nd; and there is never a
hint of irreverence in his attitude.

'A Tramp Abroad' is a better book than the 'Innocents Abroad'; it is
quite as laughter-provoking, and its manner is far more restrained. Mark
Twain was then master of his method, sure of himself, secure of his
popularity; and he could do his best and spare no pains to be certain
that it was his best. Perhaps there is a slight falling off in
'Following the Equator'; a trace of fatigue, of weariness, of
disenchantment. But the last book of travels has passages as broadly
humorous as any of the first; and it proves the author's possession of a
pithy shrewdness not to be suspected from a perusal of its earliest
predecessor. The first book was the work of a young fellow rejoicing in
his own fun and resolved to make his readers laugh with him or at him;
the latest book is the work of an older man, who has found that life is
not all laughter, but whose eye is as clear as ever and whose tongue is
as plain-spoken.

These three books of travel are like all other books of travel in that
they relate in the first person what the author went forth to see.
Autobiographic also are 'Roughing It' and 'Life on the Mississippi,' and
they have always seemed to me better books than the more widely
circulated travels. They are better because they are the result of a
more intimate knowledge of the material dealt with. Every traveler is of
necessity but a bird of passage; he is a mere carpet-bagger; his
acquaintance with the countries he visits is external only; and this
acquaintanceship is made only when he is a full-grown man. But Mark
Twain's knowledge of the Mississippi was acquired in his youth; it was
not purchased with a price; it was his birthright; and it was internal
and complete. And his knowledge of the mining-camp was achieved in early
manhood when the mind is open and sensitive to every new impression.
There is in both these books a fidelity to the inner truth, a certainty
of touch, a sweep of vision, not to be found in the three books of
travels. For my own part I have long thought that Mark Twain could
securely rest his right to survive as an author on those opening
chapters in 'Life on the Mississippi' in which he makes clear the
difficulties, the seeming impossibilities, that fronted those who wisht
to learn the river. These chapters are bold and brilliant; and they
picture for us forever a period and a set of conditions, singularly
interesting and splendidly var