V
MARK TWAIN
During the last twenty years, a profound change has taken place in theattitude of the reading public toward Mark Twain. I can remember verywell when he was regarded merely as a humorist, and one opened his bookswith an anticipatory grin. Very few supposed that he belonged toliterature; and a complete, uniform edition of his _Works_ would perhapshave been received with something of the mockery that greeted BenJonson's folio in 1616. Professor Richardson's _American Literature_,which is still a standard work, appeared originally in 1886. My copy,which bears the date 1892, contains only two references in the index toMark Twain, while Mr. Cable, for example, receives ten; and the wholevolume fills exactly nine hundred and ninety pages. Looking up one ofthe two references, we find the following opinion:--
"But there is a class of writers, authors ranking below Irving or Lowell, and lacking the higher artistic or moral purpose of the greater humorists, who amuse a generation and then pass from sight. Every period demands a new manner of jest, after the current fashion.... The reigning favourites of the day are Frank R. Stockton, Joel Chandler Harris, the various newspaper jokers, and 'Mark Twain.' But the creators of 'Pomona' and 'Rudder Grange,' of 'Uncle Remus and his Folk-lore Stories,' and 'Innocents Abroad,' clever as they are, must make hay while the sun shines. Twenty years hence, unless they chance to enshrine their wit in some higher literary achievement, their unknown successors will be the privileged comedians of the republic. Humour alone never gives its masters a place in literature; it must coexist with literary qualities, and must usually be joined with such pathos as one finds in Lamb, Hood, Irving, or Holmes."
It is interesting to remember that before this pronouncement waspublished, _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ had been read bythousands. Professor Richardson continued: "Two or three divisions ofAmerican humour deserve somewhat more respectful treatment," and heproceeds to give a full page to Petroleum V. Nasby, another page toArtemus Ward, and two and one-half pages to Josh Billings, while MarkTwain had received less than four lines. After stating that, in the caseof authors like Mark Twain, "temporary amusement, not literary product,is the thing sought and given," Professor Richardson announces that thedepartment of fiction will be considered later. In this "department,"Mark Twain is not mentioned at all, although Julian Hawthorne receivesover three pages!
I have quoted Professor Richardson at length, because he is a deservedlyhigh authority, and well represents an attitude toward Mark Twain thatwas common all during the eighties. Another college professor, who isto-day one of the best living American critics, says, in his _InitialStudies in American Letters_ (1895), "Though it would be ridiculous tomaintain that either of these writers [Artemus Ward and Mark Twain]takes rank with Lowell and Holmes, ... still it will not do to ignorethem as mere buffoons, or even to predict that their humours will soonbe forgotten." There is no allusion in his book to _Tom Sawyer_ or_Huckleberry Finn_, nor does the critic seem to regard their creator asin any sense a novelist. Still another writer, in a passing allusion toMark Twain, says, "Only a very small portion of his writing has anyplace as literature."
Literary opinions change as time progresses; and no one could haveobserved the remarkable demonstration at the seventieth birthday of ourgreat national humorist without feeling that most of his contemporariesregarded him, not as their peer, but as their Chief. Without wishing tomake any invidious comparisons, I cannot refrain from commenting on thestatement that it would be "ridiculous" to maintain that Mark Twaintakes rank with Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is, of course, absolutelyimpossible to predict the future; the only real test of the value of abook is Time. Who now reads Cowley? Time has laughed at so manycontemporary judgements that it would be foolhardy to make positiveassertions about literary stock quotations one hundred years from now.Still, guesses are not prohibited; and I think it not unlikely that thename of Mark Twain will outlast the name of Holmes. American Literaturewould surely be the poorer if the great Boston Brahmin had not enlivenedit with his rich humour, his lambent wit, and his sincere pathos; butthe whole content of his work seems slighter than the big American proseepics of the man of our day.
