New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1912-09-25

tions as these are unavoidable. but, on
the other hand, when We once realize
the authors modesty, his tender aifec-
ton and his more than conscientious
solicitude for accuracy in all matters Oh
fact we cannot but regard with SYM
pathy the broad drift Of what he has
10 tell us. Mr.. Howells's charming trio-
ute to the man he loved bears a charm
ing title, MY Mark Twain" After all,
neither the laws which govern the art
of biography nor the dedictatory afiir-
nation which We have already cited
need compel us 10 hold Mr.. Paine
too rigidly 10 account in respect TO
the balance between history" and
"eulogy." II is disarmingly apparent
on every page that he, too, has written
Of MY Mark Twain And, in spite
OF himself, through the sheer DONNA
ton of his book by the personality IT
celebrates, he enables us 10 get at the
real man. For one thing, the history
is here. or at all events 80 much Of II
that there is no danger of the attentive
readers going wrong. From the facts
set down IL is, TO be sure, no very diff
fcult thing to infer the psychology Of
Mark Twain, the central, determining
| force in his character. which is the
main thing TO grasp.
IT is youth, interpenetrated by an
extraordinarily easy and broad feeling
! for the instincts and the ways OF his
fellow men. Somewhere Mr.. Paine calls
/ him "the foremost man Of letters of
/ the time" but one OF the most inter
| esting things about this biography is
| its exposition OF the fact that while
| Mark Twain was q prodigiously yo-
! luminous writer, and thoroughly knew
! his trade, his was not In any degree
| at all what is usually understood aR q
| "literary" career. He was never In his
! life n man Of letters. The phrase APP
plies 10 him no more than 1t applies,
say, 10 Bunyan IL Is not that we would
! interpret the literary life rs bookish
/ life, and therefore incompatible with
! the genius having in IT scarce a tinct-
ure of mere bookishness, but rather
! that none OF Mark Twain's works, with
\ the possible exception Of his Joan of
| Arc" seems 20 have got itself written
out OF that artistic impulse which
! marks the man Of letters-and even in
the solitary instance we mention II was
a moral fervor that really urged his
pen. He wrote not 10 make works Of
art. but because he could not help him
self, because In him there were humors
and strong convictions that clamored
genius, and with genius he clearly
brimmed over, but when we discard
labels and try 20 come 10 close quar-
tiers with his true character we see
that he stands apart from strictly pro
fessional" types and appeals to us just
as an articulate human creature. For
all his genius he might, perhaps, Ice
fairly defined as the average man
raised TO the nth power.
Certainly. il was to the average man
that he addressed himself all his life
long, a point strikingly confirmed by
what he wrote TO the late Andrew
Lang when he wanted that staunch adj
mirer of his TO say good word for his
ideas to the British public. 1t was at
the time OF the publication Of his
Yankee in King Arthur's Court" a
book which sorely gravelled some Eng
lish readers Here Is part Of what he
wrote 10 Lang:
The critic assumes every time tfat IL
n book doesn't meet the cultiyated-class
standard II isn't valuable. Ii g