But you finish it, dear, I am running short of vocabulary
today.  Ever lovingly your friend,
          
                              mark.

(Edited and modified by Clara Clemens, deputy to her mother, who for more than 7 months has been ill in bed and unable to exercise her official function.)

The burden of the Clemens household had fallen almost entirely upon Clara Clemens.  In addition to supervising its customary affairs, she also shouldered the responsibility of an unusual combination of misfortunes, for besides the critical condition of her mother, her sister, Jean Clemens, was down with pneumonia, no word of which must come to Mrs. Clemens.  Certainly it was a difficult position.  In some account of it, which he set down later, Clemens wrote:  “It was fortunate for us all that Clara’s reputation for truthfulness was so well established in her mother’s mind.  It was our daily protection from disaster.  The mother never doubted Clara’s word.  Clara could tell her large improbabilities without exciting any suspicion, whereas if I tried to market even a small and simple one the case would have been different.  I was never able to get a reputation like Clara’s.”

The accumulation of physical ailments in the Clemens home had somewhat modified Mark Twain’s notion of medical practice.  He was no longer radical; he had become eclectic.  It is a good deal of a concession that he makes to Twichell, after those earlier letters from Sweden, in which osteopathy had been heralded as the anodyne for all human ills.

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: 

Dear Joe,—­Livy does really make a little progress these past 3 or 4 days, progress which is visible to even the untrained eye.  The physicians are doing good work with her, but my notion is, that no art of healing is the best for all ills.  I should distribute the ailments around:  surgery cases to the surgeons; lupus to the actinic-ray specialist; nervous prostration to the Christian Scientist; most ills to the allopath and the homeopath; (in my own particular case) rheumatism, gout and bronchial attacks to the osteopathist.

Mr. Rogers was to sail southward this morning—­and here is this weather! 
I am sorry.  I think it’s a question if he gets away tomorrow. 
                              Ys Ever
          
                              mark.

It was through J. Y. M. MacAlister, to whom the next letter is written, that Mark Twain had become associated with the Plasmon Company, which explains the reference to “shares.”  He had seen much of MacAlister during the winter at Tedworth Square, and had grown fond of him.  It is a characteristic letter, and one of interesting fact.

To J. Y. M. MacAlister, in London: