politics is like a bottle of perfumery in a glue factory--it may modify
the stench, but it doesn't destroy it. I haven't said any more of him
than I would say of myself. Ladies and gentlemen, this is General
Hawley."

Mr. Chesterton maintains that Mark Twain was a wit rather than a
humorist--perhaps something more than a humorist. "Wit," he explains,
"requires an intellectual athleticism, because it is akin to logic. A
wit must have something of the same running, working, and staying power
as a mathematician or a metaphysician. Moreover, wit is a fighting
thing and a working thing. A man may enjoy humour all by himself; he
may see a joke when no one else sees it; he may see the point and avoid
it. But wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as
well as see it. All honest people saw the point of Mark Twain's wit.
Not a few dishonest people felt it." The epigram, "Be virtuous, and you
will be eccentric," has become a catchword; and everyone has heard Mark
Twain's reply to the reporter asking for advice as to what to cable his
paper, which had printed the statement that Mark Twain was dead "Say
that the statement is greatly exaggerated." He has admirably taken off
humanity's enduring self-conceit in the statement that there isn't a
Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the Equator if it had
had its rights. There is something peculiarly American in his warning
to young girls not to marry--that is, not to excess! His remarks on
compliments have a delightful and naive freshness. He points out how
embarrassing compliments always are. It is so difficult to take them
naturally. You never know what to say. He had received many
compliments in his lifetime, and they had always embarrassed him--he
always felt that they hadn't said enough!

The incident of Mark Twain's first meeting with Whistler is quaintly