ver employed any of the reforms in his letters or
writing. His interest was mainly theoretical, and when he wrote or spoke
on the subject his remarks were not likely to be testimonials in its
favor. His own theory was that the alphabet needed reform, first of all,
so that each letter or character should have one sound, and one sound
only; and he offered as a solution of this an adaptation of shorthand.
He wrote and dictated in favor of this idea to the end of his life. Once
he said:

"Our alphabet is pure insanity. It can hardly spell any large word in
the English language with any degree of certainty. Its sillinesses are
quite beyond enumeration. English orthography may need reforming and
simplifying, but the English alphabet needs it a good many times as
much."

He would naturally favor simplicity in anything. I remember him reading,
as an example of beautiful English, The Death of King Arthur, by Sir
Thomas Malory, and his verdict:

"That is one of the most beautiful things ever written in English, and
written when we had no vocabulary."

"A vocabulary, then, is sometimes a handicap?"

"It is indeed."

Still I think it was never a handicap with him, but rather the plumage
of flight. Sometimes, when just the right word did not come, he would
turn his head a little at different angles, as if looking about him for
the precise term. He would find it directly, and it was invariably the
word needed. Most writers employ, now and again, phrases that do not
sharply present the idea--that blur the picture like a poor opera-glass.
Mark Twain's English always focused exactly.

CCXLVIII. "WHAT IS MAN?" AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Clemens decided to publish anonymously, or, rather, to print privately,
the Gospel, which he had written in Vienna some eight years before and
added to from time to time. He arranged with Frank Doubleday to take
charge of the matter, and the De Vinne Press was engaged to do the
work. The book was copyrighted in the name of J. W. Bothwell, the
superintendent of the De Vinne company, and two hundred and fifty
numbered copies were printed on hand-made paper, to be gradually
distributed to intimate friends.--[In an introductory word (dated
February, 1905) the author states that the studies for these papers had
been made twenty-five or twenty-seven years before. He probably referred
to the Monday Evening Club essay, "What Is Happiness?" (February,
1883). See chap. cxli.]--A number of the books were