them over three or four times the evening before. Ponkapog still writes
poetry, but the old-time fire has mostly gone out of it. Perhaps his
best effort of late years is this:

O soul, soul, soul of mine!
Soul, soul, soul of throe!
Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine,
And sing thy lauds in crystal wine!

This he goes about repeating to everybody, daily and nightly, insomuch
that he is become a sore affliction to all that know him.

But I must desist. There are draughts here everywhere and my gout is
something frightful. My left foot hath resemblance to a snuff-bladder.
God be with you.
HARTFORD.

These to Lady Hartford, in the earldom of Hartford, in the upper portion
of the city of Dublin.

APPENDIX N

MARK TWAIN AND COPYRIGHT

I

PETITION

Concerning Copyright (1875) (See Chapter cii)

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN
CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

We, your petitioners, do respectfully represent as follows, viz.: That
justice, plain and simple, is a thing which right-feeling men stand ready
at all times to accord to brothers and strangers alike. All such men
will concede that it is but plain, simple justice that American authors
should be protected by copyright in Europe; also, that European authors
should be protected by copyright here.

Both divisions of this proposition being true, it behooves our government
to concern itself with that division of it which comes peculiarly within
its province--viz., the latter moiety--and to grant to foreign authors
with all convenient despatch a full and effective copyright in America
without marring the grace of the act by stopping to inquire whether a
similar justice will be done our own authors by foreign governments. If
it were even known that those governments would not extend this justice
to us it would still not justify us in withholding this manifest right
from their authors. If a thing is right it ought to be done--the thing
called "expediency" or "policy" has no concern with such a matter. And
we desire to repeat, with all respect, that it is not a grace or a
privilege we ask for our foreign brethren, but a right--a right received
from God, and only denied them by man. We hold no ownership in these
authors, and when we take their work from them, as at present, without
their consent, it is robbery. The fact that the handiwork of our own
authors is