o
say, exaggeration.

Without doubt there must be many--very many--who agree in finding a
fuller enjoyment in 'A Tramp Abroad' than in the 'Innocents'; only,
the burden of the world's opinion lies the other way. The world has a
weakness for its illusions: the splendor that falls on castle walls, the
glory of the hills at evening, the pathos of the days that are no more.
It answers to tenderness, even on the page of humor, and to genuine
enthusiasm, sharply sensing the lack of these things; instinctively
resenting, even when most amused by it, extravagance and burlesque.
The Innocents Abroad is more soul-satisfying than its successor, more
poetic; more sentimental, if you will. The Tramp contains better English
usage, without doubt, but it is less full of happiness and bloom and the
halo of romance. The heart of the world has felt this, and has demanded
the book in fewer numbers.--[The sales of the Innocents during the
earlier years more than doubled those of the Tramp during a similar
period. The later ratio of popularity is more nearly three to one. It
has been repeatedly stated that in England the Tramp has the greater
popularity, an assertion not sustained by the publisher's accountings.]

CXXVII. LETTERS, TALES, AND PLANS

The reader has not failed to remark the great number of letters
which Samuel Clemens wrote to his friend William Dean Howells; yet
comparatively few can even be mentioned. He was always writing to
Howells, on every subject under the sun; whatever came into his
mind--business, literature, personal affairs--he must write about it
to Howells. Once, when nothing better occurred, he sent him a series of
telegrams, each a stanza from an old hymn, possibly thinking they might
carry comfort.--["Clemens had then and for many years the habit of
writing to me about what he was doing, and still more of what he was
experiencing. Nothing struck his imagination, in or out of the daily
routine, but he wished to write me of it, and he wrote with the greatest
fullness and a lavish dramatization, sometimes to the length of twenty
or forty pages:" (My Mark Twain, by W. D. Howells.)] Whatever of
picturesque happened in the household he immediately set it down for
Howells's entertainment. Some of these domestic incidents carry the
flavor of his best humor. Once he wrote:

Last night, when I went to bed, Mrs. Clemens said, "George didn't
take the cat down to the cellar; Rosa says he has left it shut up