They owe
nothing to European literature--their genius is supremely original,
native, democratic. The case of Mark Twain, which is our present
concern, is a literary phenomenon which imposes upon criticism,
peculiarly upon American criticism, the distinct obligation of tracing
the steps in his unhalting climb to an eminence that was international
in its character, and of defining those signal qualities, traits,
characteristics--individual, literary, social, racial, national--which
compassed his world-wide fame. For if it be true that the judgment of
foreign nations is virtually the judgment of posterity, then is Mark
Twain already a classic.
Upon the continent of Europe, Mark Twain first received notable
recognition in France at the hands of that brilliant woman, Mme. Blanc
(Th. Bentzon), who devoted so much of her energies to the popularization
of American literature in Europe. That one of her series of essays upon
the American humorists which dealt with Mark Twain appeared in the
'Revue des Deux Mondes' in 1872; in it appeared her admirable
translation of 'The Jumping Frog'.
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