The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-02-12
MARK TWAIN.

Mark Twain since his return to the
United States has been received with
open arms by his countrymen, and has
been praised and feted by all. But the
shower of praise says the Literary
Digest, has aroused the ire of Harry
Thurston Peck, who gives vent to his
feelings in the Bookman. Mr.. Peck
considers that Mark Twain has gone
off, The attack is on Mark Twain in
part, and also upon contemporary
criticism. That Mr.. Peck is an able
writer many readers know. But he
may be as wrong in one direction, as
the critics he criticizes are wrong in
another. But it may be as well to
quote the criticism Mr.. Peck says:
Putting aside all prejudice and look
ing at his work in a purely achromatic
way. a critical and truthful judgment
upon Mark Twain can be summed up
in a very eXiguous space. Mark Twain
is first and last and all the time, so
far as he is anything, a humorist and
nothing more. He wrote The Jumping
Frog and Innocents Abroad and
-Roughing it, and these are all the
real books that he ever wrote. He set
forth the typical American characters
of Colonel Sellers and Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn. and these are all
the real characters that he ever drew.
His later publications that are humor-
Gus in intention contain many CLEANS
of the old Mark Twain; but, taken
as entities, you can not read them from
beginning to end Some unduly opti-
mistic persons who are fond of literary
cults grown under glass have tried
very hard to make the world believe
dhat Mr.. Clemens has great gifts as a
serious novelist and romancer. By dint
of iteration the world. perhaps, has
temporarily come to think that this is
true; but, all the same, it will not read
these novels and romances, and it
thereby shows that common sense and
real discrimination may exist in prac-
tice even while they hold no place in
theory. A hundred years from now it
is very likely that The Jumping Frog
alone will be remembered, just as out
of all that Robert Louis Stevenson COM
posed. the world will ultimately keep
in memory the single tale of DR.. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde
This spasmodic and ephemeral out
burst of enthusiasm over Mr.. Clemens
emphasizes for the thousandth time a
melancholy truth about contemporary
criticism. When writer is doing good
and forceful work and winning readers
and laying the foundation and erecting
the superstructure of an enviable repu-
tation, our critics, even though they
may admire him, have not the sand
10 say so. They are poor dumb sheep
that never dare to take the lead in any,
thing; but they stand around with un-
intelligent and foolish bleatings until
some one whom they are not afraid to
follow shall tell them what they ought
to say. When Kipling was doing his
finest work, such as he has never
e9ualed in these later years, the critics
did not dare to take him seriously. He
was so unconventional and rough and
strong that he frightened them; and so
they skunk timidly behind their ink
stands and said little feeble nothings
and joked little and called him a mere
journalist, and then looked around to
see if any one was going TO hit them
After they had found out that his work
was instinct with true genius, and that
he was in reality the one real literary
phenomenon Of the last quarter of our
century they all rushed in at once and
spattered him with praise and daubed
him over with their flattery, and did
their very best to make him seem alb
surd. BY this time, as it happened,
Kipling's best had all been done. and
he was entering upon a period of a
decline which may or may not turn out
to be temporary But the critics We're
as blind to his decadence as they had
been previously blind to his great pow
er; and, therefore, all the things they
should have said about his early work
they said about his later, so that he has
been going on for the last two years
receiving praise and admiration that
are clearly misfit. The same thing is
iulle true CONCERNING MI OleileHS. IN
the speeches that he has lately made
he has said some things that recalled
his earlier humor; but in the majority
of his utterances the humor has been
forced and the laughter which it has
evoked has been extremely hollow.
Yet just because it was Mark Twain,
and because Mark Twain was once a
true spontaneous, and original humor-
list, the poor creatures who now write
about him believe that everything he
says must be amusing and delightful.
If they do not feel the fun Of it them
selves, they think they ought to, and
they write about it just as though they
did"
Such a criticism of a man like Mark
Twain is simply brutal. Because a few
weak minded writer's have overpraised
him. there is no need to make this
fiarpa attack uuon the man himself