, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Sir W. Raleigh, Lord
Bacon, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and a stupid old nobleman--this latter
being cup-bearer to the queen and ostensible reporter of the talk.

"There were four maids of honor present and a sweet young girl two years
younger than the boy Beaumont. I built a conversation which could have
happened--I used words such as were used at that time--1601. I sent it
anonymously to a magazine, and how the editor abused it and the sender!
But that man was a praiser of Rabelais, and had been saying, 'O that we
had a Rabelais!' I judged that I could furnish him one."]

Eighteen hundred and seventy-six was a Presidential year--the year
of the Hayes-Tilden campaign. Clemens and Howells were both warm
Republicans and actively interested in the outcome, Clemens, as he
confessed, for the first time in his life. Before his return to Hartford
he announced himself publicly as a Hayes man, made so by Governor
Hayes's letter of acceptance, which, he said, "expresses my own
political convictions." His politics had not been generally known up to
that time, and a Tilden and Hendricks club in Jersey City had
invited him to be present and give them some political counsel, at a
flag-raising. He wrote, declining pleasantly enough, then added:

"You have asked me for some political counsel or advice: In view of Mr.
Tilden's Civil War record my advice is not to raise the flag."

He wrote Howells: "If Tilden is elected I think the entire country will
go pretty straight to--Mrs. Howells's bad place."

Howells was writing a campaign biography of Hayes, which he hoped would
have a large sale, and Clemens urged him to get it out quickly and save
the country. Howells, working like a beaver, in turn urged Clemens to
take the field in the cause. Returning to Hartford, Clemens presided
at a political rally and made a speech, the most widely quoted of the
campaign. All papers, without distinction as to party, quoted it, and
all readers, regardless of politics, read it with joy.

Yet conditions did not improve. When Howells's book had been out a
reasonable length of time he wrote that it had sold only two thousand
copies.

"There's success for you," he said. "It makes me despair of the
Republic, I can tell you."

Clemens, however, did not lose faith, and went on shouting for Hayes and
damning Tilden till the final vote was cast. In later life he changed
his mind about Tilden (as did many others) throu