ot escape the attention of the
Germans, nor fail of appreciation at their hands. In his aphorisms,
embodying at once genuine wit and experience of life, they discovered
not merely the American author, but the universal human being; these
aphorisms they found worthy of profound and lasting admiration.
Sintenis found in Mark Twain a "living symptom of the youthful joy in
existence"--a genius capable at will, despite his "boyish extravagance,"
of the virile formulation of fertile and suggestive ideas. His latest
critic in Germany wrote at the time of his death, with a genuine insight
into the significance of his work: "Although Mark Twain's humour moves
us to irresistible laughter, this is not the main point in his books;
like all true humorists, _ist der Witz mit dem Weltschmerz verbunden_,
he is a witness to higher thoughts and higher emotions, and his purpose
is to expose bad morals and evil circumstances, in order to improve and
ennoble mankind." The critic of the 'Berliner Zeitung' asserted that
Mark Twain is loved in Germany more than all other humorists, English or
French, because his humour "turns fundamentally upon serious and earnest
conceptions of life." It is a tremendously significant fact that the
works of American literature most widely read in Germany are the works
of--striking conjunction!--Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain.

The 'Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' fired the laugh heard round the
world. Like Byron, Mark Twain woke one morning to find himself famous.
A classic fable, which had once evoked inextinguishable laughter in
Athens, was unconsciously re-told in the language of Angel's Camp,
Calaveras County, where history repeated itself with a precision of
detail startling in its miraculous coincidence. Despite the
international fame thus suddenly won by this little fable, Mark Twain
had yet to overcome the ingrained opposition of insular prejudice before
his position in England and the colonies was established upon a sure and
enduring footing. In a review of 'The Innocents Abroad' in 'The
Saturday Review' (1870), the comparison is made between the Americans
who "do Europe in six weeks" and the most nearly analogous class of
British travellers, with the following interesting conclusions: "The
American is generally the noisier and more actively disagreeable, but,
on the other hand, he often partially redeems his absurdity by a certain
naivete and half-conscious humour. He is often laughing i