MARK TWAIN

They sell Circassian girls yet in Constantinople, but
the markets are private.

Aug. 25.—On our way back to Yalta to call on the
Emperor of Russia, who has telegraphed the Governor
General of Odessa concerning the matter, and the thing
is all right.

O, geeminy, what a stir there is! What a calling of
meetings! What an appointing of committees! What a
furbishing up of swallow-tail coats!

A committee was appointed to draft an address
to the Emperor. Mark Twain was elected chair-
man and instructed to prepare the address; which
here follows, as originally set down in his note-
book.

Your Imperial Majesty:

Wo are a handful of private citizens of America, travelling
simply for recreation, & unostentatiously, as becomes our un-
official state, & therefore we have no excuse to tender for pre-
senting ourselves before your Majesty, save the desire of offering
our grateful acknowledgments to the lord of a realm which,
through good & through evil report has been the fast friend of
the land we love so well.

We could not presume to take a step like this did we not
know well that the words we speak here, & sentiments wherewith
they are freighted, arc but the reflex of the thoughts & the feel-
ings of all our countrymen, from the green hills of New Eng-
land to the shores of the far Pacific. We are few in number, but
we utter the voice of a nation!

One of the brightest pages that has graced the world's history
since written history had birth, was recorded by your Majesty's
hand when it loosed the bonds of twenty million serfs; and

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