It would break Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourself from all the friends that call—though, of course, only intimates come. Intimates—but they are not the old, old friends, the friends of the old, old times when we laughed. Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times & could put my arms around 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: