ept alive by certain phenomena--psychic manifestations we
call them now. In his association with Mrs. Clemens it not infrequently
happened that one spoke the other's thought, or perhaps a
long-procrastinated letter to a friend would bring an answer as quickly
as mailed; but these are things familiar to us all. A more startling
example of thought-communication developed at the time of which we are
writing, an example which raised to a fever-point whatever interest he
may have had in the subject before. (He was always having these vehement
interests--rages we may call them, for it would be inadequate to speak of
them as fads, inasmuch as they tended in the direction of human
enlightenment, or progress, or reform.)

Clemens one morning was lying in bed when, as he says, "suddenly a red-hot
new idea came whistling down into my camp." The idea was that the time
was ripe for a book that would tell the story of the Comstock-of the
Nevada silver mines. It seemed to him that the person best qualified for
the work was his old friend William Wright--Dan de Quille. He had not
heard from Dan, or of him, for a long time, but decided to write and urge
him to take up the idea. He prepared the letter, going fully into the
details of his plan, as was natural for him to do, then laid it aside
until he could see Bliss and secure his approval of the scheme from a
publishing standpoint. Just a week later, it was the 9th of March, a
letter came--a thick letter bearing a Nevada postmark, and addressed in a
handwriting which he presently recognized as De Quille's. To a visitor
who was present he said:

"Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you everything this letter
contains--date, signature, and all without breaking the seal."

He stated what he believed was in the letter. Then he opened it and
showed that he had correctly given its contents, which were the same in
all essential details as those of his own letter, not yet mailed.

In an article on "Mental Telegraphy" (he invented the name) he relates
this instance, with others, and in 'Following the Equator' and elsewhere
he records other such happenings. It was one of the "mysteries" in which
he never lost interest, though his concern in it in time became a passive
one.

The result of the De Quille manifestation, however, he has not recorded.
Clemens immediately wrote, urging Dan to come to Hartford for an extended
visit. De Quille came, and put in a happy spring in his old comrade's
lux