iginal intention (or motif) is apt to get abolished and
find itself superseded by a quite different one. It was so in the case
of a magazine sketch which I once started to write--a funny and fantastic
sketch about a prince and a pauper; it presently assumed a grave cast of
its own accord, and in that new shape spread itself out into a book. Much
the same thing happened with PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. I had a sufficiently
hard time with that tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a
tragedy while I was going along with it--a most embarrassing
circumstance. But what was a great deal worse was, that it was not one
story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and
interrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and
annoyance. I could not offer the book for publication, for I was afraid
it would unseat the reader's reason, I did not know what was the matter
with it, for I had not noticed, as yet, that it was two stories in one.
It took me months to make that discovery. I carried the manuscript back
and forth across the Atlantic two or three times, and read it and studied
over it on shipboard; and at last I saw where the difficulty lay. I had
no further trouble. I pulled one of the stories out by the roots, and
left the other--a kind of literary Caesarean operation.

Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled
out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist
works; won't he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him
how the jackleg does it?

Originally the story was called THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS. I meant to
make it very short. I had seen a picture of a youthful Italian
"freak"--or "freaks"--which was--or which were--on exhibition in our
cities--a combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a
single body and a single pair of legs--and I thought I would write an
extravagantly fantastic little story with this freak of nature for
hero--or heroes--a silly young miss for heroine, and two old ladies and
two boys for the minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people and
their doings, of course. But the take kept spreading along and spreading
along, and other people got to intruding themselves and taking up more
and more room with their talk and their affairs. Among them came a
stranger named Pudd'nhead Wilson, and woman named Roxana; and presently
the doings of these two pushed up into prominence a young fello