y," the
book became not so much a book but a state of mind--and, as is sometimes
felt about a friend--it is hard to remember a time when we did not know
him!

Mark Twain was a discovery. "The Jumping Frog of Calavaras" and that
chuckling scene in "Innocents Abroad," where the unhappy Italian guide
introduces Christopher Columbus to the American travellers, were joys
indeed. These were more delightful and satisfying than the kind of
humour that preceded them--they seemed better than the whimsicalities of
Artemus Ward, and not to be compared to the laboured humour of Mrs.
Partington. But, leaving out these amusing passages, my pleasure in the
works of Mark Twain faded more and more as I came to the age of reason,
which is somewhat over twenty-five. It was hard to laugh at Mark after a
time. Compared to him, the "Pickwick Papers" had an infinite variety.
There were other things in Dickens which were finer than anything in
"Pickwick," but the humour of Pickwick had a softness about it, a human
interest, a lack of coarseness, which placed it immeasurably above that
of Mark Twain.

The greatest failure of Dickens was "A Tale of Two Cities." And the
greatest failure of Mark Twain is his "Joan of Arc." But Dickens
redeemed himself in a hundred ways, while Mark Twain sank deeper and
deeper into coarseness and pessimism. As Mark Twain is by all odds
apparently the national American author, it is heresy to say this; and I
know persons who have assumed an air of coldness as long as they could
in my presence, because I declined to look on "Joan of Arc" as a
masterpiece.

It shows some faults of Mark Twain's philosophy of life, it suggests his
narrow and materialistic point of view, and makes plain his lack of
knowledge of the perspectives of history. It is all the worse for an
appearance of tenderness. Mark Twain was neither mystical nor spiritual.
That does not mean that he was not a good husband and father, a kind
friend and a man very loyal to all his engagements. There are many other
authors who had not all these qualities, but who would have more easily
understood the character of Joan than did Mark Twain.

Dickens's failure in "A Tale of Two Cities" was from very different
causes. It was not through a failure of tenderness, a lack of an
understanding of the real pathos of life, or through the want of a
spirituality without which no great work can be effective. It was
because Dickens relied very largely on Carlyle for the