It was American in these fine qualities.This was at Mr.Lecky's.He is Irish, you know.Last night it was Irish again, at Lady Gregory's.Lord Roberts is Irish; and Sir William Butler; and Kitchener, I think; and a disproportion of the other prominent Generals are of Irish and Scotch breed-keeping up the traditions of Wellington, and Sir Colin Campbell of the Mutiny.You will have noticed that in S.A.as in the Mutiny, it is usually the Irish and the Scotch that are placed in the fore-front of the battle.An Irish friend of mine says this is because the Kelts are idealists, and enthusiasts, with age-old heroisms to emulate and keep bright before the world; but that the low-class Englishman is dull and without ideals, fighting bull-doggishly while he has a leader, but losing his head and going to pieces when his leader falls--not so with the Kelt.
Sir Wm.Butler said "the Kelt is the spear-head of the British lance."Love to you all.
MARK.
The Henry Robinson mentioned in the foregoing letter was Henry C.
Robinson, one-time Governor of Connecticut, long a dear and intimate friend of the Clemens household."Lecky" was W.E.H.Lecky, the Irish historian whose History of European Morals had been, for many years, one of Mark Twain's favorite books:
In July the Clemenses left the small apartment at 30 Wellington Court and established a summer household a little way out of London, at Dollis Hill.To-day the place has been given to the public under the name of Gladstone Park, so called for the reason that in an earlier time Gladstone had frequently visited there.It was a beautiful spot, a place of green grass and spreading oaks.In a letter in which Mrs.Clemens wrote to her sister she said: "It is simply divinely beautiful and peaceful; the great, old trees are beyond everything.I believe nowhere in the world do you find such trees as in England." Clemens wrote to Twichell: "From the house you can see little but spacious stretches of hay-fields and green turf.....Yet the massed, brick blocks of London are reachable in three minutes on a horse.By rail we can be in the heart of London, in Baker Street, in seventeen minutes--by a smart train in five."Mail, however, would seem to have been less prompt.
To the Editor of the Times, in London:
SIR,--It has often been claimed that the London postal service was swifter than that of New York, and I have always believed that the claim was justified.But a doubt has lately sprung up in my mind.I live eight miles from Printing House Square; the Times leaves that point at 4o'clock in the morning, by mail, and reaches me at 5 in the afternoon, thus ****** the trip in thirteen hours.
It is my conviction that in New York we should do it in eleven.
C.
DOLLIS HILL, N.W.
To Rev.J.H.Twichell, in Hartford:
DOLLIS HILL HOUSE, KILBURN, N.W.
LONDON, Aug.12, '00.
DEAR JOE,--The Sages Prof.Fiske and Brander Matthews were out here to tea a week ago and it was a breath of American air to see them.We furnished them a bright day and comfortable weather--and they used it all up, in their extravagant American way.Since then we have sat by coal fires, evenings.
We shall sail for home sometime in October, but shall winter in New York where we can have an osteopath of good repute to continue the work of putting this family in proper condition.
Livy and I dined with the Chief justice a month ago and he was as well-conditioned as an athlete.
It is all China, now, and my sympathies are with the Chinese.They have been villainously dealt with by the sceptred thieves of Europe, and Ihope they will drive all the foreigners out and keep them out for good.
I only wish it; of course I don't really expect it.
Why, hang it, it occurs to me that by the time we reach New York you Twichells will be invading Europe and once more we shall miss the connection.This is thoroughly exasperating.Aren't we ever going to meet again?
With no end of love from all of us, MARK.
P.S.Aug.18.
DEAR JOE,--It is 7.30 a.m.I have been waking very early, lately.If it occurs once more, it will be habit; then I will submit and adopt it.
This is our day of mourning.It is four years since Susy died; it is five years and a month that I saw her alive for the last time-throwing kisses at us from the railway platform when we started West around the world.
Sometimes it is a century; sometimes it was yesterday.
With love MARK.