Indeed, it seems to me that Mark Twain is our foremost living Americanwriter. He has not the subtlety of Henry James or the wonderful charm ofMr. Howells; he could not have written _Daisy Miller_, or _A ModernInstance_, or _Indian Summer_, or _The Kentons_--books which exhibitliterary quality of an exceedingly high order. I have read them over andover again, with constantly increasing profit and delight. I wish thatMr. Howells might live for ever, and give to every generation the pureintellectual joy that he has given to ours. But the natural endowment ofMark Twain is still greater. Mr. Howells has made the most of himself;God has done it all for Mark Twain. If there be a living American writertouched with true genius, whose books glow with the divine fire, it ishe. He has always been a conscientious artist; but no amount of industrycould ever have produced a _Huckleberry Finn_.
When I was a child at the West Middle Grammar School of Hartford, on onememorable April day, Mark Twain addressed the graduating-class. I wasthirteen years old, but I have found it impossible to forget what hesaid. The subject of his "remarks" was Methuselah. He informed us thatMethuselah lived to the ripe old age of nine hundred and sixty-nine. Buthe might as well have lived to be several thousand--nothing happened.The speaker told us that we should all live longer than Methuselah.Fifty years of Europe are better than a cycle of Cathay, and twentyyears of modern American life are longer and richer in content than theold patriarch's thousand. Ours will be the true age in which to live,when more will happen in a day than in a year of the flat existence ofour ancestors. I cannot remember his words; but what a fine thing it isto hear a speech, and carry away an idea!
I have since observed that this idea runs through much of his literarywork. His philosophy of life underlies his broadest burlesque--for _AConnecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ is simply an exposure of the"good old times." Mark Twain believes in the Present, in human progress.Too often do we apprehend the Middle Ages through the glowing pages ofSpenser and Walter Scott; we see only glittering processions of ladiesdead and lovely knights. Mark Twain shows us the wretched condition ofthe common people, their utter ignorance and degradation, the coarsenessand immorality of technical chivalry, the cruel and unscrupulousecclesiastical tyranny, and the capricious insolence of the barons. Onemay regret that he has reversed the dynamics in so glorious a book asMalory's _Morte d'Arthur_, but, through all the buffoonery and roaringmirth with which the knights in armour are buried, the artistic andmoral purpose of the satirist is clear. If I understand him rightly, hewould have us believe that _our_ age, not theirs, is the "good time";nay, ours is the age of magic and wonder. We need not regret inmelancholy sentimentality the picturesqueness of bygone days, for weourselves live, not in a material and commonplace generation, but in thevery midst of miracles and romance. Merlin and the Fay Morgana wouldhave given all their petty skill to have been able to use a telephone ora phonograph, or to see a moving picture. The sleeping princess and hercastle were awakened by a kiss; but in the twentieth century a man inWashington touches a button, and hundreds of miles away tons ofmachinery begin to move, fountains begin to play, and the air resoundswith the whir of wheels. In comparison with to-day, the age of chivalryseems dull and poor. Even in chivalry itself our author is more knightlythan Lancelot; for was there ever a more truly chivalrous performancethan Mark Twain's essay on Harriet Shelley, or his literary monument toJoan of Arc? In these earnest pages, our national humorist appears asthe true knight.
Mark Twain's humour is purely American. It is not the humour ofWashington Irving, which resembles that of Addison and Thackeray; it isnot delicate and indirect. It is genial, sometimes outrageous,mirth--laughter holding both his sides. I have found it difficult toread him in a library or on a street-car, for explosions of pent-upmirth or a distorted face are apt to attract unpleasant attention insuch p
ublic places. Mark Twain's humour is boisterous, uproarious,colossal, overwhelming. As has often been remarked, the Americans arenot naturally a gay people, like the French; nor are we light-heartedand careless, like the Irish and the Negro. At heart, we are intenselyserious, nervous, melancholy. For humour, therefore, we naturally turnto buffoonery and burlesque, as a reaction against the strain andtension of life. Our attitude is something like that of the lonelyauthor of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, who used to lean over theparapet of Magdalen Bridge, and shake with mirth at the obscene jokes ofthe bargemen. We like Mark Twain's humour, not because we are frivolous,but because we are just the reverse. I have never known a frivolousperson who really enjoyed or appreciated Mark Twain.
