It is a characteristic expression.  Mark Twain might be first to grab for the life-preserver, but he would also be first to hand it to a humanity in greater need.  He could damn the human race competently, but in the final reckoning it was the interest of that race that lay closest to his heart.

Mention has been made in an earlier chapter of Clemens’s enthusiasms or “rages” for this thing and that which should benefit humankind.  He was seldom entirely without them.  Whether it was copyright legislation, the latest invention, or a new empiric practice, he rarely failed to have a burning interest in some anodyne that would provide physical or mental easement for his species.  Howells tells how once he was going to save the human race with accordion letter-files—­the system of order which would grow out of this useful device being of such nerve and labor saving proportions as to insure long life and happiness to all.  The fountain-pen, in its first imperfect form, must have come along about the same time, and Clemens was one of the very earliest authors to own one.  For a while it seemed that the world had known no greater boon since the invention of printing; but when it clogged and balked, or suddenly deluged his paper and spilled in his pocket, he flung it to the outer darkness.  After which, the stylo-graphic pen.  He tried one, and wrote severally to Dr. Brown, to Howells, and to Twichell, urging its adoption.  Even in a letter to Mrs. Howells he could not forget his new possession: 

And speaking of Howells, he ought to use the stylographic pen, the best fountain-pen yet invented; he ought to, but of course he won’t —­a blamed old sodden-headed conservative—­but you see yourself what a nice, clean, uniform Ms. it makes.

And at the same time to Twichell: 

I am writing with a stylographic pen.  It takes a royal amount of cussing to make the thing go the first few days or a week, but by that time the dullest ass gets the hang of the thing, and after that no enrichments of expression are required, and said ass finds the stylographic a genuine God’s blessing.  I carry one in each breeches pocket, and both loaded.  I’d give you one of them if I had you where I could teach you how to use it—­not otherwise.  For the average ass flings the thing out of the window in disgust the second day, believing it hath no virtue, no merit of any sort; whereas the lack lieth in himself, God of his mercy damn him.

It was not easy to withstand Mark Twain’s enthusiasm.  Howells, Twichell, and Dr. Brown were all presently struggling and swearing (figuratively) over their stylographic pens, trying to believe that salvation lay in their conquest.  But in the midst of one letter, at last, Howells broke down, seized his old steel weapon, and wrote savagely:  “No white man ought to use a stylographic pen, anyhow!” Then, with the more ancient implement, continued in a calmer spirit.