P. S.—­Nov, 4.  I wish I could learn to remember that it is unjust and dishonorable to put blame upon the human race for any of its acts.  For it did not make itself, it did not make its nature, it is merely a machine, it is moved wholly by outside influences, it has no hand in creating the outside influences nor in choosing which of them it will welcome or reject, its performance is wholly automatic, it has no more mastership nor authority over its mind than it has over its stomach, which receives material from the outside and does as it pleases with it, indifferent to it’s proprietor’s suggestions, even, let alone his commands; wherefore, whatever the machine does—­so called crimes and infamies included—­is the personal act of its Maker, and He, solely, is responsible.  I wish I could learn to pity the human race instead of censuring it and laughing at it; and I could, if the outside influences of old habit were not so strong upon my machine.  It vexes me to catch myself praising the clean private citizen Roosevelt, and blaming the soiled President Roosevelt, when I know that neither praise nor blame is due to him for any thought or word or deed of his, he being merely a helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the hand of God.

Through a misunderstanding, Clemens, something more than a year earlier, had severed his connection with the Players’ Club, of which he had been one of the charter members.  Now, upon his return to New York, a number of his friends joined in an invitation to him to return.  It was not exactly a letter they sent, but a bit of an old Scotch song—­

“To Mark Twain
from
The Clansmen. 
Will ye no come back again,
Will ye no come back again? 
Better lo’ed ye canna be. 
Will ye no come back again?”

Those who signed it were David Monroe, of the North American Review; Robert Reid, the painter, and about thirty others of the Round Table Group, so called because its members were accustomed to lunching at a large round table in a bay window of the Player dining-room.  Mark Twain’s reply was prompt and heartfelt.  He wrote: 

To Robt.  Reid and the Others: 

Well-beloved,—­Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charley’s heart, if he had one, and certainly they have gone to mine.  I shall be glad and proud to come back again after such a moving and beautiful compliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long.  I hope you can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate.  It will be many months before I can foregather with you, for this black border is not perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes the loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship.

It is not necessary for me to thank you—­and words could not deliver what I feel, anyway.  I will put the contents of your envelope in the small casket where I keep the things which have become sacred to me.