A writer in the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, not many years since, as
follows: “There have been moments in the lives of various kind hearted
and respectable citizens of California and Nevada, when, if Mark Twain
were up before them as members of a vigilance committee for any mild
crime, such as mule stealing or arson, it is to be feared his shrift
would have been short. What a dramatic picture the idea conjures up,
to be sure! Mark, before those honest men, infuriated by his practical
jokes, trying to show them what an innocent creature he was when it
came to mules, or how the only policy of fire insurance he held had
lapsed, and how void of guile he was in any direction, and all with
that inimitable drawl, that perplexed countenance, and the peculiar
scraping back of the left foot, like a boy speaking his first piece at
school. It is but fair to say that the fun Mark mixed up for citizens
in those days, was not altogether appreciated in the midst of it, for
some one, touched too sharply, _surge bat amari aliquid_, and Mark
had another denouncer joined to the wounded throng.... He is keenly
sensitive to sympathy or criticism, and relates, as one of the most
harrowing experiences of his life, a six hours’ ride across England,
his fellow traveler an Englishman, who, shortly after they started,
drew forth the first volume of the English edition of Innocents Abroad
from his pocket, and calmly perused it from beginning to end without
a smile. Then he drew forth the second volume and read it as solemnly
as the first. Mark says he thought he should die, yet John Bull was
probably enjoying it after his own undemonstrative style.”
In another instance the same writer says of Mark Twain: “This literary
wag has performed some services which entitle him to the gratitude
of his generation. He has run the traditional Sunday-school book boy
through his literary mangle and turned him out washed and ironed
into a proper state of flatness and collapse. That whining, canting,
early-dying anæmic creature was the nauseating model held up to
the full-blooded mischievous lads of by-gone years as worthy their
imitation. He poured his religious hypocrisy over every honest pleasure
a boy had. He whined his lachrymose warnings on every playground. He
vexed their lives. So, when Mark grew old enough he went gunning for
him, and lo, wherever his soul may be, the skin of the strumous young
pietist is now neatly tacked up to view on the Sunday-school door of
to-day as a warning, and the lads of to-day see no particular charm in
a priggish, hydropathical existence.”
Samuel Langhorne Clemens is in the high tide of his success. He is
yet a young man, as far as the literary life goes. Outside of his book
making, he has given the fun-loving public some admirable things in the
way of wit and humor through the pages of the leading magazines. The
originality of his writings in the past is retained in his work of the
present, and he gives promise of many original things in the future.
He has a liking for the monotonous labor of literary work, his health
is as yet unimpaired, he has been fortunate in love and in financial
affairs, is consequently happy, and will yet give to the world of
letters many quaint, bright, and original ideas. Artemus Ward and Mark
Twain are without a doubt the two leading humorists of the present
century. While we have the Artemus that was, we possess the Mark that
is. He leads the van of humorists who eke out an existence in the
present. He is the prince of funny men. Long live the prince.