The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-09-25
enemies are harmful It is q right eooG
story, well told
HoWELLs ON MARK TWAIN.

My Mark Twain "reminiscences and Crit
ielems BY w. y. Howells Illus
ers, New York.
This work is mastery tribute to and
appreciation of Mark Twain by Mr.
have vast admiration of the great
numorlst- The. explanatory note says
that the friendship OF these two men
extended through forty,fve years. but
the close appreciation and high re-
gard were of not more than half that
length of time. The authors first
meeting with Mark Twain. their grow
ing friendship, their close intimacy in
later years, all is very finely told here
are now related. including Matthew
arnold 8 first meeting with Mark
twain and what he said, how Mr.. Glenn
ems and MIR. Howells escorted a would.
be suicide down Beacon street, how
glorlously the two of them missed see
ing tne centennial ceremonies at Con
cord in 1875, how wrathfully Twain
reported young lady at telegraph
office who treated him with insoIence,
and how. quickly he forgave her and
prevented her discharge, an interview
win Grant-and scores of other Incl
oents: There is peculiar fitness in
Mr.: Howells writing this appreciation
and Judgment of Mark Twain. He has
done ms work beautifully. He recog.
nlzes Mark g failings but treats them
In KINDLY spirit as a friend would
naturally do, He makes no attempt to
excuse OF smooth over Marks con.
tempt for religion and he puts This in
these words;
:, Long before that I had asked him
II he went regularly to church and he
sTi11aneo out; oh. yes, l go. It most
bIs bjils ,e1i,rs Tn; but GO and aid not need
went because his wife wished 1t. He did
tell me-. after they both ceased to go,
mat it had finally come to her saying
,ost wen, III, II you are to be lost l want to be
from her husbands frequent license OF
speech as she did from his lrreligion
yet here, too her instinct for self -sacri-
that with the same Wild Joy that he
told OF oVerhea ring her repetition OF
one one OF his most inclusive profanitiss, and
her explanation that she meant him to
hear 1t so that he might know how 1t
sounded"
All through the work there appears a
gentleness and kindliness toward Twain
that show the depth of feeling which
Mr.. Howells senses on losing this init
mate friend, and when he comes to the
final words he compasses one of the
hnest threnodies In our language, viz:
Next | saw him dead living in his
coffin amid those flowers with which we
garland our despair In that pitiless hour,
After the voice of his old friend Twitchell
had been lifted in the prayer which II
walled through in broken hearted sup
plication, 1 looked a moment at the face
knew so we'll: and II was patient with
the patience I had so often seen in It;
something OF puzzle. great silent dig
nifty. an assent to what must be from
the depths of a nature whose tragical
seriousness broke In the laughter which
the unwise took for the whole OF him.
Emerson. Longfellow. Lowell, Holmes-I
knew them all and all the rest Of our
sages. poets. seers. critics. bumorists
they were like one another and like
other literary men. but Clemens was sole.
Incompatible. the Lincoln of our litera-
t,,-e