who get no compliments like that feel like that. He went off. He did not
issue any applause of any kind, and I did not hear of that subject for
some time. But when Mr. Darwin passed away from this life, and some time
after Darwin's Life and Letters came out, the Rev. Mr. Twichell procured
an early copy of that work and found something in it which he considered
applied to me. He came over to my house--it was snowing, raining,
sleeting, but that did not make any difference to Twichell. He produced
the book, and turned over and over, until he came to a certain place,
when he said: "Here, look at this letter from Mr. Darwin to Sir Joseph
Hooker." What Mr. Darwin said--I give you the idea and not the very
words--was this: I do not know whether I ought to have devoted my whole
life to these drudgeries in natural history and the other sciences or
not, for while I may have gained in one way I have lost in another. Once
I had a fine perception and appreciation of high literature, but in me
that quality is atrophied. "That was the reason," said Mr. Twichell, "he
was reading your books."

Mr. Birrell has touched lightly--very lightly, but in not an
uncomplimentary way--on my position in this world as a moralist. I am
glad to have that recognition, too, because I have suffered since I have
been in this town; in the first place, right away, when I came here,
from a newsman going around with a great red, highly displayed placard
in the place of an apron. He was selling newspapers, and there were two
sentences on that placard which would have been all right if they had
been punctuated; but they ran those two sentences together without a
comma or anything, and that would naturally create a wrong impression,
because it said, "Mark Twain arrives Ascot Cup stolen." No doubt many a
person was misled by those sentences joined together in that unkind way.
I have no doubt my character has suffered from it. I suppose I ought
to defend my character, but how can I defend it? I can say here and
now--and anybody can see by my face that I am sincere, that I speak the
truth--that I have never seen that Cup. I have not got the Cup--I did
not have a chance to get it. I have always had a good character in that
way. I have hardly ever stolen anything, and if I did steal anything
I had discretion enough to know about the value of it first. I do not
steal things that are likely to get myself into trouble. I do not
think any of us do that. I know we all ta