I have been dictating some fearful things, for 4 successive mornings—for no eye but yours to see until I have been dead a century—if then. But I got them out of my system, where they had been festering for years—and that was the main thing. I feel better, now.
I came down today on business—from house to house in 12 1/2 hours, and expected to arrive dead, but am neither tired nor sleepy.
Yours as always
MARK.
To William Allen White, in Emporia, Kans.:
DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE,
June 24, 1906.
DEAR MR. WHITE,—Howells told me that “In Our Town” was a charming book, and indeed it is. All of it is delightful when read one's self, parts of it can score finely when subjected to the most exacting of tests—the reading aloud. Pages 197 and 216 are of that grade. I have tried them a couple of times on the family, and pages 212 and 216 are qualified to fetch any house of any country, caste or color, endowed with those riches which are denied to no nation on the planet—humor and feeling.
Talk again—the country is listening.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Witter Bynner, the poet, was one of the editors of McClure's
Magazine at this time, but was trying to muster the courage to give
up routine work for verse-making and the possibility of poverty.
Clemens was fond of Bynner and believed in his work. He did not
advise him, however, to break away entirely from a salaried
position—at least not immediately; but one day Bynner did so, and
reported the step he had taken, with some doubt as to the answer he
would receive.