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 it as highly
as any one can, and am grateful for it, but I should stand in a sort of
terror of the honors themselves. So long as we remain alive we are not
safe from doing things which, however righteously and honorably intended,
can wreck our repute and extinguish our friendships.

I hope that no society will be named for me while I am still alive, for I
might at some time or other do something which would cause its members to
regret having done me that honor. After I shall have joined the dead I
shall follow the custom of those people, and be guilty of no conduct that
can wound any friend; but until that time shall come I shall be a
doubtful quantity, like the rest of our race.

The committee, still hoping for his consent, again appealed to him. But
again he wrote:

While I am deeply touched by the desire of my friends of Hannibal to
confer these great honors upon me I must still forbear to accept them.
Spontaneous and unpremeditated honors, like those which came to me at
Hannibal, Columbia, St. Louis, and at the village stations all down the
line, are beyond all price and are a treasure for life in the memory, for
they are a free gift out of the heart a