there.

But it isn't going to happen--the good old way will be stuck to:
there'll be a public meeting: with music, and prayer, and a wearying
report, and a verbal description of the marvels the blind can do, and
17 speeches--then the call upon all present who are still alive, to
contribute. This hoary program was invented in the idiot asylum, and
will never be changed. Its function is to breed hostility to good
causes.

Some day somebody will recruit my 200--my dear beguilesome Knights of
the Golden Fleece--and you will see them make good their ominous name.

Mind, we must meet! not in the grim and ghastly air of the platform,
mayhap, but by the friendly fire--here at 21.

Affectionately your friend,
S. L. CLEMENS.

They did meet somewhat later that winter in the friendly parlors of
No. 21, and friends gathered in to meet the marvelous blind girl and
to pay tribute to Miss Sullivan (Mrs. Macy) for her almost
incredible achievement.

MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS 1907-1910

VOLUME VI.

By Mark Twain

ARRANGED WITH COMMENT BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

XLVI. LETTERS 1907-08. A DEGREE FROM OXFORD. THE NEW HOME AT REDDING.

The author, J. Howard Moore, sent a copy of his book, The Universal
Kinship, with a letter in which he said: "Most humorists have no
anxiety except to glorify themselves and add substance to their
pocket-books by making their readers laugh. You have shown, on many
occasions, that your mission is not simply to antidote the
melancholy of a world, but includes a real and intelligent concern
for the general welfare of your fellowman."

The Universal Kinship was the kind of a book that Mark Twain
appreciated, as his acknowledgment clearly shows.

*****

To Mr. J. Howard Moore:

Feb. 2, '07.

DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several days of deep pleasure
and satisfaction; it has compelled my gratitude at the same time, since
it saves me the labor of stating my own long-cherished opinions and
reflections and resentments by doing it lucidly and fervently and
irascibly for me.

There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the
mentality of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance by
a thousand grades; but in the matter of the morals which they left us we
have gone