“I first saw her in the form of an ivory miniature in her brother’s stateroom in the steamer Quaker City in the Bay of Smryna, in the summer of 1867, when she was in her twenty-second year. I saw her in the flesh for the first time in New York in the following December. She was slender and beautiful and girlish—and she was both girl and woman. She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life. Under a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of sympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm and absolutely limitless affection. She was always frail in body and she lived upon her spirit, whose hopefulness and courage were indestructible.”—Mark Twain, Autobiography, posthumous     Letter to Olivia, January, 1870 Courtesy of The Mark Twain Project, Bancroft Library, Berkeley Real Audio: 56k “The Best Girl in all the World” E-Postcard:   Mark Twain on a cigar box		With brother Charles Clemens, 1868 Courtesy of The Mark Twain Project, Bancroft Library, Berkeley Olivia Clemens, 1867 Courtesy of The Mark Twain Museum, Hannibal