The essence of Mark Twain's humour is Incongruity. The jumping frog isnamed Daniel Webster; and, indeed, the intense gravity of a frog's face,with the droop at the corners of the mouth, might well be envied by manyan American Senator. When the shotted frog vainly attempted to leave theearth, he shrugged his shoulders "like a Frenchman." Bilgewater and theDolphin on the raft are grotesquely incongruous figures. The rescuing ofJim from his prison cell is full of the most incongruous ideas, hiscommon-sense attitude toward the whole transaction contrasting strangelywith that of the romantic Tom. Along with the constant incongruity goesthe element of surprise--which Professor Beers has well pointed out.When one begins a sentence, in an apparently serious discussion, onenever knows how it will end. In discussing the peace that accompaniesreligious faith, Mark Twain says that he has often been impressedwith the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.Exaggeration--deliberate, enormous hyperbole--is another feature.Rudyard Kipling, who has been profoundly influenced by Mark Twain, andhas learned much from him, often employs the same device, as in_Brugglesmith_. Irreverence is also a noteworthy quality. In histravel-books, we are given the attitude of the typical AmericanPhilistine toward the wonders and sacred relics of the Old World, thewhole thing being a gigantic burlesque on the sentimental guide-bookswhich were so much in vogue before the era of Baedeker. With suchcontinuous fun and mirth, satire and burlesque, it is no wonder thatMark Twain should not always be at his best. He is doubtless sometimesflat, sometimes coarse, as all humorists since Rabelais have been. Thewonder is that his level has been so high. I remember, just before theappearance of _Following the Equator_, I had been told that Mark Twain'sinspiration was finally gone, and that he could not be funny if hetried. To test this, I opened the new book, and this is what I found onthe first page:--
"We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humour is out of place in a dictionary."
Although Mark Twain has the great qualities of the true humorist--commonsense, human sympathy, and an accurate eye for proportion--he is muchmore than a humorist. His work shows high literary quality, the qualitythat appears in first-rate novels. He has shown himself to be a genuineartist. He has done something which many popular novelists have signallyfailed to accomplish--he has created real characters. His two wonderfulboys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, are wonderful in quite differentways. The creator of Tom exhibited remarkable observation; the creatorof Huck showed the divine touch of imagination. Tom is the Americanboy--he is "smart." In having his fence whitewashed, in controlling apool of Sabbath-school tickets at the precise psychological moment, hedisplays abundant promise of future success in business. Huck, on theother hand, is the child of nature, harmless, sincere, and crudelyimaginative. His reasonings with Jim about nature and God belong to thesame department of natural theology as that illustrated in Browning's_Caliban_. The night on the raft with Jim, when these two creatures lookaloft at the stars, and Jim reckons the moon _laid_ them, is a case inpoint.
"We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to _make_ so many. Jim said the moon could a _laid_ them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest."
Again, Mark Twain has so much dramatic power that, were his literarycareer beginning instead of closing, he might write for us the greatAmerican play that we are still awaiting. The story of the feud betweenthe Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons is thrillingly dramatic, and thetragic climax seizes the heart. The shooting of the drunken Boggs, thegathering of the mob, and its control by one masterful personality,belong essentially to true drama, and are written with power andinsight. The pathos of these scenes is never false, never mawkish oroverdone; it is the pathos of life itself. Mark Twain's extraordinaryskill in descriptive passages shows, not merely keen observation, butthe instinct for the specific word--the one word that is always betterthan any of its synonyms, for it makes the picture real--it creates theillusion, which is the essence of all literary art. The storm, forexample:--
"It was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed, because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a _h-wach_!--bum! bum! bumble-umble-umbum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit--and then _rip_ comes another flash and another sockdolager. The waves 'most washed me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or that and miss them."
_Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ are prose epics of American life.The former is one of those books--of which _The Pilgrim's Progress_,_Gulliver's Travels_, and _Robinson Crusoe_ are supreme examples--thatare read at different periods of one's life from very different pointsof view; so that it is not easy to say when one enjoys them themost--before one understands their real significance or after. Nearlyall healthy boys enjoy reading _Tom Sawyer_, because the intrinsicinterest of the story is so great, and the various adventures of thehero are portrayed with such gusto. Yet it is impossible to outgrow thebook. The eternal Boy is there, and one cannot appreciate the nature ofboyhood properly until one has ceased to be a boy. The othermasterpiece, _Huckleberry Finn_, is really not a child's book at all.Children devour it, but they do not digest it. It is a permanent pictureof a certain period of American history, and this picture is madecomplete, not so much by the striking portraits of individuals placed onthe huge canvas, as by the vital unity of the whole composition. If onewishes to know what life on the Mississippi really was, to know andunderstand the peculiar social conditions of that highly exciting time,one has merely to read through this powerful narrative, and a definite,coherent, vivid impression remains.
