old South, ere it leaped and hardened to the new.

To these, love and honor. But to this man honor's crown of honor, for he
has made a mark none of the others has reached. Few of them have
diversified the delights to be drawn from their pages of humor. They
have, as humorists, in distinction to the work of moralists, novelists,
orators and poets, in which the rarest among them shine, they have as
humorists, in the main, worked a single vein. And some of them were
humorists for a purpose, a dreary grind that, and some of them were only
humorists for a period as well as for a purpose. The purpose served, the
period passed, the humor that was of their life a thing apart, ceased.
'Tis Clemens' whole existence! [Applause.]

As Bacon made all learning his province, so Mark Twain has made all life
and history his quarry, from the Jumping Frog to the Yankee at Arthur's
Court; from the inquested petrifaction that died of protracted exposure
to the present parliament of Austria; from the Grave of Adam to the
mysteries of the Adamless Eden known as the league of professional
women; from Mulberry Sellers to Joan of Arc, and from Edward the Sixth
to Puddin'head Wilson, who wanted to kill his half of the deathless dog.

Nevada is forgiven its decay because he flashed the oddities of its
zenith life on pages that endure. California is worth more than its
gold, because he showed to men the heart under its swagger. He annexed
the Sandwich Islands to the fun of the nation long before they were put
under its flag. Because of him the Missouri and the Mississippi go not
unvexed to the sea, for they ripple with laughter as they recall Tom
Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, poor Jim, and the Duke. Europe, Asia Minor,
and Palestine are open doors to the world, thanks to this Pilgrim's
Progress with his "Innocents Abroad." Purity, piety and pity shine out
from "Prince and Pauper" like the eyes of a wondering deer on a
torch-lighted night from a wooded fringe of mountain and of lake.

But enough of what I fear is already too much. In expressing my debt to
him, I hope I express somewhat at least of yours. I cannot repay him in
kind any more than I could rival him. None of us can. But we can render
to him a return he would like. With him we can get our way to reality,
and burn off pretence as acid eats its way to the denuded plate of the
engraver. We can strip the veneer of convention from style, and
strengthen our thought in his Anglo-Saxon well of Engl