"Mark Twain" is too well known to the public to require a formal
introduction at my hands. By his story of the Frog he scaled the heights
of popularity at a single jump and won for himself the 'sobriquet' of The
Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope. He is also known to fame as The
Moralist of the Main; and it is not unlikely that as such he will go down
to posterity. It is in his secondary character, as humorist, however,
rather than in the primal one of moralist, that I aim to present him in
the present volume. And here a ready explanation will be found for the
somewhat fragmentary character of many of these sketches; for it was
necessary to snatch threads of humor wherever they could be found--very
often detaching them from serious articles and moral essays with which
they were woven and entangled. Originally written for newspaper
publication, many of the articles referred to events of the day, the
interest of which has now passed away, and contained local allusions,
which the general reader would fail to understand; in such cases excision
became imperative. Further than this, remark or comment is unnecessary.
Mark Twain never resorts to tricks of spelling nor rhetorical buffoonery
for the purpose of provoking a laugh; the vein of his humor runs too rich
and deep to make surface gliding necessary. But there are few who can
resist the quaint similes, keen satire, and hard, good sense which form
the staple of his writing.
J. P.