int bits of philosophy,
the very gems of Mark Twain mental riches, were in everybody's mouth.
With all this going on, and with his appearance at various social events,
he was rather a more spectacular figure that winter than ever before.

From the note-book:

The Haunted Looking-glass. The guest (at midnight a dim light
burning) wakes up & sees appear & disappear the faces that have
looked into the glass during 3 centuries.

Love seems the swiftest but is the slowest of all growths. No man
and woman really know what perfect love is until they have been
married a quarter of a century.

It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.

Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the
slave of the lash--that one is the cat.

Truth is stranger than fiction--to some people, but I am measurably
familiar with it.

CLXXXVIII

FAILURE

It was the first week in March before it was thought to be safe for
Clemens to return to France, even for a brief visit to his family. He
hurried across and remained with them what seemed an infinitesimal time,
a bare three weeks, and was back again in New York by the middle of
April. The Webster company difficulties had now reached an acute stage.
Mr. Rogers had kept a close watch on its financial affairs, hoping to be
able to pull it through or to close it without failure, paying all the
creditors in full; but on the afternoon of the 16th of April, 1894, Hall
arrived at Clemens's room at The Players in a panic. The Mount Morris
Bank had elected a new president and board of directors, and had
straightway served notice on him that he must pay his notes--two notes of
five thousand dollars each in a few days when due. Mr. Rogers was
immediately notified, of course, and said he would sleep on it and advise
them next day. He did not believe that the bank would really push them
to the wall. The next day was spent in seeing what could be done, and by
evening it was clear that unless a considerable sum of money was raised a
voluntary assignment was the proper course. The end of the long struggle
had come. Clemens hesitated less on his own than on his wife's account.
He knew that to her the word failure would be associated with disgrace.
She had pinched herself with a hundred economies to keep the business
afloat, and was willing to go on economizing to avert this final
disaster. Mr. Rogers said:

"Mr. Clemens, assur