le subject. I am heart and soul in
any movement that will rescue the Congo and hang Leopold, but I cannot
write any more."

His fires were likely to burn themselves out, they raged so fiercely.
His final paragraph on the subject was a proposed epitaph for Leopold
when time should have claimed him. It ran:

Here under this gilded tomb lies rotting the body of one the smell
of whose name will still offend the nostrils of men ages upon ages
after all the Caesars and Washingtons & Napoleons shall have ceased
to be praised or blamed & been forgotten--Leopold of Belgium.

Clemens had not yet lost interest in the American policy in the
Philippines, and in his letters to Twichell he did not hesitate to
criticize the President's attitude in this and related matters. Once, in
a moment of irritation, he wrote:

DEAR JOE,--I knew I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the
President. If I could only find the words to define it with! Here
they are, to a hair--from Leonard Jerome:

"For twenty years I have loved Roosevelt the man, and hated
Roosevelt the statesman and politician."

It's mighty good. Every time in twenty-five years that I have met
Roosevelt the man a wave of welcome has streaked through me with the
hand-grip; but whenever (as a rule) I meet Roosevelt the statesman &
politician I find him destitute of morals & not respect-worthy. It
is plain that where his political self & party self are concerned he
has nothing resembling a conscience; that under those inspirations
he is naively indifferent to the restraints of duty & even unaware
of them; ready to kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever
it gets in his way....

But Roosevelt is excusable--I recognize it & (ought to) concede it.
We are all insane, each in his own way, & with insanity goes
irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to
keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman & politician, is insane &
irresponsible.

He wrote a great deal more from time to time on this subject; but
that is the gist of his conclusions, and whether justified by time, or
otherwise, it expresses today the deduction of a very large number
of people. It is set down here, because it is a part of Mark Twain's
history, and also because a little while after his death there happened
to creep into print an incomplete and misleading note (since often
reprinted),