Villadi Quarto, ’04. 
June 12, 6 p. m. 
Dear Howells,—­We have to sit and hold our hands and wait—­in the silence and solitude of this prodigious house; wait until June 25, then we go to Naples and sail in the Prince Oscar the 26th.  There is a ship 12 days earlier (but we came in that one.) I see Clara twice a day—­morning and evening—­greeting—­nothing more is allowed.  She keeps her bed, and says nothing.  She has not cried yet.  I wish she could cry.  It would break Livy’s heart to see Clara.  We excuse ourselves from all the friends that call—­though of course only intimates come.  Intimates—­but they are not the old old friends, the friends of the old, old times when we laughed.

Shall we ever laugh again?  If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all, everything, and ease my heart.

Think-in 3 hours it will be a week!—­and soon a month; and by and by a year.  How fast our dead fly from us.

She loved you so, and was always as pleased as a child with any notice you took of her.

Soon your wife will be with you, oh fortunate man!  And John, whom mine was so fond of.  The sight of him was such a delight to her.  Lord, the old friends, how dear they are. 
                                   S. L. C.

To Rev. J. R. Twichell, in Hartford: 

Villadi Quarto, Florence,
June 18, ’04. 
Dear Joe,—­It is 13 days.  I am bewildered and must remain so for a time longer.  It was so sudden, so unexpected.  Imagine a man worth a hundred millions who finds himself suddenly penniless and fifty million in debt in his old age.

I was richer than any other person in the world, and now I am that pauper without peer.  Some day I will tell you about it, not now. 
          
                                                  Mark.

A tide of condolence flowed in from all parts of the world.  It was impossible to answer all.  Only a few who had been their closest friends received a written line, but the little printed acknowledgment which was returned was no mere formality.  It was a heartfelt, personal word.

They arrived in America in July, and were accompanied by Twichell to Elmira, and on the 14th Mrs. Clemens was laid to rest by the side of Susy and little Langdon.  R. W. Gilder had arranged for them to occupy, for the summer, a cottage on his place at Tyringham, in the Berkshire Hills.  By November they were at the Grosvenor, in New York, preparing to establish themselves in a house which they had taken on the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue—­Number 21.

To F. N. Doubleday, in New York: 

Dear Doubleday,—­I did not know you were going to England:  I would have freighted you with such messages of homage and affection to Kipling.  And I would have pressed his hand, through you, for his sympathy with me in my crushing loss, as expressed by him in his letter to Gilder.  You know my feeling for Kipling and that it antedates that expression.