of people as you do, and put it on
paper, and invent things for them to do and say, and tell how they said
it, I could writs a fine and readable book now, for I've got a prime
subject. I've written 30,000 words of it and satisfied myself that the
stuff is there; so I am going to discard that MS and begin all over
again and have a good time with it.

Oh, I know how you feel! I've been in hell myself. You are there
tonight. By difference in time you are at luncheon, now--and not
eating it. Nothing is so lonesome as gadding around platforming. I have
declined 45 lectures to-day-England and Scotland. I wanted the money,
but not the torture: Good luck to you!--and repentance.

With love to all of you
MARK.

XXXIX. LETTERS OF 1900, MAINLY TO TWICHELL. THE BOER WAR. BOXER
TROUBLES. THE RETURN TO AMERICA.

The New Year found Clemens still in London, chiefly interested in
osteopathy and characteristically glorifying the practice at the expense
of other healing methods.

*****

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

LONDON, Jan. 8, 1900.

DEAR JOE,--Mental Telepathy has scored another. Mental Telegraphy will
be greatly respected a century hence.

By the accident of writing my sister and describing to her the
remarkable cures made by Kellgren with his hands and without drugs, I
brought upon myself a quite stunning surprise; for she wrote to me that
she had been taking this very treatment in Buffalo--and that it was an
American invention.

Well, it does really turn out that Dr. Still, in the middle of Kansas,
in a village, began to experiment in 1874, only five years after
Kellgren began the same work obscurely in the village of Gotha, in
Germany. Dr. Still seems to be an honest man; therefore I am persuaded
that Kellgren moved him to his experiments by Mental Telegraphy across
six hours of longitude, without need of a wire. By the time Still began
to experiment, Kellgren had completed his development of the
principles of his system and established himself in a good practice in
London--1874--and was in good shape to convey his discovery to Kansas,
Mental Telegraphically.

Yes, I was greatly surprised to find that my mare's nest was much in
arrears: that this new science was well known in America under the name
of Osteopathy. Since then, I find that in the past 3 years it has
got itself legaliz