eeply the
public heart, and a tide of letters flowed in, letters of every sort--of
sympathy, of love, or hearty endorsement, whatever his attitude of
reform.

When a writer in a New York newspaper said, "Let us go outside the
realm of practical politics next time in choosing our candidates for the
Presidency," and asked, "Who is our ablest and most conspicuous private
citizen?" another editorial writer, Joseph Hollister, replied that Mark
Twain was "the greatest man of his day in private life, and entitled to
the fullest measure of recognition."

But Clemens was without political ambitions. He knew the way of such
things too well. When Hollister sent him the editorial he replied only
with a word of thanks, and did not, even in jest, encourage that tiny
seed of a Presidential boom. One would like to publish many of the
beautiful letters received during this period, for they are beautiful,
most of them, however illiterate in form, however discouraging in
length--beautiful in that they overflow with the writers' sincerity and
gratitude.

So many of them came from children, usually without the hope of a reply,
some signed only with initials, that the writers might not be open to
the suspicion of being seekers for his autograph. Almost more than any
other reward, Mark Twain valued this love of the children.

A department in the St. Nicholas Magazine offered a prize for a
caricature drawing of some well-known man. There were one or two of
certain prominent politicians and capitalists, and there was literally
a wheelbarrow load of Mark Twain. When he was informed of this he wrote:
"No tribute could have pleased me more than that--the friendship of the
children."

Tributes came to him in many forms. In his native State it was proposed
to form a Mark Twain Association, with headquarters at Hannibal, with
the immediate purpose of having a week set apart at the St. Louis
World's Fair, to be called the Mark Twain week, with a special Mark
Twain day, on which a national literary convention would be held. But
when his consent was asked, and his co-operation invited, he wrote
characteristically:

It is indeed a high compliment which you offer me, in naming an
association after me and in proposing the setting apart of a Mark Twain
day at the great St. Louis Fair, but such compliments are not proper
for the living; they are proper and safe for the dead only. I value the
impulse which moves you to tender me these honors. I value