To William Allen White, in Emporia, Kans.: 

         &nb
sp;                                   Dublin, new Hampshire,
                                                  June 24, 1906. 
Dear Mr. White,—­Howells told me that “In Our Town” was a charming book, and indeed it is.  All of it is delightful when read one’s self, parts of it can score finely when subjected to the most exacting of tests—­the reading aloud.  Pages 197 and 216 are of that grade.  I have tried them a couple of times on the family, and pages 212 and 216 are qualified to fetch any house of any country, caste or color, endowed with those riches which are denied to no nation on the planet—­humor and feeling.

Talk again—­the country is listening. 
                              Sincerely yours,
                                        S. L. Clemens.

Witter Bynner, the poet, was one of the editors of McClure’s Magazine at this time, but was trying to muster the courage to give up routine work for verse-making and the possibility of poverty.  Clemens was fond of Bynner and believed in his work.  He did not advise him, however, to break away entirely from a salaried position—­at least not immediately; but one day Bynner did so, and reported the step he had taken, with some doubt as to the answer he would receive.

To Witter Bynner, in New York: 

Dublin, Oct. 5, 1906.  Dear poet,—­You have certainly done right for several good reasons; at least, of them, I can name two: 

1.  With your reputation you can have your freedom and yet earn your living. 2. if you fall short of succeeding to your wish, your reputation will provide you another job.  And so in high approval I suppress the scolding and give you the saintly and fatherly pat instead. 
          
                                        Mark twain.

On another occasion, when Bynner had written a poem to Clara Clemens, her father pretended great indignation that the first poem written by Bynner to any one in his household should not be to him, and threatened revenge.  At dinner shortly after he produced from his pocket a slip of paper on which he had set down what he said was “his only poem.”  He read the lines that follow: 

               “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
               The saddest are these:  It might have been. 
               Ah, say not so! as life grows longer, leaner, thinner,
               We recognize, O God, it might have Bynner!”

     He returned to New York in October and soon after was presented by
     Mrs. H. H. Rogers with a handsome billiard-table.

He had a passion for the game, but had played comparatively little since the old Hartford days of fifteen years before, when a group of his friends used to assemble on Friday nights in the room at the top of the house for long, strenuous games and much hilarity.  Now the old fever all came back; the fascinations of the game superseded even his interest in the daily dictations.

To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in New York: