The “gorgeous letter” mentioned was an appreciation of his recent Bazar article, “The Turning-Point in My Life,” and here follows: 

    January 18, 1910.

    Dear Clemens,—­While your wonderful words are warm in my mind yet I
    want to tell you what you know already:  that you never wrote
    anything greater, finer, than that turning-point paper of yours.

I shall feel it honor enough if they put on my tombstone “He was born in the same century and general section of Middle Western country with Dr. S. L. Clemens, Oxon., and had his degree three years before him through a mistake of the University.”

I hope you are worse.  You will never be riper for a purely
intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a
worn-out material body on top of your soul.

Yours ever,
W. D. Howells.

On the margin of this letter Clemens had written: 

I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day
is good to keep, ain’t it, Paine?

January 24th he wrote again of his contentment: 

Life continues here the same as usual.  There isn’t a fault in it —­good times, good home, tranquil contentment all day & every day without a break.  I know familiarly several very satisfactory people & meet them frequently:  Mr. Hamilton, the Sloanes, Mr. & Mrs. Fells, Miss Waterman, & so on.  I shouldn’t know how to go about bettering my situation.

On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he wished Stormfield kept open so that he might come to it at any time.  And he added: 

Yesterday Mr. Allen took us on an excursion in Mr. Hamilton’s big motor-boat.  Present:  Mrs. Allen, Mr. & Mrs. & Miss Sloane, Helen, Mildred Howells, Claude, & me.  Several hours’ swift skimming over ravishing blue seas, a brilliant sun; also a couple of hours of picnicking & lazying under the cedars in a secluded place.

    The Orotava is arriving with 260 passengers—­I shall get letters by
    her, no doubt.

    P. S.—­Please send me the Standard Unabridged that is on the table in
    my bedroom.  I have no dictionary here.

There is no mention in any of these letters of his trouble; but he was having occasional spasms of pain, though in that soft climate they would seem to have come with less frequency, and there was so little to disturb him, and much that contributed to his peace.  Among the callers at the Bay House to see him was Woodrow Wilson, and the two put in some pleasant hours at miniature golf, “putting” on the Allen lawn.  Of course a catastrophe would come along now and then—­such things could not always be guarded against.  In a letter toward the end of February he wrote: 
    It is 2.30 in the morning & I am writing because I can’t sleep.