w one, wholly
different in environment, atmosphere, purpose, character, everything.
The tale of Huck and Nigger Jim drifting down the mighty river on a
raft, cross-secting the various primitive aspects of human existence,
constitutes one of the most impressive examples of picaresque fiction
in any language. It has been ranked greater than Gil Blas, greater even
than Don Quixote; certainly it is more convincing, more human, than
either of these tales. Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, "It is a book
I have read four times, and am quite ready to begin again to-morrow."

It is by no means a flawless book, though its defects are trivial
enough. The illusion of Huck as narrator fails the least bit here and
there; the "four dialects" are not always maintained; the occasional
touch of broad burlesque detracts from the tale's reality. We are
inclined to resent this. We never wish to feel that Huck is anything but
a real character. We want him always the Huck who was willing to go
to hell if necessary, rather than sacrifice Nigger Jim; the Huck who
watched the river through long nights, and, without caring to explain
why, felt his soul go out to the sunrise.

Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum
by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way
we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there
--sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights and laid up and hid
daytimes; soon as the night was most gone we stopped navigating and
tied up--nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then
cut young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them. Then
we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim,
so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy
bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight
come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole
world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe.
The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of
dull line--that was the woods on t'other side, you couldn't make
nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness,
spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn't
black anymore, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting
along, ever so far away--trading scows, and such things; and long
black streaks--r