most pervasive impression upon his art and
thought--is portrayed in that classic and memorable passage in which he
portrays the marvellous spell laid upon him by that mistress of his
youth, the great river.

To the young pilot, the face of the water in time became a wonderful
book. For the uninitiated traveller it was a dead language, but to the
young pilot it gave up its most cherished secrets. He came to feel that
there had never been so wonderful a book written by man. To its
haunting beauty, its enfolding mystery, he yielded himself unreservedly
--drinking it in like one bewitched. But a day came when he began to
cease from noting its marvels. Another day came when he ceased
altogether to note them.

In time, he came to realize that, for him, the romance and the beauty
were gone forever from the river. If the early rapture was gone, in its
place was the deeper sense of knowledge and intimacy. He had learned
the ultimate secrets of the river--learned them with a knowledge, so
searching and so profound, that he was enabled to give them the enduring
investiture of art.

Mark Twain possessed the gift of innate eloquence. He was a master of
the art of moving, touching, swaying an audience. At times, his insight
into the mysterious springs of humour, of passion, and of pathos seemed
almost like divination. All these qualities appeared in full flower in
the written expression of his art. It would be doing a disservice to
his memory to deny that his style did not possess literary distinction
or elegance. At times his judgment was at fault; his constitutional
humour came near playing havoc with his artistic sense. Not seldom he
was long--winded and laborious in his striving after comic effect. To
offset these manifest lapses and defects there are the many fine
qualities--descriptive passages aglow with serene and cloud less beauty,
dramatic scenes depicted with virile and rugged eloquence, pathetic
incidents touched with gentle and caressing tenderness.

Style bears translation ill; in fact, translation is not infrequently
impossible. But Mr. Clemens once pointed out to me that humour has
nothing to do with style. Mark Twain's humour--for humour is his
prevalent mood--has international range since, constructed out of a
deep comprehension of human nature and a profound sympathy for human
relationship and human failing, it successfully surmounts the
difficulties of translation into alien tongues.

Mark T