ts are full of evidence) that Mrs. Clemens was ever
super-sensitive, or narrow, or unliterary in her restraints. She
became his public, as it were, and no man ever had a more open-minded,
clear-headed public than that. For Mark Twain's reputation it would
have been better had she exercised her editorial prerogative even more
actively--if, in her love for him and her jealousy of his reputation,
she had been even more severe. She did all that lay in her strength,
from the beginning to the end, and if we dwell upon this phase of
their life together it is because it is so large a part of Mark Twain's
literary story. On her birthday in the year we are now closing (1875) he
wrote her a letter which conveys an acknowledgment of his debt.

LIVY DARLING,--Six years have gone by since I made my first great
success in life and won you, and thirty years have passed since
Providence made preparation for that happy success by sending you
into the world. Every day we live together adds to the security of my
confidence that we can never any more wish to be separated than we can
imagine a regret that we were ever joined. You are dearer to me to-day,
my child, than you were upon the last anniversary of this birthday; you
were dearer then than you were a year before; you have grown more and
more dear from the first of those anniversaries, and I do not doubt that
this precious progression will continue on to the end.

Let us look forward to the coming anniversaries, with their age and
their gray hairs, without fear and without depression, trusting and
believing that the love we bear each other will be sufficient to make
them blessed.

So, with abounding affection for you and our babies I hail this day that
brings you the matronly grace and dignity of three decades!

VOLUME II, Part 1: 1875-1886

CV. MARK TWAIN AT FORTY

In conversation with John Hay, Hay said to Clemens:

"A man reaches the zenith at forty, the top of the hill. From that time
forward he begins to descend. If you have any great undertaking ahead,
begin it now. You will never be so capable again."

Of course this was only a theory of Hay's, a rule where rules do not
apply, where in the end the problem resolves itself into a question of
individualities. John Hay did as great work after forty as ever before,
so did Mark Twain, and both of them gained in intellectual strength and
public honor to the very end.

Yet it must have seemed to many who knew him