Twain didn't reserve his commentary just for his fellow citizens. Even by today's standards, he was an extraordinarily well-travelled man who visited more than thirty countries in his seventy-five years. His natural curiosity took him from a youthful level of infatuation with monarchy and royalty to a strong antipathy to what is "surely the grotesquest (sic) of all the swindles ever invented by man-monarchy."

His acerbic wit was especially reserved for Czar Alexander of Russia, and King Leopold of Belgium who presided over the deaths of an estimated ten million citizens of the Congo during a brutal colonial reign.

It would be interesting to get the great man's perception of today's political environment. Sadly, he probably would not be surprised and his comment about "man" could quite likely simply reference today's politics and politicians - "Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass."