Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/64

 in the 'Moniteur': I read of a deputy named Monge, the same whom Napoleon in his Saint Helena talks pronounced a most lovable character, so kind-hearted that he would never eat any fowl if he had to kill it first. Yet in the Convention, in the midst of the mob of his fellows, this same Monge vociferated for unlimited bloodshed, for 'war to the knife.' He had caught the contagion and, intoxicated with bloodthirstiness, acted the madman.

"'I love my children,' he cried, 'but if the Convention decrees war on the enemies of the Republic, I will give my two daughters to the first two of our countrymen wounded in battle.' Would he have said that seated quietly at his fireside? Certainly not. It was the mob that was talking through his mouth."

Mark returned to the subject on another occasion. He said:

"You know I have always been a great admirer of Dickens, and his 'Tale of Two Cities' I read at least every two years. Dickens witnessed my first holding hands with Livy when I took her to one of his lectures in New York. Now that I have finished 'The Two Cities' for the 'steenth time, I have come to this conclusion:

"Terror is an efficacious agent only when it doesn't last. In the long run there is more terror in threats than in execution, for when you get used to terror your emotions get 60