Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

TO MY MISSIONARY CRITICS

crepancies-it would not be Fight, it would not be
fair. I make the proper allowances. He has not
been a journalist, as I have been-a trade wherein
a person is brought to book by the rest of the
press so often for divergencies that, by and by,
he gets to be almost morbidly afraid to indulge
in them. It is so with me. I always have the disposition to tell what is not so; I was born with
it; we all have it. But I try not to do it now,
because I have found out that it is unsafe. But
with the Doctor of course it is different.
EXHIBIT G
I wanted to get at the whole of the facts as regards
the C. E. dispatch, and so I wrote to China for them,
when I found that the Board was not going to do it.
But I am not allowed to wait. It seemed quite
within the possibilities that a full detail of the facts
might furnish me a chance to make an apology to
Mr. Ament-a chance which, I give you my word, I
would have honestly used, and not abused. But it
is no matter. If the Board is not troubled about
the bulk of that lurid dispatch, why should I be?
I answered the apology-urging letters of several clergymen with the information that I had written to
China for the details, and said I thought it was the
only sure way of getting into a position to do fair
and full justice to all concerned; but a couple of
them replied that it was not a matter that could
wait. That is to say, groping your way out of a
jungle in the dark with guesses and conjectures is
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