That "disposition
for hard hitting with a moral purpose to sanction it," which George
Meredith pronounces the national disposition of British humour, is Mark
Twain's unmistakable hereditament. It is, perhaps, because he relates
us to our origins, as Mr. Brander Matthews has suggested, that Mark
Twain is the foremost of American humorists.
In the preface to the Jumping Frog, published as far back as 1867, Mark
Twain was dubbed, not only "the wild humorist of the Pacific slope," but
also "the moralist of the Main." The first book which brought him great
popularity, 'The Innocents Abroad', exhibited qualities of serious
ethical import which, while escaping the attention of the readers of
that day, emerge for the moderns from the welter of hilarious humour.
How unforgettable is his righteous indignation over that "benefit"
performance he witnessed in Italy!
The ingrained quality in Mark Twain, which perhaps more than any other
won the enthusiastic admiration of his fellow Americans, was this: he
always had the courage of his convictions.
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