I was asked beforehand, if this would be a wise gift, and I said “Yes, the very wisest of all;” I know the colored race, and I know that in Lewis’s eyes this fine toy will throw the other more valuable testimonials far away into the shade.  If he lived in England the Humane Society would give him a gold medal as costly as this watch, and nobody would say:  “It is out of character.”  If Lewis chose to wear a town clock, who would become it better?

Lewis has sound common sense, and is not going to be spoiled.  The instant he found himself possessed of money, he forgot himself in a plan to make his old father comfortable, who is wretchedly poor and lives down in Maryland.  His next act, on the spot, was the proffer to the Cranes of the $300 of his remaining indebtedness to them.  This was put off by them to the indefinite future, for he is not going to be allowed to pay that at all, though he doesn’t know it.

A letter of acknowledgment from Lewis contains a sentence which raises it to the dignity of literature: 

“But I beg to say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine providence saw fit to use me as a instrument for the saving of those presshious lives, the honner conferd upon me was greater than the feat performed.”

That is well said. 
                    Yrs ever
                                   Mark.

Howells was moved to use the story in the.  “Contributors’ Club,” and warned Clemens against letting it get into the newspapers.  He declared he thought it one of the most impressive things he had ever read.  But Clemens seems never to have allowed it to be used in any form.  In its entirety, therefore, it is quite new matter.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Hartford, Sept. 19, 1877.  My dear Howells,—­I don’t really see how the story of the runaway horse could read well with the little details of names and places and things left out.  They are the true life of all narrative.  It wouldn’t quite do to print them at this time.  We’ll talk about it when you come.  Delicacy—­a sad, sad false delicacy—­robs literature of the best two things among its belongings.  Family-circle narrative and obscene stories.  But no matter; in that better world which I trust we are all going to I have the hope and belief that they will not be denied us.

Say—­Twichell and I had an adventure at sea, 4 months ago, which I did not put in my Bermuda articles, because there was not enough to it.  But the press dispatches bring the sequel today, and now there’s plenty to it.  A sailless, wasteless, chartless, compassless, grubless old condemned tub that has been drifting helpless about the ocean for 4 months and a half, begging bread and water like any other tramp, flying a signal of distress permanently, and with 13 innocent, marveling chuckleheaded Bermuda niggers on board, taking a Pleasure Excursion!  Our ship fed the poor devils on the 25th of last