"The vast majority of readers here regard him," said Mr. Sydney
Brooks in 1907, "to a degree in which they regard no other living
writer, as their personal friend, and love him for his tenderness, his
masculinity, his unfailing wholesomeness even more than for his humour."
To all who love and admire Mark Twain, these words in which he was
welcomed to England in 1907 should stand as a symbol of that racial
bond, that _entente cordiale_ of blood and heart, which he did so much
to strengthen and secure. "A compliment paid to Mark Twain is something
more than a compliment to a great man, a great writer, and a great
citizen. It is a compliment to the American people, and one that will
come home to them with peculiar gratification. . . . The feeling for
Mark Twain among his own people is like that of the Scotch for Sir
Walter eighty odd years ago, or like that of our fathers for Charles
Dickens. There is admiration in it, gratitude, pride, and, above all,
an immense and intimate tenderness of affection.
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