NOTEBOOK

In the first place God made idiots. This was for prac-
tice. Then he made proofreaders.

Proofreaders could stir Mark Twain to very
high flights of wrath. Once to his business part-
ner, Webster (his nephew by marriage) he
wrote:

Charley, your proofreader is an idiot; net only an
idiot, but blind, and not only blind, but partly dead.

Some of the spacing—most of it, in fact—is absolutely
disgraceful, but this goddamned ass never sees it. By Gcd
he can't see anything; he is blind and dead and rotten,
and ought to be thrown into the sewer.

Jan. 15, 1894. This is a great date in my history—a
date which I said on the 5th would see Paige strike his
colors. A telegram from Stone says he has dene it. Yes-
terday we were paupers with but three months' rations
of cash left and £160,000 in debt, my wife and I, but this
telegram makes us wealthy.

In all the 40 notebooks there is not a more
tragic entry than that.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things
but one—keep from telling their happiness to the un-
happy.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all
growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect
love is until they have been married a quarter of a
century.

Today, Jan. 19, sent cable at noon to Livy—"Xearing

2 P.M. Jan. 31—Mr. Rogers' office. The great Paige
Compositor scheme consummated. At 2 P.M. I cabled