Clemens wrote very little for publication that year, but he enjoyed writing for his own amusement, setting down the things that boiled, or bubbled, within him:  mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of human deportment, human superstition and human creeds.  The “Letters from the Earth” referred to in the following, were supposed to have been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a friend, describing the absurdities of mankind.  It is true, as he said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the manuscript contains some of his mgt delicious writing.  Miss Wallace, to whom the next letter is written, had known Mark Twain in Bermuda, and, after his death, published a dainty volume entitled Mark Twain in the Happy Island.

                                   “Stormfield,” Redding, Connecticut,
                                                       Nov. 13, ’09. 
Dear Betsy,—­I’ve been writing “Letters from the Earth,” and if you will come here and see us I will—­what?  Put the Ms in your hands, with the places to skip marked?  No.  I won’t trust you quite that far.  I’ll read messages to you.  This book will never be published—­in fact it couldn’t be, because it would be felony to soil the mails with it, for it has much Holy Scripture in it of the kind that . . . can’t properly be read aloud, except from the pulpit and in family worship.  Paine enjoys it, but Paine is going to be damned one of these days, I suppose.

The autumn splendors passed you by?  What a pity.  I wish you had been here.  It was beyond words!  It was heaven and hell and sunset and rainbows and the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, and you couldn’t look at it and keep the tears back.  All the hosannahing strong gorgeousnesses have gone back to heaven and hell and the pole, now, but no matter; if you could look out of my bedroom window at this moment, you would choke up; and when you got your voice you would say:  This is not real, this is a dream.  Such a singing together, and such a whispering together, and such a snuggling together of cosy soft colors, and such kissing and caressing, and such pretty blushing when the sun breaks out and catches those dainty weeds at it—­you remember that weed-garden of mine?—­and then—­then the far hills sleeping in a dim blue trance—­oh, hearing about it is nothing, you should be here to see it.

Good!  I wish I could go on the platform and read.  And I could, if it could be kept out of the papers.  There’s a charity-school of 400 young girls in Boston that I would give my ears to talk to, if I had some more; but—­oh, well, I can’t go, and it’s no use to grieve about it.

This morning Jean went to town; also Paine; also the butler; also Katy; also the laundress.  The cook and the maid, and the boy and the roustabout and Jean’s coachman are left—­just enough to make it lonesome, because they are around yet never visible.  However, the Harpers are sending Leigh up to play billiards; therefore I shall survive. 
                              Affectionately,
                                        S. L. Clemens.