ll enough to be vain of them. Certainly we are a sufficiently comical
invention, we humans.

Sincerely Yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

Mark Twain's own books were always being excommunicated by some
librarian, and the matter never failed to invite the attention and
amusement of the press, and the indignation of many correspondents.
Usually the books were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the morals of which
were not regarded as wholly exemplary. But in 1907 a small library,
in a very small town, attained a day's national notoriety by putting
the ban on Eve's Diary, not so much on account of its text as for
the chaste and exquisite illustrations by Lester Ralph. When the
reporters came in a troop to learn about it, the author said: "I
believe this time the trouble is mainly with the pictures. I did
not draw them. I wish I had--they are so beautiful."

Just at this time, Dr. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, was giving a
literary talk to the Teachers' Club, of Hartford, dwelling on the
superlative value of Mark Twain's writings for readers old and
young. Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, an old Hartford friend, wrote Clemens
of the things that Phelps had said, as consolation for Eve's latest
banishment. This gave him a chance to add something to what he had
said to the reporters.

*****

To Mrs. Whitmore, in Hartford:

Feb. 7, 1907.

DEAR MRS. WHITMORE,--But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book
of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected
youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it
delights me and doesn't anger me. But even if it angered me such words
as those of Professor Phelps would take the sting all out. Nobody
attaches weight to the freaks of the Charlton Library, but when a man
like Phelps speaks, the world gives attention. Some day I hope to meet
him and thank him for his courage for saying those things out in public.
Custom is, to think a handsome thing in private but tame it down in the
utterance.

I hope you are all well and happy; and thereto I add my love.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

In May, 1907, Mark Twain was invited to England to receive from
Oxford the degree of Lite