But this morning I examined it without temper, and saw that if I abolished the advertisement it would be literature again.

So I have done it.  I have struck out 700 words and inserted 5 Ms pages of new matter (650 words), and now Adam’s Diary is dam good—­sixty times as good as it ever was before.

I believe it is as good as Eve’s Diary now—­no, it’s not quite that good, I guess, but it is good enough to go in the same cover with Eve’s.  I’m sure of that.

I hate to have the old Adam go out any more—­don’t put it on the presses again, let’s put the new one in place of it; and next Xmas, let us bind Adam and Eve in one cover.  They score points against each other—­so, if not bound together, some of the points would not be perceived.....

P. S. Please send another Adam’s Diary, so that I can make 2 revised
copies.  Eve’s Diary is Eve’s love-Story, but we will not name it that. 
                                   Yrs ever,
          
                                        mark.

The peace-making at Portsmouth between Japan and Russia was not satisfactory to Mark Twain, who had fondly hoped there would be no peace until, as he said, “Russian liberty was safe.  One more battle would have abolished the waiting chains of millions upon millions of unborn Russians and I wish it could have been fought.”  He set down an expression of his feelings for the Associated Press, and it invited many letters.  Charles Francis Adams wrote, “It attracted my attention because it so exactly expresses the views I have myself all along entertained.”

Clemens was invited by Colonel George Harvey to dine with the Russian emissaries, Baron Rosen and Sergius Witte.  He declined, but his telegram so pleased Witte that he asked permission to publish it, and announced that he would show it to the Czar.

Telegram.  To Col.  George Harvey, in New York: 

To Colonel Harvey,—­I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than glad of this opportunity to meet the illustrious magicians who came here equipped with nothing but a pen, and with it have divided the honors of the war with the sword.  It is fair to presume that in thirty centuries history will not get done admiring these men who attempted what the world regarded as impossible and achieved it.

Witte would not have cared to show the Czar the telegram in its
original form, which follows.

     Telegram (unsent).  To Col.  George Harvey, in New York: 

To Colonel Harvey,—­I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicians who with the pen have annulled, obliterated, and abolished every high achievement of the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of a tremendous war into a gay and blithesome comedy.  If I may, let me in all respect and honor salute them as my fellow-humorists, I taking third place, as becomes one who was not born to modesty, but by diligence and hard work is acquiring it. 
                                                  Mark.