How gratifying it is to feel that we have a man among us who understands the rarity of plain truth, and who delights to utter it, and has the gift of doing so without cant, and with not too much seriousness. The principals of the primal human drama, our biblical parents of Eden, play a considerable part in Mark Twain’s imaginative writings. He wrote “Diaries” of both Adam and Eve, that of the latter being among his choicest works. He was generally planning something that would include one or both of the traditional ancestors, and results of this tendency express themselves in the present volume. Satan, likewise, the picturesque angel of rebellion and defeat, the Satan of _Paradise Lost_, made a strong appeal and in no less than three of the articles which follow the prince of error variously appears. For the most part these inventions offer an aspect of humor; but again the figure of the outcast angel is presented to us in an attitude of sorrowful kinship with the great human tragedy. ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE A MEMORABLE MIDNIGHT EXPERIENCE (1872) “Come along--and hurry. Few people have got originality enough to think of the expedition I have been planning, and still fewer could carry it out, maybe, even if they _did_ think of it. Hurry, now. Cab at the door.” It was past eleven o’clock and I was just going to bed. But this friend of mine was as reliable as he was eccentric, and so there was not a doubt in my mind that his “expedition” had merit in it. I put on my coat and boots again, and we drove away. “Where is it? Where are we going?” “Don’t worry. You’ll see.”