onstitution & laws of the club? I shall be so glad
if I may.

It was just one of his many fancies, and most of the active memberships
would not long be maintained; though some continued faithful in their
reports, as he did in his replies, to the end.

One of the more fantastic of his conceptions was a plan to advertise for
ante-mortem obituaries of himself--in order, as he said, that he might
look them over and enjoy them and make certain corrections in the matter
of detail. Some of them he thought might be appropriate to read from the
platform.

I will correct them--not the facts, but the verdicts--striking out
such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the other
side, and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character.

He was much taken with the new idea, and his request for such
obituaries, with an offer of a prize for the best--a portrait of himself
drawn by his own hand--really appeared in Harper's Weekly later in
the year. Naturally he got a shower of responses--serious, playful,
burlesque. Some of them were quite worth while.

The obvious "Death loves a shining Mark" was of course numerously
duplicated, and some varied it "Death loves an Easy Mark," and there was
"Mark, the perfect man."

The two that follow gave him especial pleasure.

OBITUARY FOR "MARK TWAIN"

Worthy of his portrait, a place on his monument, as well as a place
among his "perennial-consolation heirlooms":

"Got up; washed; went to bed."

The subject's own words (see Innocents Abroad). Can't go back on
your own words, Mark Twain. There's nothing "to strike out";
nothing "to replace." What more could be said of any one?

"Got up!"--Think of the fullness of meaning! The possibilities of
life, its achievements--physical, intellectual, spiritual. Got up
to the top!--the climax of human aspiration on earth!

"Washed"--Every whit clean; purified--body, soul, thoughts,
purposes.

"Went to bed"--Work all done--to rest, to sleep. The culmination of
the day well spent!

God looks after the awakening.

Mrs. S. A. OREN-HAYNES.

Mark Twain was the only man who ever lived, so far as we know, whose
lies were so innocent, and withal so helpful, as to make them worth
more than a whole lot of fossilized priests' eternal truths.

D. H. KENNER.

CCXIX. YACH