yourself that it is all caked
together.

Eighth Paragraph. She "rode away to assault & capture a
stronghold." Very well; but you do not tell us whether she
succeeded or not. You should not worry the reader with
uncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarity
is a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better than
keep this useful rule in mind.

Ninth Paragraph. "Known" history. That word has a polish which is
too indelicate for me; there doesn't seem to be any sense in it.
This would have surprised me last week.

. . . "Breaking a lance" is a knightly & sumptuous phrase, & I
honor it for its hoary age & for the faithful service it has done in
the prize-composition of the school-girl, but I have ceased from
employing it since I got my puberty, & must solemnly object to
fathering it here. And, besides, it makes me hint that I have
broken one of those things before in honor of the Maid, an
intimation not justified by the facts. I did not break any lances
or other furniture; I only wrote a book about her.

Truly yours,
MARK TWAIN.

It cost me something to restrain myself and say these smooth & half-
flattering things of this immeasurable idiot, but I did it, & have
never regretted it. For it is higher & nobler to be kind to even a
shad like him than just . . . . I could have said hundreds of
unpleasant things about this tadpole, but I did not even feel them.

Yet, in the end, he seems not to have sent the letter. Writing it had
served every purpose.

An important publishing event of 1899 was the issue by the American
Publishing Company of Mark Twain's "Complete Works in Uniform Edition."
Clemens had looked forward to the day when this should be done, perhaps
feeling that an assembling of his literary family in symmetrical dress
constituted a sort of official recognition of his authorship. Brander
Matthews was selected to write the Introduction and prepared a fine
"Biographical Criticism," which pleased Clemens, though perhaps he did
not entirely agree with its views. Himself of a different cast of mind,
he nevertheless admired Matthews.

Writing to Twichell he said:

When you say, "I like Brander Matthews, he impresses me as a man of
parts & power," I back you, right up to the hub--I feel the same
way. And when you say he has