The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-10-30
\ IN AND HIS WIFE !
MARK TWA. - Chill.
An Ideal Life-Iartner-I
dren-An Infant AuthOre.


And now a.bOut the people | was as
to meet. | car hardly wait to tell you
what a lovely wife Mark Twain has. 1t
is a relief when we know genius TO
whom a whole continent is indebted TO
find that his wife is an ideal wife for
anv man. | cannot be treSpasslng on
sacred ground for does she not belong
to us2 when | tell you she is young and
pretty with black lustfOus eyes, and 81
Dcrvading air Of refinement and delicate
breeding that prOclaimS her, as she Is, to
he manner born! OF course Marx
Twain knew when he was a pilot on tho
Mississippi that it was but one of tho
vicisstudes of his varied career, as was
also his after experience i'll mining
cataps.- Doubtless he had an idea Of q
wife even then, which he found real
lied long afterwards in this attractive,
high breed girl of Elmira, N. Y
He follows Stuart Mill and many of
our own illustrious men iii saying that
no owes his success in life to his wife.
1t is delight to see her happy eyes
dance as merrily as any ones over tho
quaint speech and irresistible stories of
her husband And then their three
children, each one with so much indivi-
duality such gentle reproductions OF
their mother. They already write as;
naturally Athey talk. Notwithstanding
their freq mt letters and the kilograms
Mrs Clemens eagerly reads, nothing
could keep her long away from them
This visit is almost heE first separation
from them Mr. Clemens said MY
wife can trust Providence just about
forty-eight hours-no longer"
How can | tell you with what enjoy
ment we sat around the room, some
thrown carelessly on the wide lounges or
living on cushions and rugs before the
fire, all listening to Mr.. Clemens, whose
genial flow of characteristic speech,
unlike any one we ever heard,
would be resumed if we re-
belied at his pauses. He some
times smoked his rn-cob pipe,
for no one objects to tobacco at Care
away Cottage" while he walked about,
drawing out the best portralturC of all
classes and conditions of men. He re-
called scenes in the mining camps, or in
the Missouri town where his father as
sheriff reconstructed tho town, and his
mother as private executor of family law
administered the whippings at home.
His brother rarely did anything wrong,
but if he did the punishment was in
Gicted on the mischievOus member, as
the mother seemed to think nothing of
tho kind could come amiss with the elder
son.
There is no inclination To take and
keep the floor in Mark Twain. He
laughed as heartily and enjoyed as
eagerly the contributions of others in
the circle to the general conversation as
II he wero not the very quaintest, drOl-
est man in all our land.
l was especially amused at a little
},istery Of the elder child: The parents
discovered that she was secretly writing
o lifo Of her father; at night they stole
tho infantilc MSS, while the iilliputian
authoress slept. Mark Twain, with true
sense of fun from that on, posed before
his historian with reference to her
sizing him up i'll her manuscript; in one
Of The chapters they filched the next
night they found something like this: i
suspect father knows that [ am writing
iis life, for he acted to-day
as if he knew | was writing
about him, and then she went on to
write comments on her fathers habits,
something about her impression that
since her mother had known him thero
was n decided improvement in his Use Of
strong language. All this from grave
little wonan of perhaps 10 years seems
very droll, with his telling. g Mrs.
Elizabeth 3. Clusters Letter