I was never willing to destroy 'Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.' Now and then, in the past thirty years, I have overhauled my literary stock and transferred some of it to the fire, but 'Stormfield's Visit' always escaped. I am obliged to suspect that the hand of Providence was in it. Secretly & privately I liked it. I couldn't help it.
- Autobiographical dictation, 30 Aug 1906; Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013)