“I did not expect you to ask that man to live with you,” Howells answered.  “What I was afraid of was that you would turn him out of doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him.  After this when I want you to board people, I’ll ask you.  I am sorry for your suffering.  I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for bores; but yours is preternaturally keen.  I shall begin to be afraid I bore you. (How does that make you feel?)”

In a letter to Twichell—­a remarkable letter—­when baby Jean Clemens was about a month old, we get a happy hint of conditions at Quarry Farm, and in the background a glimpse of Mark Twain’s unfailing tragic reflection.

To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford: 

Quarryfarm, Aug. 29 [’80].  Dear old Joe,—­Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he “didn’t see no pints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog,” I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of observer....  I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will soon be in Hartford, where I have already hired a hall; the admission fee will be but a trifle.

It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotation of the Affection Board brought about by throwing this new security on the market.  Four weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right along, where she had always been.  But now: 

                    Jean
                    Mamma
                    Motley [a cat]
                    Fraulein [another]
                    Papa

That is the way it stands, now Mamma is become No. 2; I have dropped from No. 4., and am become No. 5.  Some time ago it used to be nip and tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats “developed” I didn’t stand any more show.

I’ve got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of the day, and read and smoke and scribble and have a good time.  Last evening Livy said with deep concern, “O dear, I believe an abscess is forming in your ear.”

I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the head—­

          “Tis said that abscess conquers love,
          But O believe it not.”

This made a coolness.

Been reading Daniel Webster’s Private Correspondence.  Have read a hundred of his diffuse, conceited, “eloquent,” bathotic (or bathostic) letters written in that dim (no, vanished) Past when he was a student; and Lord, to think that this boy who is so real to me now, and so booming with fresh young blood and bountiful life, and sappy cynicisms about girls, has since climbed the Alps of fame and stood against the sun one brief tremendous moment with the world’s eyes upon him, and then—­f-z-t-! where is he?  Why the only long thing, the only real thing about the whole shadowy business is the sense of the lagging dull and hoary lapse of time that has drifted by since then; a vast empty level, it seems, with a formless spectre glimpsed fitfully through the smoke and mist that lie along its remote verge.