shall be able to go further and say he did; they will then be the most

interesting features of my library's decorations. The Horse-shoe is

attracting a good deal of attention, because I have intimated that the

conqueror's horse cast it; it will attract more when I get my hand in

and say he cast it, I thank you for the pipes and the shoe; and also

for the official guide, which I read through at a single sitting. If a

person should say that about a book of mine I should regard it as good

evidence of the book's interest.

Very truly yours,

S. L. CLEMENS.

In his philosophy, What Is Man?, and now and again in his other

writings, we find Mark Twain giving small credit to the human mind

as an originator of ideas. The most original writer of his time, he

took no credit for pure invention and allowed none to others. The

mind, he declared, adapted, consciously or unconsciously; it did not

create. In a letter which follows he elucidates this doctrine. The

reference in it to the "captain" and to the kerosene, as the reader

may remember, have to do with Captain "Hurricane" Jones and his

theory of the miracles of "Isaac and of the prophets of Baal," as

expounded in Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion.

By a trick of memory Clemens gives The Little Duke as his suggestion

for The Prince and the Pauper; he should have written The Prince and

1207

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete