Albert Bigelow Paine

“ He was absent six weeks, and no attentions that England had ever paid him before could compare with her lavish welcome during this visit. His reception was really national. He was banqueted by the greatest clubs of London, he was received with special favor at the King's garden party, he traveled by a royal train, crowds gathering everywhere to see him pass. At Oxford when he appeared on the street the name Mark Twain ran up and down like a cry of fire, and the people came running. ”

“ ON my return I found Mark Twain elated: he had been invited to England to receive the degree of Literary Doctor from the Oxford University. It is the highest scholastic honorary degree; and to come back, as I had, from following the early wanderings of the barefoot truant of Hannibal, only to find him about to be officially knighted by the world's most venerable institution of learning, seemed rather the most surprising chapter even of his marvelous fairy-tale. If Tom Sawyer had owned the magic wand, he hardly could have produced anything as startling as that. ”

“ Perhaps the most distinguished social honor paid to Mark Twain at this time was the dinner given him by the staff of London Punch, in the historic Punch editorial rooms on Bouverie Street. No other foreigner had ever been invited to that sacred board, where Thackeray had sat, and Douglas Jerrold and others of the great departed. ”