Bob,

Having just finished _Who Is Mark Twain_? I must thank you for putting
together such a charming and entertaining book.  Judging from the scholarly
care you put into such things as bracketing your own editorial
interpolations, I reckon your Howells side wanted to do your work "according
to tradition, with . . . times, and topics carefully studied in due
 sequence" ( _My Mark Twain_, chap 4) in order to present a thesis to answer
the title question.  But I suspect that your Mark Twain side did to your
plans what Twain did to Howells's organization of _Mark Twain's Library of
Humor_, i.e., rearranged liberally with the reader's pleasure in mind.  I
admire your creativity as well as your care.

To paraphrase Howells on another occasion, I will not say, "edit forever,"
but "edit for as long as you like!"

_Ave_ (which is Latin for "He's a bully boy with a glass eye.")