“Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever occupied,” he wrote when the summer was about over.

But there was still a greater attraction than Dollis Hill.  Toward the end of summer they willingly left that paradise, for they had decided at last to make that home-returning voyage which had invited them so long.  They were all eager enough to go—­Clemens more eager than the rest, though he felt a certain sadness, too, in leaving the tranquil spot which in a brief summer they had so learned to love.

Writing to W. H. Helm, a London newspaper man who had spent pleasant hours with him chatting in the shade, he said: 

. . .  The packing & fussing & arranging have begun, for the removal to America &, by consequence, the peace of life is marred & its contents & satisfactions are departing.  There is not much choice between a removal & a funeral; in fact, a removal is a funeral, substantially, & I am tired of attending them.

They closed Dollis Hill, spent a few days at Brown’s Hotel, and sailed for America, on the Minnehaha, October 6, 1900, bidding, as Clemens believed, and hoped, a permanent good-by to foreign travel.  They reached New York on the 15th, triumphantly welcomed after their long nine years of wandering.  How glad Mark Twain was to get home may be judged from his remark to one of the many reporters who greeted him.

    “If I ever get ashore I am going to break both of my legs so I
    can’t, get away again.”