e twice
a day to see if I need any service. He is invaluable. There was a
military lecture last night at the Officers' Mess Prospect; as the
lecturer honored me with a special urgent invitation, and said he
wanted to lecture to me particularly, I naturally took Helen and her
mother into the private carriage and went.

As soon as we landed at the door with the crowd the Governor came to
me& was very cordial. I "met up" with that charming Colonel Chapman
[we had known him on the previous visit] and other officers of the
regiment & had a good time.

A few days later he wrote:

Thanks for your letter & for its contenting news of the situation in
that foreign & far-off & vaguely remembered country where you &
Loomis & Lark and other beloved friends are.

I had a letter from Clara this morning. She is solicitous & wants
me well & watchfully taken care of. My, my, she ought to see Helen
& her parents & Claude administer that trust. Also she says, "I
hope to hear from you or Mr. Paine very soon."

I am writing her & I know you will respond to your part of her
prayer. She is pretty desolate now after Jean's emancipation--the
only kindness that God ever did that poor, unoffending child in all
her hard life.

Send Clara a copy of Howells's gorgeous letter.

The "gorgeous letter" mentioned was an appreciation of his recent Bazar
article, "The Turning-Point in My Life," and here follows:

January 18, 1910.

DEAR CLEMENS,--While your wonderful words are warm in my mind yet I
want to tell you what you know already: that you never wrote
anything greater, finer, than that turning-point paper of yours.

I shall feel it honor enough if they put on my tombstone "He was
born in the same century and general section of Middle Western
country with Dr. S. L. Clemens, Oxon., and had his degree three
years before him through a mistake of the University."

I hope you are worse. You will never be riper for a purely
intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a
worn-out material body on top of your soul.

Yours ever,
W. D. HOWELLS.

On the margin of this letter Clemens had written:

I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day
is good to keep, ain't it, Paine?

January 24th he wrote again of his contentment