t to inspiration?

Their plans did not avail. Both Howells and Clemens went to New Haven to
receive their honors.

When they had returned, Howells wrote formally, as became the new rank:

DEAR SIR,--I have long been an admirer of your complete works,
several of which I have read, and I am with you shoulder to shoulder
in the cause of foreign missions. I would respectfully request a
personal interview, and if you will appoint some day and hour most
inconvenient to you I will call at your baronial hall. I cannot
doubt, from the account of your courtesy given me by the Twelve
Apostles, who once visited you in your Hartford home and were
mistaken for a syndicate of lightning-rod men, that our meeting will
be mutually agreeable.

Yours truly,
W. D. HOWELLS.
DR. CLEMENS.

CCXVII. MARK TWAIN IN POLITICS

There was a campaign for the mayoralty of New York City that fall, with
Seth Low on the Fusion ticket against Edward M. Shepard as the Tammany
candidate. Mark Twain entered the arena to try to defeat Tammany Hall.
He wrote and he spoke in favor of clean city government and police
reform. He was savagely in earnest and openly denounced the clan of
Croker, individually and collectively. He joined a society called 'The
Acorns'; and on the 17th of October, at a dinner given by the order
at the Waldorf-Astoria, delivered a fierce arraignment, in which he
characterized Croker as the Warren Hastings of New York. His speech
was really a set of extracts from Edmund Burke's great impeachment of
Hastings, substituting always the name of Croker, and paralleling his
career with that of the ancient boss of the East India Company.

It was not a humorous speech. It was too denunciatory for that. It
probably contained less comic phrasing than any former effort. There is
hardly even a suggestion of humor from beginning to end. It concluded
with this paraphrase of Burke's impeachment:

I impeach Richard Croker of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach
him in the name of the people, whose trust he has betrayed.

I impeach him in the name of all the people of America, whose
national character he has dishonored.

I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of
justice which he has violated.

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has
cruelly outraged, injured, and oppresse