MARK TWAIN ON TITLES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13429, 21 March 1907, Page 3

MARK TWAIN ON TITLES.

There are some very characteristic passages in Mark Twain's " Chapters From My Autobiography," now being published in the "North American Review." He discusses The Coming American Monarchy in his most caustic style : — "Human nature being what it is, I suppose we must expect to drift into monarchy by-and-bye. It is a saddening thought, but we cannot change our nature ; we are all alike, we human beings, and in our blood and bone, and ineradicable, we carry the seeds out of which monarchies and aristocracies are grown ; worship of gauds, titles, distinctions, power. . . We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or wo are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. ''In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter. Sometimes we get a good man, and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyway, whether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or merely a basket of noble, and sacred and long descended offal. And when we get him the whole nation publicly chaffs and scoffs — and privately envies; and also is proud of the honour which has been conferred upon us. We run over our list of titled purchases every now and then in the newspapers, and discuss {hem and caress them, and are thankful and happy. "Jn a monarchy the people willingly and Rejoicingly revere and take pride in their nobilities, and are not humiliated by the reflection that this humbled

and bparty homage gets "no return but contempt. Contempt does not shame them, they are used to it, and they recognise that it is their proper due. We are all made like that. In Europe we easily and quickly learn to take that attitude towards the sovereigns and aristocracies ; moreover, it has been observed that when we get the attitude we go on and exaggerate it, presently becoming more servile than the natives, and vainer of it. The next step is to rail and scoff at republics and democracies. All of which is natural, for we have not ceased to be human beings by becoming Americans, and the human race was always intended to be governed by kingship, not by popular vote. "I suppftse we must expect that unavoidable and irresistible circumstances will gradually take away the powers of the States and concentrate them in the Central Government, and that the Republic will then repeat the history of all time and become a monarchy; but I believe that if we obstruct these encroachments, and steadily resist them, the monarchy can be postponed for a good while yet."