ent and put one of the law
students in his place. A boy will be more biddable, more tractable,
also cheaper. It is true he cannot be intrusted with important work
at first, but he can comb the skies for nebulae till he gets his
hand in. I have other changes in mind, but as they are in the
nature of surprises I judge it politic to leave them unspecified at
this time.

Very likely it was in this new capacity, as the head of the governing
body, that he wrote one morning to Clark advising him as to the
misuse of a word in the Courant, though he thought it best to sign the
communication with the names of certain learned friends, to give it
weight with the public, as he afterward explained.

SIR,--The word "patricide" in your issue of this morning (telegrams)
was an error. You meant it to describe the slayer of a father; you
should have used "parricide" instead. Patricide merely means the
killing of an Irishman--any Irishman, male or female.

Respectfully,
J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL.
N. J. BURTON.
J. H. TWICHELL.

CLXVII. NOTES AND LITERARY MATTERS

Clemens' note-books of this time are full of the vexations of his
business ventures, figures, suggestions, and a hundred imagined
combinations for betterment--these things intermingled with the usual
bits of philosophy and reflections, and amusing reminders.

Aldrich's man who painted the fat toads red, and naturalist chasing
and trying to catch them.

Man who lost his false teeth over Brooklyn Bridge when he was on his
way to propose to a widow.

One believes St. Simon and Benvenuto and partly believes the
Margravine of Bayreuth. There are things in the confession of
Rousseau which one must believe.

What is biography? Unadorned romance. What is romance? Adorned
biography. Adorn it less and it will be better than it is.

If God is what people say there can be none in the universe so
unhappy as he; for he sees unceasingly myriads of his creatures
suffering unspeakable miseries, and, besides this, foresees all they
are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might
well say "as unhappy as God."

In spite of the financial complexities and the drain of the enterprises
already in hand he did not fail to conceive others. He was deeply
interested in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress at the moment, and fro