r. Taylor:

When we were poking around Italy 3 or 4 weeks ago, I was told that you
were ill, but straightway saw it contradicted in a newspaper. Now comes
this paragraph in Galignani which not only shows that the contradiction
was erroneous, but shows how ignorant one may be in this country about
what is happening only a few hundred miles away; especially when one is
buried in work & neither talks with people or often looks in the paper.
We three folks are heartily glad to hear that you are coming happily out
of it; & we are venturing to hope that by this time you are wholly
restored.

We are located for the winter,--I suppose. But the children are having
such a run of coughs & diptheria [sic], that I can't tell at what moment
Mrs. Clemens may take fright & flee to some kindlier climate. However, I
stick hard at work & make what literary hay I can while we tarry. Our
little children talk German as glibly as they do English, now, but the
rest of us are mighty poor German scholars, I can tell you. Rev.
Twitchell (who was over here with me a while,) conceived a pretty
correct average of my German. When I was talking, (in my native tongue,)
about some rather private matters in the hearing of some Germans one
day, Twitchel said, "Speak in German, Mark,--some of these people may
understand English."

Many a time when teachers & dictionaries fail to unravel knotty
paragraphs, we wish we could fly to you for succor; we even go so far as
to believe you can read a German newspaper & understand it; & in moments
of deep irritation I have been provoked into expressing the opinion that
you are the only foreigner except God who can do that thing. I would not
rob you of your food or clothes or your umbrella, but if I caught your
German out I would take it. But I don't study any more,--I have given it
up.

I & mine join in the kindest remembrances & best wishes to you & your
family.

Sincerely Yours

Saml. L. Clemens

We are going to try to run over to Berlin in the spring_.

As Graham finished Mark Twain's last letter--the one to Mr. Fields,
dated 1874--he noticed that the next letter from Dickens to Mr. Fields
was dated 1867--seven years prior. He wondered if the two famous writers
had actually crossed paths or had just known the Fields independent of
one another. Either way, it was interesting to note that they were
contemporaries. He had always imagined that Dickens had lived in a much
earlier era than Twain. Well, to con