Now and then a good and dear Joe Twichell or Susy Warner condoles with me and says “Cheer up—­don’t be downhearted,” and some other friend says, “I am glad and surprised to see how cheerful you are and how bravely you stand it”—­and none of them suspect what a burden has been lifted from me and how blithe I am inside.  Except when I think of you, dear heart—­then I am not blithe; for I seem to see you grieving and ashamed, and dreading to look people in the face.  For in the thick of the fight there is cheer, but you are far away and cannot hear the drums nor see the wheeling squadrons.  You only seem to see rout, retreat, and dishonored colors dragging in the dirt—­whereas none of these things exist.  There is temporary defeat, but no dishonor—­and we will march again.  Charley Warner said to-day, “Sho, Livy isn’t worrying.  So long as she’s got you and the children she doesn’t care what happens.  She knows it isn’t her affair.”  Which didn’t convince me.

Good bye my darling, I love you and all of the kids—­and you can tell
Clara I am not a spitting gray kitten. 
          
                                   Saml.

Clemens sailed for Europe as soon as his affairs would permit him to go.  He must get settled where he could work comfortably.  Type-setter prospects seemed promising, but meantime there was need of funds.

He began writing on the ship, as was his habit, and had completed his article on Fenimore Cooper by the time he reached London.  In August we find him writing to Mr. Rogers from Etretat, a little Norman watering-place.

To H. H. Rogers, in New York: 

Etretat, (Normandie)
Chalet DES ABRIS
Aug. 25, ’94. 
Dear Mr. Rogers,—­I find the Madam ever so much better in health and strength.  The air is superb and soothing and wholesome, and the Chalet is remote from noise and people, and just the place to write in.  I shall begin work this afternoon.

Mrs. Clemens is in great spirits on, account of the benefit which she has received from the electrical treatment in Paris and is bound to take it up again and continue it all the winter, and of course I am perfectly willing.  She requires me to drop the lecture platform out of my mind and go straight ahead with Joan until the book is finished.  If I should have to go home for even a week she means to go with me—­won’t consent to be separated again—­but she hopes I won’t need to go.

I tell her all right, “I won’t go unless you send, and then I must.”

She keeps the accounts; and as she ciphers it we can’t get crowded for
money for eight months yet.  I didn’t know that.  But I don’t know much
anyway. 
                    Sincerely yours,
                                   S. L. Clemens.