It proclaims Mark Twain not
only as a supreme artist, but also as eminently and distinctively a
moralist.
It is impossible to think of Mark Twain in his maturer development as
other than a moralist. My personal acquaintance with Mr. Clemens
convinced me--had I needed to be convinced--that in his later years he
had striven to grapple nobly with many of the deeper issues of life,
character and morality, public, religious and social, as well as
personal and private. I never knew anyone who thought so "straight,"
or who expressed himself with such simple directness upon questions
affecting religion and conduct. He was absolutely fearless in his
condemnation of those subsidized "ministers" of the Gospel in
cosmopolitan centres, who, through self-interest, cut their moral
disquisitions to fit the predilections of their wealthy parishioners,
many of whom were under national condemnation as "malefactors of great
wealth." Animated by love for all creatures, the defenceless wild
animal as well as the domestic pet, he was unsparing in his indictment
of those big-game hunters who shamelessly described their feelings of
savage exultation when some poor animal served as the target for their
skill, and staggered off wounded unto death.
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