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VILLA DI QUARTO, FIRENZE, May 11, '04.
DEAR LADY STANLEY,--I have lost a dear and honored friend--how fast
they fall about me now, in my age! The world has lost a tried and proved
hero. And you--what have you lost? It is beyond estimate--we who know
you, and what he was to you, know that. How far he stretches across my
life! I knew him when his work was all before him five years before the
great day that he wrote his name far-away up on the blue of the sky for
the world to see and applaud and remember; I have known him as friend
and intimate ever since. It is 37 years. I have known no other friend
and intimate so long, except John Hay--a friendship which dates from the
same year and the same half of it, the first half of 1867. I grieve with
you and with your family, dear Lady Stanley, it is all I can do; but
that I do out of my heart. It would be we, instead of I, if Mrs. Clemens
knew, but in all these 20 months that she has lain a prisoner in her bed
we have hidden from her all things that could sadden her. Many a friend
is gone whom she still asks about and still thinks is living.
In deepest sympathy I beg the privilege of signing myself
Your friend,
S. L. CLEMENS.
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