n;
also that on two occasions, when he had ventured diffidently to say that
he knew that author personally, he was at once so evidently regarded as
lying for effect that he felt guilty, and looked it, and did not venture
to say it any more; thus, in a manner, practising untruth to save his
reputation for veracity.

That the Mississippi book throughout did much to solidify this foreign
opinion of Mark Twain's literary importance cannot be doubted, and it is
one of his books that will live longest in the memory of men.

CXLIII. A GUEST OF ROYALTY

For purposes of copyright another trip to Canada was necessary, and when
the newspapers announced (May, 1883) that Mark Twain was about to cross
the border there came one morning the following telegram:

Meeting of Literary and Scientific Society at Ottawa from 22d to
26th. It would give me much pleasure if you could come and be my
guest during that time.

LORNE.

The Marquis of Lorne, then Governor-General of Canada, was the husband
of Queen Victoria's daughter, the Princess Louise. The invitation was
therefore in the nature of a command. Clemens obeyed it graciously
enough, and with a feeling of exaltation no doubt. He had been honored
by the noble and the great in many lands, but this was royalty--English
royalty--paying a tribute to an American writer whom neither the Marquis
nor the Princess, his wife, had ever seen. They had invited him because
they had cared enough for his books to make them wish to see him,
to have him as a guest in Rideau Hall, their home. Mark Twain was
democratic. A king to him was no more than any other man; rather less
if he were not a good king. But there was something national in this
tribute; and, besides, Lord Lorne and the Princess Louise were the kind
of sovereigns that honored their rank, instead of being honored by it.

It is a good deal like a fairy tale when you think of it; the barefooted
boy of Hannibal, who had become a printer, a pilot, a rough-handed
miner, being summoned, not so many years later, by royalty as one of
America's foremost men of letters. The honor was no greater than many
others he had received, certainly not greater than the calls of
Canon Kingsley and Robert Browning and Turgenieff at his London hotel
lodgings, but it was of a less usual kind.

Clemens enjoyed his visit. Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne kept
him with them almost continually, and wer