en by Mark Twain in a serious effort to bring
back our literature and philosophy to the sober and chaste Elizabethan
standard. But the taste of the present day is too corrupt for anything
so classic. He has not yet been able even to find a publisher. The
Globe has not yet recovered from Downey's inroad, and they won't touch
it.

I send it to you as one of the few lingering relics of that race of
appreciative critics, who know a good thing when they see it.

Read it with reverence and gratitude and send it back to me; for Mark is
impatient to see once more his wandering offspring.

Yours,
Hay.

In his third letter one can almost hear Hay's chuckle in the certainty
that his diplomatic, if somewhat wicked, suggestion would bear fruit.

Washington, D. C.
July 7, 1880
My dear Gunn:

I have your letter, and the proposition which you make to pull a few
proofs of the masterpiece is highly attractive, and of course highly
immoral. I cannot properly consent to it, and I am afraid the great many
would think I was taking an unfair advantage of his confidence. Please
send back the document as soon as you can, and if, in spite of my
prohibition, you take these proofs, save me one.

Very truly yours,
John Hay.

Thus was this Elizabethan dialogue poured into the moulds of cold type.
According to Merle Johnson, Mark Twain's bibliographer, it was issued in
pamphlet form, without wrappers or covers; there were 8 pages of text and
the pamphlet measured 7 by 8 1/2 inches. Only four copies are believed to
have been printed, one for Hay, one for Gunn, and two for Twain.

"In the matter of humor," wrote Clemens, referring to Hay's delicious
notes, "what an unsurpassable touch John Hay had!"

HUMOR AT WEST POINT

The first printing of 1601 in actual book form was "Donne at ye Academie
Press," in 1882, West Point, New York, under the supervision of Lieut. C.
E. S. Wood, then adjutant of the U. S. Military Academy.

In 1882 Mark Twain and Joe Twichell visited their friend Lieut. Wood at
West Point, where they learned that Wood, as Adjutant, had under his
control a small printing establishment. On Mark's return to Hartford,
Wood received a letter