By those who have lived there, and whose minds are comparatively freefrom prejudice, Mark Twain's pictures of life in the South before thewar are regarded as, on the whole, nearer the truth than those suppliedby any other artist. One reason for this is the aim of the author; hewas not trying to support or to defend any particular theory--no, hisaim was purely and wholly artistic. In _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, a book by nomeans devoid of literary art, the red-hot indignation of the authorlargely nullified her evident desire to tell the truth. If one succeedsin telling the truth about anything whatever, one must have somethingmore than the _desire_ to tell the truth; one must know how to do it.False impressions do not always, probably do not commonly, come fro
mdeliberate liars. Mrs. Stowe's astonishing work is not really thehistory of slavery; it is the history of abolition sentiment. On theother hand, writers so graceful, talented, and clever as Mr. Page andMr. Hopkinson Smith do not always give us pictures that correctlyrepresent, except locally, the actual situation before the war; forthese gentlemen seem to have _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ in mind. Mark Twaingives us both points of view; he shows us the beautiful side ofslavery,--for it had a wonderfully beautiful, patriarchal side,--and healso shows us the horror of it. The living dread of the Negro that hewould be sold down the river, has never been more vividly representedthan when the poor woman in _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ sees the water swirlingagainst the snag, and realises that she is bound the wrong way. That onescene makes an indelible impression on the reader's mind, andcounteracts tons of polemics. The peculiar harmlessness of Jim isbeautiful to contemplate. Although he and Huck really own the raft, andhave taken all the risk, they obey implicitly the orders of the twotramps who call themselves Duke and King. Had that been a raft on theConnecticut River, and had Huck and Jim been Yankees, they would havesaid to the intruders, "Whose raft is this, anyway?"
Mark Twain may be trusted to tell the truth; for the eye of the borncaricature artist always sees the salient point. Caricatures often giveus a better idea of their object than a photograph; for the things thatare exaggerated, be it a large nose, or a long neck, are, after all,the things that differentiate this particular individual from the mass.Everybody remembers how Tweed was caught by one of Nast's cartoons.
Mark Twain is through and through American. If foreigners really wish toknow the American spirit, let them read Mark Twain. He is far moreAmerican than their favourite specimen, Walt Whitman. The essentiallyAmerican qualities of common sense, energy, enterprise, good-humour, andPhilistinism fairly shriek from his pages. He reveals us in ourlimitations, in our lack of appreciation of certain beautiful things,fully as well as he pictures us in coarser but more triumphant aspects.It is, of course, preposterous to say that Americans are totallydifferent from other humans; we have no monopoly of common sense andgood-humour, nor are we all hide-bound Philistines. But there issomething pronounced in the American character, and the books of MarkTwain reveal it. He has also more than once been a valuable andefficient champion. Without being an offensive and blatant Jingo, Ithink he is content to be an American.
Mark Twain is our great Democrat. Democracy is his political, social,and moral creed. His hatred of snobbery, affectation, and assumedsuperiority is total. His democracy has no limits; it is bottom-less andfar-reaching. Nothing seems really sacred to him except the sacredright of every individual to do exactly as he pleases; which means, ofcourse, that no one can interfere with another's right, for thendemocracy would be the privilege of a few, and would stultify itself.Not only does the spirit of democracy breathe out from all his greaterbooks, but it is shown in specific instances, such as _Travelling with aReformer_; and Mark Twain has more than once given testimony for hiscreed, without recourse to the pen.
At the head of all American novelists, living and dead, stands NathanielHawthorne, unapproached, possibly unapproachable. His fine and subtleart is an altogether different thing from the art of our mighty,democratic, national humorist. But Literature is wonderfully diverse inits content; and the historian of American Letters, in the far future,will probably find it impossible to omit the name of Mark Twain.