as well as incidental wrongs.  I suppose she had her ladyhood limitations, her female fears of etiquette and convention, but she did not let them hamper the wild and splendid generosity with which Clemens rebelled against the social stupidities and cruelties.  She had been a lifelong invalid when he met her, and he liked to tell the beautiful story of their courtship to each new friend whom he found capable of feeling its beauty or worthy of hearing it.  Naturally, her father had hesitated to give her into the keeping of the young strange Westerner, who had risen up out of the unknown with his giant reputation of burlesque humorist, and demanded guaranties, demanded proofs.  “He asked me,” Clemens would say, “if I couldn’t give him the names of people who knew me in California, and when it was time to hear from them I heard from him.  ‘Well, Mr. Clemens,’ he said, ’nobody seems to have a very good word for you.’  I hadn’t referred him to people that I thought were going to whitewash me.  I thought it was all up with me, but I was disappointed.  ‘So I guess I shall have to back you myself.’”

Whether this made him faithfuler to the trust put in him I cannot say, but probably not; it was always in him to be faithful to any trust, and in proportion as a trust of his own was betrayed he was ruthlessly and implacably resentful.  But I wish now to speak of the happiness of that household in Hartford which responded so perfectly to the ideals of the mother when the three daughters, so lovely and so gifted, were yet little children.  There had been a boy, and “Yes, I killed him,” Clemens once said, with the unsparing self-blame in which he would wreak an unavailing regret.  He meant that he had taken the child out imprudently, and the child had taken the cold which he died of, but it was by no means certain this was through its father’s imprudence.  I never heard him speak of his son except that once, but no doubt in his deep heart his loss was irreparably present.  He was a very tender father and delighted in the minds of his children, but he was wise enough to leave their training altogether to the wisdom of their mother.  He left them to that in everything, keeping for himself the pleasure of teaching them little scenes of drama, learning languages with them, and leading them in singing.  They came to the table with their parents, and could have set him an example in behavior when, in moments of intense excitement, he used to leave his place and walk up and down the room, flying his napkin and talking and talking.

It was after his first English sojourn that I used to visit him, and he was then full of praise of everything English:  the English personal independence and public spirit, and hospitality, and truth.  He liked to tell stories in proof of their virtues, but he was not blind to the defects of their virtues:  their submissive acceptance of caste, their callousness with strangers; their bluntness with one another.  Mrs. Clemens had been in a way to suffer socially