SAM.

The Cooper Union lecture proved a failure, and a success.
When it became evident to Fuller that the venture was not
going to pay, he sent out a flood of complimentaries to the
school-teachers of New York City and the surrounding
districts. No one seems to have declined them. Clemens
lectured to a jammed house and acquired much reputation.
Lecture proposals came from several directions, but he could
not accept them now. He wrote home that he was eighteen Alta
letters behind and had refused everything. Thos. Nast, the
cartoonist, then in his first fame, propped a joint tour,
Clemens to lecture while he, Nast, would illustrate with
"lightning" sketches; but even this could not be considered
now. In a little while he would sail, and the days were
overfull. A letter written a week before he sailed is full
of the hurry and strain of these last days.

*****

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, June 1, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--I know I ought to write oftener (just got your last,) and
more fully, but I cannot overcome my repugnance to telling what I am
doing or what I expect to do or propose to do. Then, what have I left to
write about? Manifestly nothing.

It isn't any use for me to talk about the voyage, because I can have no
faith in that voyage till the ship is under way. How do I know she will
ever sail? My passage is paid, and if the ship sails, I sail in
her--but I make no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going
clothing--have made no preparation whatever--shall not pack my trunk
till the morning we sail. Yet my hands are full of what I am going to do
the day before we sail--and what isn't done that day will go undone.

All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to
move--move--move! Half a dozen times I have wished I had sailed long
ago in some ship that wasn't going to keep me chained here to chafe for
lagging ages while she got ready to go. Curse the endless delays!
They always kill me--they make me neglect every duty and then I have a
conscience that tears me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop
anywhere a month. I do more mean things, the moment I get a chance to
fold my hands and sit down than ever I can get forgiveness for.

Yes, we are to meet at Mr. Beach's next Thursday night, and I suppose
we shall have to be got