that
he believed we all unconsciously worked over ideas gathered in
reading and hearing, imagining they were original with ourselves.
He stated a truth and did it in such a pleasant way, and salved over
my sore spot so gently and so healingly, that I was rather glad I
had committed the crime, for the sake of the letter. I afterward
called on him and told him to make perfectly free with any ideas of
mine that struck him as good protoplasm for poetry. He could see by
that time that there wasn't anything mean about me; so we got along,
right from the start.--[Holmes in his letter had said: "I rather
think The Innocents Abroad will have many more readers than Songs in
Many Keys... You will be stolen from a great deal oftener than
you will borrow from other people."]

I have met Dr. Holmes many times since; and lately he said--However,
I am wandering wildly away from the one thing which I got on my feet
to do; that is, to make my compliments to you, my fellow-teachers of
the great public, and likewise to say I am right glad to see that
Dr. Holmes is still in his prime and full of generous life, and as
age is not determined by years but by trouble, and by infirmities of
mind and body, I hope it may be a very long time yet before any can
truthfully say, "He is growing old."

Whatever Mark Twain may have lost on that former occasion, came back to
him multiplied when he had finished this happy tribute. So the year for
him closed prosperously. The rainbow of promise was justified.

CXXV. THE QUIETER THINGS OF HOME

Upset and disturbed as Mark Twain often was, he seldom permitted his
distractions to interfere with the program of his fireside. His days and
his nights might be fevered, but the evenings belonged to another world.
The long European wandering left him more than ever enamoured of his
home; to him it had never been so sweet before, so beautiful, so full
of peace. Company came: distinguished guests and the old neighborhood
circles. Dinner-parties were more frequent than ever, and they were
likely to be brilliant affairs. The best minds, the brightest wits,
gathered around Mark Twain's table. Booth, Barrett, Irving, Sheridan,
Sherman, Howells, Aldrich: they all assembled, and many more. There was
always some one on the way to Boston or New York who addressed himself
for the day or the night, or for a brief call, to the Mark Twain
fir