“I can't blame you; I would say it myself in your place, if these ladies were not present. But you see I'm only obeying orders, I can't help myself.”
“Oh, I know it; I'm not blaming you. Finally, what does that L stand for?”
“Get the money, or give him L. It's English, you know.”
“Take it and go. It's the last cent I've got in the world—.”
After seeing the Oxford pageant file by the grand stand, picture after picture, splendor after splendor, three thousand five hundred strong, the most moving and beautiful and impressive and historically-instructive show conceivable, you are not to think I would miss the London pageant of next year, with its shining host of 15,000 historical English men and women dug from the misty books of all the vanished ages and marching in the light of the sun—all alive, and looking just as they were used to look! Mr. Lascelles spent yesterday here on the farm, and told me all about it. I shall be in the middle of my 75th year then, and interested in pageants for personal and prospective reasons.
I beg you to give my best thanks to the Bath Club for the offer of its hospitalities, but I shall not be able to take advantage of it, because I am to be a guest in a private house during my stay in London.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
It was in 1907 that Clemens had seen the Oxford Pageant—during the
week when he had been awarded his doctor's degree. It gave him the
greatest delight, and he fully expected to see the next one, planned
for 1910.
In the letter to Howells which follows we get another glimpse of
Mark Twain's philosophy of man, the irresponsible machine.
To W. D. Howells, in New York: