Mark Twain,
The American Claimant — Chapter XXIII
(1892)
“ Tracy was reading her face; and what he read there lifted his drooping hopes a little."An earl's son to do that! Why, he were a man! A man to love!—oh, more, a man to worship!""Why, I—?""But he never lived! He is not born, he will not be born. The self-abnegation that could do that—even in utter folly, and hopeless of conveying benefit to any, beyond the mere example—could be mistaken for greatness; why, it would be greatness in this cold age of sordid ideals! ”
