Kings,observes Twain ,are more of a dangerous luxury.He had propounded that in the place of Kings,the world must enthrone a royal family of cats.." As a rule,the character of these cats would be considerably above the character of the average king....It would be noticed that they hanged nobody,beheaded nobody,imprisoned nobody,inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort,and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human monarch...The eyes of the whole harried world would soon be fixed upon this humane and gentle system,and royal butchers would begin to disappear".
Twain was at ease with peaceful rulers.What he abhorred & detested was the royal butchers .He called them as ill-behaved and dictatorial children of human family,dissatisfied with the slice of earth that has been allotted to them,clamouring for more than their share-and even more and more.
Mark Twain was no appeaser or a coward.On the contrary,when the Civil war broke out,he enlisted in the federal army and served until he was honourably discharged.He was not afraid of an honest fight,but he had a horror of dishonest brigandage.In the history of human race,he said that "there were so many types of war, but never a war started by an aggressor for any clean purpose-there is so such war in the history of the race."
Twain hated the HATRED.At times this feeling within him became so intense that,as he asserted," I have to take the pen and put my thoughts out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside".His one serious excursion into open rebellion-when he attempted to clean up the politics of San Francisco-had cleaned him out of a job and a home.Thereafter, he decided that " it doesn't pay to swim against the tide".He had found that in order to be successful,you must attach yourself to those who are in power.
He was ashamed of his enormous and uncritical public-and he was ashamed of himself because he hadn't the courage to write for a smaller and more exacting audience.
A printer's apprentice,a pilot on a Mississippi steamboat,an unsuccessful prospector in Nevada and an obscure reporter in San Francisco,suddenly found himself an extremely wealthy author.
( Next-Selling Laughter for Gold)
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