MARK TWAIN ABROAD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9642, 17 January 1903, Page 6 (Supplement)

MARK TWAIN ABROAD.

A few months ago a gentleman identiQed with a New York publishing house visited the Palace Vendramin Calergi m Venice. The library, With thousands of volumes, extends the full width of the Palace, and presents an imposing'artistic literary spectacle. The tiers of Italian and Latin volumes particularly^impressed bhe visitor. As h& scanned the shelves bis eyes rested on a famjliar script (says Woman's Herald for. Men). It was a vrolume, bound beautifully m red — and as lie read the title, emblazoned; thoughts of a first edition loomed upon the visitor's mind. ' • Such it proved to be, and blve title was "Life on. the Mississippi," by Mark Twain; As the- book appeared to be the only one m the entire library printed m English, the visitor, upon his return, took occasion to write, to the humorist willing Ms attention to this fact. Mark Twain's characteristic reply reads as follows : — ' "York Harbor, July 18.— Dear Biiy-I. thank you very much. That book is even more flatteringly /isolated than wa»s one a stranger wrote me about, years ago, from the Far' West. He said, 'm a 400---mile horseback ride through the' cattle domain I found but a solitary two books among the cowboys — "The Innocents Abroad" and the Bible.' And he added, 'The Bible was m good condition.'— Very truly yours, Mark Twain."