Fairbanks' warning not to try their
endurance of the irreverent too far--that had a markedly salutary effect
upon Mark Twain's humorous writings. There can be no doubt that the
deep and lifelong friendship of Mr. Howells, expressing itself as
occasion demanded in the friendliest criticism, had a subduing influence
upon Mark Twain's tendency, as a humorist, to extravagance and headlong
exaggeration. In time he left the field of carpet-bag observation--the
humorous depicting of things seen from the rear of an observation car,
so to speak--and turned to fiction. Now at last the long pent-up flood
of observation upon human character and human characteristics found full
vent. 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn' are the romances of eternal
youth, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. They are freighted,
however, with a wealth of pungent and humorous characterization that
have made of them contemporary classics. From ethical sophistication
and moral truantry Mark Twain evolves an inexhaustible supply of humour.
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