ll see how the imaginary perilous trip up
the Riffelberg is preposterously expanded. That horse-student is on
page 192. The "Fremersberg" is neighboring. The Black Forest novel
is on page 211. I remember when and where we projected that: in the
leafy glades with the mountain sublimities dozing in the blue haze
beyond the gorge of Allerheiligen. There's the "new member," page
213; the dentist yarn, 223; the true Chamois, 242; at page 248 is a
pretty long yarn, spun from a mighty brief text meeting, for a
moment, that pretty girl who knew me and whom I had forgotten; at
281 is "Harris," and should have been so entitled, but Bliss has
made a mistake and turned you into some other character; 305 brings
back the whole Rigi tramp to me at a glance; at 185 and 186 are
specimens of my art; and the frontispiece is the combination which I
made by pasting one familiar picture over the lower half of an
equally familiar one. This fine work being worthy of Titian, I have
shed the credit of it upon him. Well, you'll find more reminders of
things scattered through here than are printed, or could have been
printed, in many books.

All the "legends of the Neckar," which I invented for that unstoried
region, are here; one is in the Appendix. The steel portrait of me
is just about perfect.

We had a mighty good time, Joe, and the six weeks I would dearly
like to repeat any time; but the rest of the fourteen months-never.
With love,
Yours, MARK.

Hartford, March 16, 1880.

Possibly Twichell had vague doubts concerning a book of which he was so
large a part, and its favorable reception by the critics and the public
generally was a great comfort. When the Howells letter was read to him
he is reported as having sat with his hands on his knees, his head bent
forward--a favorite attitude--repeating at intervals:

"Howells said that, did he? Old Howells said that!"

There have been many and varying opinions since then as to the literary
merits of 'A Tramp Abroad'. Human tastes differ, and a "mixed" book of
this kind invites as many opinions as it has chapters. The word "uneven"
pretty safely describes any book of size, but it has a special
application to this one. Written under great stress and uncertainty of
mind, it could hardly be uniform. It presents Mark Twain at his best,
and at his worst. Almost any American wr