Nine years ago I mapped out my "Journey in Heaven." I discussed it with

literary friends whom I could trust to keep it to themselves.

I gave it a deal of thought, from time to time. After a year or more

I wrote it up. It was not a success. Five years ago I wrote it again,

altering the plan. That MS is at my elbow now. It was a considerable

improvement on the first attempt, but still it wouldn't do--last year

and year before I talked frequently with Howells about the subject, and

he kept urging me to do it again.

So I thought and thought, at odd moments and at last I struck what I

considered to be the right plan! Mind I have never altered the ideas,

from the first--the plan was the difficulty. When Howells was here last,

I laid before him the whole story without referring to my MS and he

said: "You have got it sure this time. But drop the idea of making mere

magazine stuff of it. Don't waste it. Print it by itself--publish it

first in England--ask Dean Stanley to endorse it, which will draw some

of the teeth of the religious press, and then reprint in America." I

doubt my ability to get Dean Stanley to do anything of the sort, but I

shall do the rest--and this is all a secret which you must not divulge.

Now look here--I have tried, all these years, to think of some way of

"doing" hell too--and have always had to give it up. Hell, in my book,

will not occupy five pages of MS I judge--it will be only covert hints,

I suppose, and quickly dropped, I may end by not even referring to it.

463

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete