proud
and vain. The weak point in their armour was disclosed so soon as he
discovered how carefully and vigilantly they kept themselves and their
children out of temptation. For he well knew that the weakest of all
weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire. The
familiar distinction between innocence and virtue springs to mind. And
it is worthy of consideration that Nietzsche, and Shaw after him, both
point out that virtue consists, not in resisting evil, but in not
desiring it! 'The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg' is a masterpiece,
eminently worthy of the genius of a Swift. It proclaims Mark Twain not
only as a supreme artist, but also as eminently and distinctively a
moralist.

It is impossible to think of Mark Twain in his maturer development as
other than a moralist. My personal acquaintance with Mr. Clemens
convinced me--had I needed to be convinced--that in his later years he
had striven to grapple nobly with many of the deeper issues of life,
character and morality, public, religious and social, as well as
personal and private. I never knew anyone who thought so "straight,"
or who expressed himself with such simple directness upon questions
affecting religion and conduct. He was absolutely fearless in his
condemnation of those subsidized "ministers" of the Gospel in
cosmopolitan centres, who, through self-interest, cut their moral
disquisitions to fit the predilections of their wealthy parishioners,
many of whom were under national condemnation as "malefactors of great
wealth." Animated by love for all creatures, the defenceless wild
animal as well as the domestic pet, he was unsparing in his indictment
of those big-game hunters who shamelessly described their feelings of
savage exultation when some poor animal served as the target for their
skill, and staggered off wounded unto death. His sympathy for the
natives of the Congo was profound and intense; and his philippic against
King Leopold for the atrocities he sanctioned called the attention of
the whole world to conditions that constituted a disgrace to modern
civilization. His diatribe against the Czar of Russia for his
inhumanity to the serfs was an equally convincing proof of his noble
determination to throw the whole weight of his influence in behalf of
suffering and oppressed humanity. Some years before his death, he told
me that he never intended to speak in public again save in behalf of
movements, humanitarian and uplift