e
of the gondola we can do it without exhaustion. Really I am drunk
with Venice.

But Clemens was full of Sweden. The skies there and the sunsets be
thought surpassed any he had ever known. On an evening in September he
wrote:

DEAR JOE,--I've no business in here-I ought to be outside. I shall
never see another sunset to begin with it this side of heaven.
Venice? land, what a poor interest that is! This is the place to
be. I have seen about 60 sunsets here; & a good 40 of them were
away & beyond anything I had ever imagined before for dainty &
exquisite & marvelous beauty & infinite change & variety. America?
Italy? the tropics? They have no notion of what a sunset ought to
be. And this one--this unspeakable wonder! It discounts all the
rest. It brings the tears, it is so unutterably beautiful.

Clemens read a book during his stay in Sweden which interested him
deeply. It was the Open Question, by Elizabeth Robbins--a fine study of
life's sterner aspects. When he had finished he was moved to write the
author this encouraging word:

DEAR MISS ROBBINS,--A relative of Matthew Arnold lent us your 'Open
Question' the other day, and Mrs. Clemens and I are in your debt. I
am not able to put in words my feeling about the book--my admiration
of its depth and truth and wisdom and courage, and the fine and
great literary art and grace of the setting. At your age you cannot
have lived the half of the things that are in the book, nor
personally penetrated to the deeps it deals in, nor covered its wide
horizons with your very own vision--and so, what is your secret?
how have you written this miracle? Perhaps one must concede that
genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old
experience.

Well, in any case, I am grateful to you. I have not been so
enriched by a book for many years, nor so enchanted by one. I seem
to be using strong language; still, I have weighed it.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

CCVII

30, WELLINGTON COURT

Clemens himself took the Kellgren treatment and received a good deal of
benefit.

"I have come back in sound condition and braced for work," he wrote
MacAlister, upon his return to London. "A long, steady, faithful siege
of it, and I begin now in five minutes."

They had settled in a small apartment at 30, Wellingto