oing to make a confession. I don't believe in your
religion at all. I've been living a lie right straight along whenever I
pretended to. For a moment, sometimes, I have been almost a believer,
but it immediately drifts away from me again. I don't believe one word
of your Bible was inspired by God any more than any other book. I
believe it is entirely the work of man from beginning to end--atonement
and all. The problem of life and death and eternity and the true
conception of God is a bigger thing than is contained in that book."

So the personal side of religious discussion closed between them, and was
never afterward reopened.

They joined Mrs. Clemens and the others at Lausanne at last, and their
Swiss holiday was over. Twichell set out for home by way of England, and
Clemens gave himself up to reflection and rest after his wanderings.
Then, as the days of their companionship passed in review, quickly and
characteristically he sent a letter after his comrade:

DEAR OLD JOE, It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at the
station yesterday, and this morning, when I woke, I couldn't seem to
accept the dismal truth that you were really gone, and the pleasant
tramping and talking at an end. Ah, my boy! it has been such a
rich holiday to me, and I feel under such deep and honest
obligations to you for coming. I am putting out of my mind all
memory of the times when I misbehaved toward you and hurt you; I am
resolved to consider it forgiven, and to store up and remember only
the charming hours of the journeys and the times when I was not
unworthy to be with you and share a companionship which to me stands
first after Livy's. It is justifiable to do this; for why should I
let my small infirmities of disposition live and grovel among my
mental pictures of the eternal sublimities of the Alps?

Livy can't accept or endure the fact that you are gone. But you
are, and we cannot get around it. So take our love with you, and
bear it also over the sea to Harmony, and God bless you both.

MARK.

CXIX

ITALIAN DAYS

The Clemens party wandered down into Italy--to the lakes, Venice,
Florence, Rome--loitering through the galleries, gathering here and there
beautiful furnishings--pictures, marbles, and the like--for the Hartford
home.

In Venice they bought an old careen bed, a massive regal affair with
serpentine column