"When are you coming to America?"
he was asked.

"When the tariff on art is removed."

The Copley Society asked his aid in making up their exhibition in
Boston. He refused, saying:

"God bless me! Why should you hold an exhibition of pictures in
America? The people do not care for art!"

"How do you know? You have not been there for many years."

"How do I know? Why, haven't you a law to keep out pictures and
statues? Is it not in black and white that the works of the great
masters must not enter America, that they are not wanted? A people
that tolerate such a law have no love for art; their protestation is
mere pretense."

* * * * *

Asked by a lady if a certain picture in a gallery was not indecent, he
replied:

"No, madam. But your question is!"

Mark Twain visited the studio and, assuming an air of hopeless
stupidity, approached a nearly completed painting and said: