, the advertising pages, illustrations--into all the
detail, indeed, which a practical managing editor must compass in his
daily rounds. It was pretty evident that Clemens would not be able to
go sailing about on Mr. Rogers's yacht or live at will in London or New
York or Vienna or Elmira, but that he would be more or less harnessed to
a revolving chair at an editorial desk, the thing which of all fates he
would be most likely to dread The scheme appears to have died there--the
correspondence to have closed.

Somewhat of the inducement in the McClure scheme had been the thought in
Clemens's mind that it would bring him back to America. In a letter
to Mr. Rogers (January 8, 1900) he said, "I am tired to death of this
everlasting exile." Mrs. Clemens often wrote that he was restlessly
impatient to return. They were, in fact, constantly discussing the
practicability of returning to their own country now and opening the
Hartford home. Clemens was ready to do that or to fall in with any
plan that would bring him across the water and settle him somewhere
permanently. He was tired of the wandering life they had been leading.
Besides the long trip of '95 and '96 they had moved two or three times
a year regularly since leaving Hartford, nine years before. It seemed to
him that they were always packing and unpacking.

"The poor man is willing to live anywhere if we will only let him 'stay
put," wrote Mrs. Clemens, but he did want to settle in his own land.
Mrs. Clemens, too, was weary with wandering, but the Hartford home no
longer held any attraction for her. There had been a time when her every
letter dwelt on their hope of returning to it. Now the thought filled
her with dread. To her sister she wrote:

Do you think we can live through the first going into the house in
Hartford? I feel if we had gotten through the first three months all
might be well, but consider the first night.

The thought of the responsibility of that great house--the taking up
again of the old life-disheartened her, too. She had added years and she
had not gained in health or strength.

When I was comparatively young I found the burden of that house very
great. I don't think I was ever fitted for housekeeping. I dislike
the practical part of it so much. I hate it when the servants don't
do well, and I hate the correcting them.

Yet no one ever had better discipline in her domestic affairs or
ever commanded more devoted servi