d try through my leader and my friends there.

And then if Europe chose to go on stealing from us, we would say with
noble enthusiasm, "American lawmakers do steal but not from foreign
authors--Not from foreign authors!"

You see, what I want to drive into the Congressional mind is the simple
fact that the moral law is "Thou shalt not steal"--no matter what Europe
may do.

I swear I can't see any use in robbing European authors for the benefit
of American booksellers, anyway.

If we can ever get this thing through Congress, we can try making
copyright perpetual, some day. There would be no sort of use in it,
since only one book in a hundred millions outlives the present copyright
term--no sort of use except that the writer of that one book have his
rights--which is something.

If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such
a sweat to get Him into the Constitution, it would be better all around.

The only man who ever signed my petition with alacrity, and said
that the fact that a thing was right was all-sufficient, was Rev. Dr.
Bushnell.

I have lost my old petition, (which was brief) but will draft and
enclose another--not in the words it ought to be, but in the substance.
I want Mr. Lowell to furnish the words (and the ideas too,) if he will
do it.

Say--Redpath beseeches me to lecture in Boston in November--telegraphs
that Beecher's and Nast's withdrawal has put him in the tightest kind of
a place. So I guess I'll do that old "Roughing It" lecture over again in
November and repeat it 2 or 3 times in New York while I am at it.

Can I take a carriage after the lecture and go out and stay with you
that night, provided you find at that distant time that it will not
inconvenience you? Is Aldrich home yet?

With love to you all
Yrs ever,
S. L. C.

Of course the petition never reached Congress. Holmes's comment
that governments were not in the habit of setting themselves up as
high moral examples, except for revenue, was shared by too many
others. The petition was tabled, but Clemens never abandoned his
purpose and lived to see most of his dream fulfilled. Meantime,
Howells's notice of the Sketches appeared in the Atlantic, and
brought grateful acknowledgment from the author.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: