade as a pastime. Writing is my trade, and
I exercise it only when I am obliged to. You might make your request of
a doctor, or a builder, or a sculptor, and there would be no impropriety
in it, but if you asked either of those for a specimen of his trade, his
handiwork, he would be justified in rising to a point of order. It would
never be fair to ask a doctor for one of his corpses to remember him by.

"MARK TWAIN".

At another time, after an interesting talk with Mark Twain, Bok wrote an
account of the interview, with the humorist's permission. Desirous that
the published account should be in every respect accurate, the
manuscript was forwarded to Mark Twain for his approval. This resulted
in the following interesting letter:

"MY DEAR MR. BOK:

"No, no--it is like most interviews, pure twaddle, and valueless.

"For several quite plain and simple reasons, an 'interview' must, as a
rule, be an absurdity. And chiefly for this reason: it is an attempt to
use a boat on land, or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken
speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is a proper
vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment 'talk'
is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when you
heard it; you perceive that an i