Custom is custom; it is built of brass, boiler iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]
(Source)
Commenting on the eviction of Maxim Gorky from multiple hotels in New York City because the woman he was traveling with was not his wife. Twain was a supporter of Gorky's efforts to foment revolution in Tsarist Russia.
The essay was not published in Twain's lifetime. It's original publication was in the Slavonic and East European Review (1944-08), also edited by DeVoto.
