in any way played him false you were anathema and
maranatha forever. Yet not forever, perhaps, for by and-by, after years,
he would be silent. There were two men, half a generation apart in their
succession, whom he thought equally atrocious in their treason to him,
and of whom he used to talk terrifyingly, even after they were out of the
world. He went farther than Heine, who said that he forgave his enemies,
but not till they were dead. Clemens did not forgive his dead enemies;
their death seemed to deepen their crimes, like a base evasion, or a
cowardly attempt to escape; he pursued them to the grave; he would like
to dig them up and take vengeance upon their clay. So he said, but no
doubt he would not have hurt them if he had had them living before him.
He was generous without stint; he trusted without measure, but where his
generosity was abused, or his trust betrayed, he was a fire of vengeance,
a consuming flame of suspicion that no sprinkling of cool patience from
others could quench; it had to burn itself out. He was eagerly and
lavishly hospitable, but if a man seemed willing to batten on him, or in
any way to lie down upon him, Clemens despised him unutterably. In his
frenzies of resentment or suspicion he would not, and doubtless could
not, listen to reason. But if between the paroxysms he were confronted
with the facts he would own them, no matter how much they told against
him. At one period he fancied that a certain newspaper was hounding him
with biting censure and poisonous paragraphs, and he was filling himself
up with wrath to be duly discharged on the editor's head. Later, he
wrote me with a humorous joy in his mistake that Warner had advised him
to have the paper watched for these injuries. He had done so, and how
many mentions of him did I reckon he had found in three months? Just
two, and they were rather indifferent than unfriendly. So the paper was
acquitted, and the editor's life was spared. The wretch never knew how
near he was to losing it, with incredible preliminaries of obloquy, and a
subsequent devotion to lasting infamy.

His memory for favors was as good as for injuries, and he liked to return
your friendliness with as loud a band of music as could be bought or
bribed for the occasion. All that you had to do was to signify that you
wanted his help. When my father was consul at Toronto during Arthur's
administration, he fancied that his place was in danger, and he appealed
to me. In turn