The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1907-08-30
ENGLISH TRIBUTE !.
TO MARK TWAIN
"a Compliment to Him Is Com
pliment to American
People,"
NAT ,ONAL AUTHOR OF U.S..
'The Best Beloved of Americans, as
President Roosevelt Is the Most
;2opular"-Some of His
Best Books.

1HoSl popular, IS WIN us. he mas come
to receive the degree which oxford is
about to confer on him, and Oxford
never more truly represented the ma
ton han in thus honoring the most
distinctive figure in the world of eng
nsh letters. But l hope the leap of wei
come which all Englishmen feel in their
hearts at the mention of Mark Twain
tribute. I hope King Edward viii find
means to stamp 1t with his decisively
national approval.
A compliment paid to Mark Twain is
something more than q compliment to
q great man, a great writer and a great
citizen. II Is a compliment to the Amer
team people. and one that will come
home to them with peculiar grutiaca-
ton. Mark Twain is the national au-
thor Of the United States In a sense in
which we in England at the present
moment have no national author. The
feeling for him among his W people
Is like that Of the Scotch for Sir Wal
our fathers for Charles Dickens. There
Is admiration in it. gratitude. pride.
and above all, an immense and intimate
tenderness Of affection.
To writer's alone It Is given to win a
sentiment OF this qua1ity-to writer's
and occasionally, by the oddness of the
human mind. to generals. Perhaps one
would best take the measure OF the
American devotion to Mark Twain by
describing 1t as a compound of what
enjoyed In England forty
years ago, and Of what Lord Roberts
enjoys today, and by adding something
thereto for the intensity Of all trans
Atlantic emotions. The popularity"
of statesmen, even OF such a statesman
as President Roosevelt, Is a poor and
fickering light by the side of this full
6ame Of personal affection.
A Nature Student.
1t has gone out to Mark Twain. not
only for what ne has written, for the
clean, irresistible extravagance-of his
humor and his unfailing command of
the primal feelings, for his tenderness,
his jollity and his power to read the
heart Of boy and man and woman; not
only for the tragedies and Affections Of
his LIE so unconQuerably borne: not
only for his brave n fiery dashes
ton at home and abroad: but also be-
cause his countrymen feel him to be
beyond all other men the incarnation
Of the American spirit. That is why I
hope that this-in all human probable
ity. his last-visit to England will not
be allowed to close without such hon
ors and attentions as the king alone
can bestow.
J remember noting a little over a
ago. In a New York club, a token
OF the regard In which Mark Twain is
held. h club was one of authors,
artists and journalists-the
New York equivalent Of the Garrtck.
One does not look for much ceremony
such a club, yet when Mark Twain
came in to lunch he was escorted to the
with every circumstance OF at
teEtion, and the whole in
distinction. rose to greet him. and re-
maincd standing til he had taken his
seat. 1t was a little incident, but a
very significant one. No man could
wish for a more genuine compliment
she which violated the privileged
tnforn'ality of club etiquette.
Marx Twain has crammcd INTO his
seventy-one years Of life experiences
enough to satisfy ten ordinary men,
and a zest in the enjoyment OF them
that 8 ems to be ono IF natures gifths
to Americans. Al one of the fragments
Q fthat delightful autobiography which
10 pursuing its unique and zigzag
course through the pages Of the North
American Review, he declares that IF
I She Md talk two hours q day to the
stem srapher for a hundred years, I
should still never be able to set down
2 tenth part of the things which have
Interested me In my lifetime" 1t was
itself q glaringly fortunate start that
Mark Twain should have been born
among the rough actualities of a Mis-
sonri townlet in the thirties, where the
Tom Sawyer" life-''all the boy l have
known or recollect," as he told Rud-
yard Kipling-found its inimitable set
ting to hand.
He Begins Life.
At thirteen Mark started out 40 q
compositor. and wandered in Q few
years over two-thirds Of the American
continent-half journeyman printer,
half journalist. 1t was while on his
w0v tn main a fOrt,,ra 1,,< 80 80
the Upper Amazon that he fell. to the
extreme gain Of his million readers, be-
meath the seductions of a pilots life
on the Mississippi. The civil war put
q stop to that career, and for a while
Mark served, I believe. with the South
vate secretary, or something of the
sort. to his brother, who nae been APP
pointed an official OF Nevada Territory:
then some prospecting for silver; then
journalism; and, finally. the headlong
descent into literature. partially reliav-
ed by %lecturing tours.
/, Few men can nave seen more of the
world or from a greater diversity OF
standpotnts. He had Travelled once, II
not twice, all around it. and from the
miners OF the Rockies to the sovereigns
OF Europe he has encountered pretty
nearly all humanity at close range. His
last tour was one of unhappy compul-
sion. Mark Twain was ali but sixty
when the publishing firm with which
he was connected went bankrupt. He
assumed a mora where there was no
legal responsibility, and set to work to
pay off his debts. It takes a man to
engage in and to win such a bout
with Fate as that. 1t ranks with
SCOTS among the historic calamities
of authors both in the suddenness with
which 1t came and the superb spirit in
which 1t was faced.
National Author.
I said just now that Americans feel
Mark Twain to be the incarnation Of
their national spirit. His humor is all
American; SO. too. is the largeness Of
his charity n his indomitable COM
mon sense and the freshness Of heart
and feelings which lies beneath his
show Of cynicism. So, too. is his ca
pacity for crusading, his spiritual
hardness. his idealizing faith ii wom-
en- and democracy. his touch of mis-
anthropy. the f~erocity of his sarcasm.
More than n man living has Mark
Twain made the world laugh. But his
humor has always been on the side
Of the angels. He has gibed at much,
but never at anything that made for
goodness and. nobility. And though It
. rs q humorAst that he will be re-