the greatest strain of Mr. Twain in his outreaching for oddity. It stands on one of the finest avenues and sites in the city, and looks as if put there to snub the neighboring aristocracy. It is built of brick, which material enters into its composition in every possible position. The red parallelograms stand end-wise, side-wise, corner-wise, projecting here, depressed there, and ornamented nowhere. It is a small brick-kiln gone crazy, the outside ginger breaded with woodwork, as a baker sugar-ornaments the top and side[s] of a fruit loaf. Of the several tall brick chimneys, no two are alike, and a good strong gale would be apt to topple them. The house has evidently followed the Irish general’s command of “front to the rear,” and although the position puts a beautiful grove in the front, it leaves the kitchen with its barn wall and no windows only a couple of yards from the street. Years hence, if the building still stands, then the passer by will account for its facing toward the street by saying that the road must have been laid out after the house was built. There is positively no style, unless it is “conglomeration,” or that which architects have been trying to invent the last year as purely American architecture. (“Mark Twain’s House,” Elmira Advertiser, 30 Jan 74, reprinting the Titusville Herald of unknown date)