Hence it is that his humour, in its earlier form, does not
lend itself readily to quotation. His early humour is not epigrammatic,
but cumulative and extensive. Each scene is a unit and must appear as
such. Andrew Lang not inaptly catches the note of Mark Twain's earlier
manner, when he speaks of his "almost Mephistophelean coolness, an
unwearying search after the comic sides of serious subjects, after the
mean possibilities of the sublime--these with a native sense of
incongruities and a glorious vein of exaggeration."
Mark Twain began his career as a wag; he rejoiced in being a fun-maker.
He discarded the weird spellings and crude punning of his American
forerunners; his object was not play upon words, but play upon ideas.
He offered his public, as Frank R. Stockton pointed out, the pure ore of
fun. "If he puts his private mark on it, it will pass current; it does
not require the mint stamp of the schools of humour. He is never
afraid of being laughed at." Indeed, that is a large part of his
stock-in-trade; for throughout his entire career, nothing seemed to give
him so much pleasure--though it is one of the lowest forms of humour--as
making fun of himself.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113