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"Those who know the story of Mark Twain's career know how bravely he faced hardships and misfortune, how loyally he toiled for years to meet a debt of conscience, following the injunction of the New Testament, to provide not only things honest, but things 'honourable in the sight of all men.
With the possible exception of General Grant's long tour in 1878-9 there had hardly been a more gorgeous progress than Mark Twain's trip around the world. Everywhere they were overwhelmed with attention and gifts. We cannot begin to tell the story of that journey here. In "Following the Equator" the author himself tells it in his own delightful fashion.
Noah Brooks, editor of the Alta California, who was present at this lecture, has written the following graphic piece of description "Mark Twain's method as a lecturer was distinctly unique and novel.
The result of all the efforts to popularize Mark Twain in France, he makes plain, was an almost complete check; for to the French taste Mark Twain's pleasantry appeared macabre, his wit brutal, his temperament dry to excess.
The Kaiser particularly enjoyed the "Mississippi" book, while the essay on "The Awful German Language," in the "Tramp Abroad," he pronounced one of the finest pieces of humor ever written. Mark Twain's books were favorites, in fact, throughout Germany.
And then in Italy, where humorous writing generally either rests on a political basis or depends on risky phrases, Mark Twain's sketches are not appreciated because the spirit which breathes in them is not always understood. The story of 'The Jumping Frog', for instance, famous as it is in America and England, has made little impression in France or Italy."
The percentage offered by the subscription houses was only about half as much as that paid by the trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author could very well afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the book-agent sold a hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark Twain's books; and we all thought it reasonable he could do so with ours.
Very likely he was hard up from time to time literary men are often that but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have us believe, is just a good story and not history. Mark Twain's daily letters to the "Enterprise" stirred up trouble for him in San Francisco.
And it is inconceivable that any future investigator into the sociological phases of that civilization can fail to find priceless and unparalleled documents in the wild yet genial, rudimentary yet sane, boisterous yet universally human writings of Mark Twain. Mark Twain's genius of social comprehension and sociologic interpretation went even deeper than this.
It was the toning down of his youthful extravagance Fitch's precept not to "sell" his audience, Mrs. Fairbanks' warning not to try their endurance of the irreverent too far that had a markedly salutary effect upon Mark Twain's humorous writings. There can be no doubt that the deep and lifelong friendship of Mr.
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