Indeed, we are reserved, and particular in America to a degree which you
would consider exaggerated. For instance, we should not write notes like
that one of yours to a lady for a small fault--or a large one.--[When M.
Paul Bourget indulges in a little chaffing at the expense of the
Americans, "who can always get away with a few years' trying to find out
who their grandfathers were,"] he merely makes an allusion to an American
foible; but, forsooth, what a kind man, what a humorist Mark Twain is
when he retorts by calling France a nation of bastards! How the
Americans of culture and refinement will admire him for thus speaking in
their name!

Snobbery . . . . I could give Mark Twain an example of the American
specimen. It is a piquant story. I never published it because I feared
my readers might think that I was giving them a typical illustration of
American character instead of a rare exception.

I was once booked by my manager to give a causerie in the drawing-room of
a New York millionaire. I accepted with reluctance. I do not like
private engagements. At five o'clock on the day the causerie was to be
given, the lady sent to my manager to say that she would expect me to
arrive at nine o'clock and to speak for about an hour. Then she wrote a
postscript. Many women are unfortunate there. Their minds are full of
after-thoughts, and the most important part of their letters is generally
to be found after their signature. This lady's P. S. ran thus: "I
suppose he will not expect to be entertained after the lecture."

I fairly shorted, as Mark Twain would say, and then, indulging myself in
a bit of snobbishness, I was back at her as quick as a flash:

"Dear Madam: As a literary man of some reputation, I have many times had