It occurred to me to suggest that he should not read the daily papers.  “No difference,” he said.  “I read books printed two hundred years ago, and they hurt just the same.”

“Those people are all dead and gone,” I objected.

“They hurt just the same,” he maintained.

I sometimes thought of his inner consciousness as a pool darkened by his tragedies, its glassy surface, when calm, reflecting all the joy and sunlight and merriment of the world, but easily—­so easily—­troubled and stirred even to violence.  Once following the dictation, when I came to the billiard-room he was shooting the balls about the table, apparently much depressed.  He said: 

“I have been thinking it out—­if I live two years more I will put an end to it all.  I will kill myself.”

“You have much to live for——­”

“But I am so tired of the eternal round,” he interrupted; “so tired.”  And I knew he meant that he was ill of the great loneliness that had come to him that day in Florence, and would never pass away.

I referred to the pressure of social demands in the city, and the relief he would find in his country home.  He shook his head.

“The country home I need,” he said, fiercely, “is a cemetery.”

Yet the mood changed quickly enough when the play began.  He was gay and hilarious presently, full of the humors and complexities of the game.  H. H. Rogers came in with a good deal of frequency, seldom making very long calls, but never seeming to have that air of being hurried which one might expect to find in a man whose day was only twenty-four hours long, and whose interests were so vast and innumerable.  He would come in where we were playing, and sit down and watch the game, or perhaps would pick up a book and read, exchanging a remark now and then.  More often, however, he sat in the bedroom, for his visits were likely to be in the morning.  They were seldom business calls, or if they were, the business was quickly settled, and then followed gossip, humorous incident, or perhaps Clemens would read aloud something he had written.  But once, after greetings, he began: 

“Well, Rogers, I don’t know what you think of it, but I think I have had about enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it.”

Mr. Rogers replied, “I don’t say much about it, but that expresses my view.”

This from the foremost man of letters and one of the foremost financiers of the time was impressive.  Each at the mountain-top of his career, they agreed that the journey was not worth while—­that what the world had still to give was not attractive enough to tempt them to prevent a desire to experiment with the next stage.  One could remember a thousand poor and obscure men who were perfectly willing to go on struggling and starving, postponing the day of settlement as long as possible; but perhaps, when one has had all the world has to give, when there are no new worlds in sight to conquer, one has a different feeling.