nd
his neck and tell him all, everything, & ease my heart!

CCXXXII. THE SAD JOURNEY HOME

A tidal wave of sympathy poured in. Noble and commoner, friend and
stranger--humanity of every station--sent their messages of condolence
to the friend of mankind. The cablegrams came first--bundles of them
from every corner of the world--then the letters, a steady inflow.
Howells, Twichell, Aldrich--those oldest friends who had themselves
learned the meaning of grief--spoke such few and futile words as the
language can supply to allay a heart's mourning, each recalling the
rarity and beauty of the life that had slipped away. Twichell and his
wife wrote:

DEAR, DEAR MARK,--There is nothing we can say. What is there to say?
But here we are--with you all every hour and every minute--filled with
unutterable thoughts; unutterable affection for the dead and for the
living. HARMONY AND JOE.

Howells in his letter said:

She hallowed what she touched far beyond priests.... What are you going
to do, you poor soul?

A hundred letters crowd in for expression here, but must be denied--not,
however, the beam of hope out of Helen Keller's illumined night:

Do try to reach through grief and feel the pressure of her hand, as
I reach through darkness and feel the smile on my friends' lips and
the light in their eyes though mine are closed.

They were adrift again without plans for the future. They would return
to America to lay Mrs. Clemens to rest by Susy and little Langdon, but
beyond that they could not see. Then they remembered a quiet spot in
Massachusetts, Tyringham, near Lee, where the Gilders lived, and so, on
June 7th, he wrote:

DEAR GILDER FAMILY,--I have been worrying and worrying to know what
to do; at last I went to the girls with an idea--to ask the Gilders
to get us shelter near their summer home. It was the first time
they have not shaken their heads. So to-morrow I will cable to you
and shall hope to be in time.

An hour ago the best heart that ever beat for me and mine was
carried silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and
has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands.
We are now trying to make plans--we: we who have never made a plan
before, nor ever needed to. If she could speak to us she would make
it all simple and easy with a word, & our perplexities would vanish
away. If she had know