Beginning hi his preface to the “Uniform Edition” of his works, Mark Twain wrote: “So far as I remember, I have never seen an Aut­hor‘s Preface which had any purpose but one—to fur­nish reasons for the publication of the book. Prefaces wear many disguises, call themselves by various na­mes, and pretend to come on various businesses, but I think that upon examination we are quite sure to find that their errand is always the same: they are there to apologize for the book in other words, furnish rea­sons for

“My beautiful n beautiful new watch had run eighteen mont­hs without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to

“All t the journeyings I had ever done had been pu­rely in the way of business. The pleasant May weat­her suggested a novelty namely, a trip for pure rec­reation, the bread-and-butter element left out. The Reverend said he would go, too a good man, one of the best of men, although a clergyman. By eleven at night we were in New Haven and on board the New York boat. We bought our tickets, and then went wandering around here and there, in the solid com­fort of being free and idle, and of putting distance betw

“Lakeside wa was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church ac­commodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where ever­ybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside—unconfessed, anyway everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a so­ciable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.”

Contents• The £1,000,000 Bank-note• Mental Telegraphy• A Cure for the Blues• The Enemy Conquered or, Love Triumphant• About all Kinds of Ships• Playing Courier• The German Chicago• A Petition to the Queen of England• A Majestic Literary Fossil

Contents1. The Private History Of A Campaign That Failed, 2. The Invalid‘S Story, 3. Luck, 4. The Captain‘S Story, 5. A Curious Experience, 6. Mrs. Mcwilliams And The Lightning, 7. Meisterschaft

“Well, w when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like a co­met. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there warn’t any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whe­reas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the He­reafter but I happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour or so, and then we ha

“I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like manner had it of HIS father— and so on, back and still back, three hundred  years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it. It may be history, it may be only ma legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it COULD have happened. It may  be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old days it may be that o

Contents 1. The Curıous Republıc Of Gondour 2. A Memory 3. Introductory To “Memoranda” 4. About Smells 5. A Couple Of Sad Experıences 6. Dan Murphy 7. The “TOURNAMENT” In A. D. 1870 8. Curıous Relıc For Sale 9. A Remınıscence Of The Back 10. Settlements 11. A Royal Complıment 12. The Approachıng Epıdemıc 13. The Tone-Impartıng Commıttee 14. Our Precıous Lunatıc 15. The European Wars—[From The Buffalo Express, 16. July 25, 1870.] 17. The Wıld Man Intervıewed—[From The Buffalo 18. Express, September 18, 1869.

“It was many y years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about. It had kept that reputation unsmirched during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its possessions. It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its perpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to its babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple of their culture thenceforward through all the years devoted to their education. Also, throu

Book I o I of this volume occupies a quarter or a third of the volume, and consists of matter writ­ten about four years ago, but not hitherto pub­lished in book form. It contained errors of ju­dgment and of fact. I have now corrected these to the best of my ability and later knowledge. Book II was written at the beginning of 1903, and has not until now appeared in any form. In it my purpose has been to present a character-portrait of Mrs. Eddy, drawn from her own acts and words solely, not from hearsay and

“A man who is n not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality. He knows these people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No—that is a thought which comes later in

“I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like manner had it of HIS father— and so on, back and still back, three hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it. It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it COULD have happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old days it may be that only

The Colonel Mulberry S Sellers here reintroduced to the public is the same person who appeared as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of the tale entitled “The Gilded Age,” years ago, and as Beriah Sellers in the subsequent editions of the same book, and final­ly as Mulberry Sellers in the drama played afterward by John T. Raymond. The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty deeps of uncharted space and preferred his requ­est—backed by threat of a

“He certainly was a good reader, and splendid­ly thrilling and stormy and tragic, but it was a da­mage to me, because I have never since been able to read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way. I cannot rid it of his explosive interlardings, they break in ever­ywhere with their irrelevant “What in hell are you up to now! pull her down! more! more! there now, steady as you go,” and the other disorganizing inter­ruptions that were always leaping from his mouth. When I read Shakespeare now, I can hear them as pla

I was feeling blithe, almost jocund. I put a match to my cigar, and just then the morning’s mail was han­ded in. The first superscription I glanced at was in a handwriting that sent a thrill of pleasure through and through me. It was Aunt Mary’s and she was the per­son I loved and honored most in all the world, outside of my own household. She had been my boyhood’s idol maturity, which is fatal to so many enchantments, had not been able to dislodge her from her pedestal no, it had only justified her righ

Every one has read the treaty w which has just been concluded between the United States and China. Everyone has read it, but in it there are expressions which not every one understands. There are clauses which seem vague, other clauses which seem almost unnecessary, and still others which bear the flavor of “surplusage,” to speak in legal phrase. The most careful reading of the document will leave these impressions—that is, unless one comprehends the past and present condition of foreign in­tercourse with C

“Throws do down pamphlets which he has been reading. Excitedly combs his flowing spread of whiskers with his fingers pounds the table with his fists lets off brisk vol­leys of unsanctified language at brief intervals, repen­tantly drooping his head, between volleys, and kissing the Louis XI crucifix hanging from his neck, accompanying the kisses with mumbled apologies presently rises, flus­hed and perspiring, and walks the floor, gesticulating.”

“The good American who hired me to go to his country is to pay me $12 a month, which is immense wages, you know twenty times as much as one gets in China. My passage in the ship is a very large sum in­deed, it is a fortune and this I must pay myself even­tually, but I am allowed ample time to make it good to my employer in, he advancing it now. For a mere form, I have turned over my wife, my boy, and my two daughters to my employer’s partner for security for the payment of the ship fare. But my employer say

“Extending the B the Blessings of Civilization to our Brother who Sits in Darkness has been a good trade and has paid well, on the whole and there is money in it yet, if ca­refully worked but not enough, in my judgment, to make any considerable risk advisable. The People that Sit in Darkness are getting to be too scarce too scarce and too shy. And such darkness as is now left is really of but an indifferent quality, and not dark enough for the game. The most of those People that Sit in Darkness have been f