Indeed, it may be doubted whether, were those works struck from the
catalogue of his contributions, Mark Twain could justly rank as a great
genius. To his association with the South and the Southwest are due
'Tom Sawyer', 'Huckleberry Finn', 'Pudd'nhead Wilson', and 'Life on the
Mississippi'. 'The Jumping Frog' and 'Roughing It' belong peculiarly to
the West, and even 'The Innocents Abroad' falls wholly within the period
of Mark Twain's influence by the West, its standards, outlook, and
localized viewpoint.
Colonel Mulberry Sellers is a veritably human type, the embodiment,
laughably lovable, of a temperamental phase of American character in the
course of the national development. But 'The Gilded Age' has long since
disappeared from that small but tremendously significant group of works
which are tentatively destined to rank as classics. Much as I enjoy the
satiric comedy of 'A Yankee in King Arthur's Court', I have always felt
that it set before Europe an American type which is neither elevating
nor inspiring--nor national.
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