n once remarked: "We have made
a fiasco both in the heroic and the lover roles. The only parts in
which we have shown a little talent, are the naively comic; but with our
more highly developed self-consciousness we shall no longer be fitted
even for that." With time and "our more highly developed self
--consciousness" have largely passed the novelty and the charm of this
early naively comic humour of Mark Twain. But it is as valid still, as
it was in 1867, to record honestly the impressions directly communicated
to one by the novelties, peculiarities, individual standards and ideals
of other peoples and races. Mark Twain spoke his mind with utter
disregard for other people's opinions, the dicta of criticism or the
authoritative judgment of the schools. 'The Innocents Abroad' is
eminently readable, not alone for its humour, its clever journalism, its
remarkably accurate and detailed information, and its fine descriptions.
The rare quality, which made it "sell right along--like the Bible," is
that it is the vital record of a keen and searching intelligence. Mark
Twain found so many of the "masterpieces of the world" utterly
unimpressive and meaningless to him, that he actually began to distrust
the validity of his own impressions. Every time he gloried to think
that for once he had discovered an ancient painting that was beautiful
and worthy of all praise, the pleasure it gave him was an infallible
proof that it was not a beautiful picture, nor in any sense worthy of
commendation! He pours out the torrents of his ridicule, not
indiscriminately upon the works of the old masters themselves--though he
regarded Nature as the grandest of all the old masters--but upon those
half-baked sycophants who bend the knee to an art they do not
understand, an art of which they feign comprehension by mouthings full
of cheap and meaningless tags. As potent and effective as ever, in its
fine comic irony, is that passage in which he expresses his "envy" of
those people who pay lavish lip-service to scenes and works of art which
their expressionless language shows they neither realize nor understand.
He reserves his most biting condemnation for those second-hand critics
who accept other people's opinions for their criteria, and rave over
"beauty," "soul," "character," "expression" and "tone" in wretched,
dingy, moth-eaten pictures. He hated with the heartiest detestation
such people--whose sole ambition seemed to be to make a fine sho