predicate his correlation to a point where remembering the ordinary facts
of life, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers, would be a mere
diversion.

It was another case of learning the multitudinous details of the
Mississippi River in order to do the apparently simple thing of steering
a boat from New Orleans to St. Louis, and it is fair to say that, for the
time he gave it, he achieved a like success. He was so enthusiastic over
this new remedy for human distress that within a very brief time he was
sending out a printed letter recommending Loisette to the public at
large. Here is an extract:

. . . I had no SYSTEM--and some sort of rational order of
procedure is, of course, necessary to success in any study. Well,
Loisette furnished me a system. I cannot undertake to say it is the
best, or the worst, because I don't know what the other systems are.
Loisette, among other cruelties, requires you to memorize a great
long string of words that, haven't any apparent connection or
meaning--there are perhaps 500 of these words, arranged in maniacal
lines of 6 to 8 or 9 words in each line--71 lines in all. Of course
your first impulse is to resign, but at the end of three or four
hours you find to your surprise that you've GOT them and can deliver
them backward or forward without mistake or hesitation. Now, don't
you see what a world of confidence that must necessarily breed?
--confidence in a memory which before you wouldn't even venture to
trust with the Latin motto of the U. S. lest it mislay it and the
country suffer.

Loisette doesn't make memories, he furnishes confidence in memories
that already exist. Isn't that valuable? Indeed it is to me.
Whenever hereafter I shall choose to pack away a thing properly in
that refrigerator I sha'n't be bothered with the aforetime doubts; I
shall know I'm going to find it sound and sweet when I go for it
again.

Loisette naturally made the most of this advertising and flooded the
public with Mark Twain testimonials. But presently Clemens decided that
after all the system was not sufficiently simple to benefit the race at
large. He recalled his printed letters and prevailed upon Loisette to
suppress his circulars. Later he decided that the whole system was a
humbug.

CLXIII

LETTER TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND

It was one day in 1887 that Clemens received evidence that his reputat