me source of commercial profit; something
that would yield a return, not in paltry thousands, but hundreds of
thousands. Like Colonel Sellers, he must have something with "millions
in it." Almost any proposition that seemed to offer these possible
millions appealed to him, and in his imagination he saw the golden
freshet pouring in.

His natural taste was for a simple, inexpensive life; yet in his large
hospitality, and in a certain boyish love of grandeur, he gloried in the
splendor of his entertainment, the admiration and delight of his guests.
There were always guests; they were coming and going constantly. Clemens
used to say that he proposed to establish a bus line between their
house and the station for the accommodation of his company. He had the
Southern hospitality. Much company appealed to a very large element in
his strangely compounded nature. For the better portion of the year he
was willing to pay the price of it, whether in money or in endurance,
and Mrs. Clemens heroically did her part. She loved these things also,
in her own way. She took pride in them, and realized that they were
a part of his vast success. Yet in her heart she often longed for the
simpler life--above all, for the farm life at Elmira. Her spirit cried
out for the rest and comfort there. In one of her letters she says:

The house has been full of company, and I have been "whirled
around." How can a body help it? Oh, I cannot help sighing for the
peace and quiet of the farm. This is my work, and I know that I do
very wrong when I feel chafed by it, but how can I be right about
it? Sometimes it seems as if the simple sight of people would drive
me mad. I am all wrong; if I would simply accept the fact that this
is my work and let other things go, I know I should not be so
fretted; but I want so much to do other things, to study and do
things with the children, and I cannot.

I have the best French teacher that I ever had, and if I could give
any time to it I could not help learning French.

When we reflect on the conditions, we are inclined to say how much
better it would have been to have remained there among the hills in that
quiet, inexpensive environment, to have let the world go. But that was
not possible. The game was of far larger proportions than any that could
be restricted to the limits of retirement and the simpler round of life.
Mark Twain's realm had become too large for his cour