and I'd like
cussed well to write an article opposing the treaty.

It is a characteristic expression. Mark Twain might be first to grab for
the life-preserver, but he would also be first to hand it to a humanity
in greater need. He could damn the human race competently, but in the
final reckoning it was the interest of that race that lay closest to his
heart.

Mention has been made in an earlier chapter of Clemens's enthusiasms or
"rages" for this thing and that which should benefit humankind. He was
seldom entirely without them. Whether it was copyright legislation, the
latest invention, or a new empiric practice, he rarely failed to have a
burning interest in some anodyne that would provide physical or mental
easement for his species. Howells tells how once he was going to save
the human race with accordion letter-files--the system of order which
would grow out of this useful device being of such nerve and labor
saving proportions as to insure long life and happiness to all. The
fountain-pen, in its first imperfect form, must have come along about
the same time, and Clemens was one of the very earliest authors to own
one. For a while it seemed that the world had known no greater boon
since the invention of printing; but when it clogged and balked, or
suddenly deluged his paper and spilled in his pocket, he flung it to the
outer darkness. After which, the stylo-graphic pen. He tried one, and
wrote severally to Dr. Brown, to Howells, and to Twichell, urging its
adoption. Even in a letter to Mrs. Howells he could not forget his new
possession:

And speaking of Howells, he ought to use the stylographic pen, the
best fountain-pen yet invented; he ought to, but of course he won't
--a blamed old sodden-headed conservative--but you see yourself what
a nice, clean, uniform MS. it makes.

And at the same time to Twichell:

I am writing with a stylographic pen. It takes a royal amount of
cussing to make the thing go the first few days or a week, but by
that time the dullest ass gets the hang of the thing, and after that
no enrichments of expression are required, and said ass finds the
stylographic a genuine God's blessing. I carry one in each breeches
pocket, and both loaded. I'd give you one of them if I had you
where I could teach you how to use it--not otherwise. For the
average ass flings the thing out of the window in disgust the second
day, believing it hath no