NOTEBOOK

Egyptian chapter, and it is easy to see that he
could not take up Spain after writing of the land

. . . that built temples which mock at destroy-
ing time and smile grimly upon our lauded little
prodigies of architecture; that old land that knew
all which we know now, perchance, and more;
that walked in the broad highway of civilization
in the gray dawn of creation, ages and ages be-
fore we were born; that left the impress of ex-
alted, cultivated Mind upon the eternal front of
the Sphinx, to confound all scoffers who, when
all the other proofs had passed away, might seek
to persuade the world that imperial Egypt, in the
days of her high renown, had groped in dark-
ness.

Washington

Mark Twain returned to America to find him-
self scarcely less than famous. His Aha and
Tribune letters had been widely copied and were
universally known. Not many Americans had
traveled in those days, and they eagerly read
about ancient lands. They had even read the
sanctimonious drivel of certain doctors of theol-
ogy who had been sent abroad by their "flocks"
to see and report—what they carried with them,
rather than what they found in fact. Mark
Twain's letters had struck a new note. They had
the ring of sincerity, truth. They destroyed sham
where they found it, and they were sinfully read-
able. A big Hartford publisher wanted to make
a subscription book of them—the book which
would be named The Innocents Abroad, or the
New Pilgrim's Progress, and make his fame
secure.