full text see
Appendix]

Clemens worked at the Yankee now and then, and Howells, when some of
the chapters were read to him, gave it warm approval and urged its
continuance.

Howells was often in Hartford at this time. Webster & Co. were planning
to publish The Library of Humor, which Howells and "Charley" Clark had
edited several years before, and occasional conferences were desirable.
Howells tells us that, after he and Clark had been at great trouble to
get the matter logically and chronologically arranged, Clemens pulled it
all to pieces and threw it together helter-skelter, declaring that there
ought to be no sequence in a book of that sort, any more than in the
average reader's mind; and Howells admits that this was probably
the truer method in a book made for the diversion rather than the
instruction of the reader.

One of the literary diversions of this time was a commentary on
a delicious little book by Caroline B. Le Row--English as She Is
Taught--being a compilation of genuine answers given to examination
questions by pupils in our public schools. Mark Twain was amused by such
definitions as: "Aborigines, system of mountains"; "Alias--a good man
in the Bible"; "Ammonia--the food of the gods," and so on down the
alphabet.

Susy, in her biography, mentions that her father at this is time read
to them a little article which he had just written, entitled "Luck," and
that they thought it very good. It was a story which Twichell had heard
and told to Clemens, who set it down about as it came to him. It was
supposed to be true, yet Clemens seemed to think it too improbable for
literature and laid it away for a number of years. We shall hear of it
again by and by.

From Susy's memoranda we gather that humanity at this time was to be
healed of all evils and sorrows through "mind cure."

Papa has been very much interested of late in the "mind-cure"
theory. And, in fact, so have we all. A young lady in town has
worked wonders by using the "mind cure" upon people; she is
constantly busy now curing peoples' diseases in this way--and curing
her own, even, which to me seems the most remarkable of all.

A little while past papa was delighted with the knowledge of what he
thought the best way of curing a cold, which was by starving it.
This starving did work beautifully, and freed him from a great many
severe colds. Now he says it wasn't the starving that helped his
colds,