Essays on Modern Novelists Part 3

For over half a century this intellectual athlete has been one of the busiest men in the world. A partisan fighter born and bred, he has been active in every political Skandinavian struggle; in religious questions he has fought first on one side and then on the other, changing only by honest conviction, and hitting with all his might every time; to him the word "education" is as a red rag to a bull, for he believes that it has been mainly bad, and if people will only listen, he can make it mainly good; in a pa.s.sion of chivalry, he has drawn his pen for the cause of Woman, whose "sphere" he hopes to change--the most modern and the most popular of all the vain attempts to square the circle; his powerful voice has been heard on the lecture platform, not only in his own beloved country, but all over Europe and in America; he has served for years as Theatre-Director, in the determination to convert the playhouse, like everything else he touches, into a vast moral force. In addition to all the excitement of a life spent in fighting, his purely literary activity has been enormous in quant.i.ty and astonishing in range. His numerous dramas treat of all possible themes, from the old Sagas to modern divorce laws; and after exhausting all earthly material, he has boldly advanced into the realm of the supernatural; his splendid play, _Beyond Human Power_, holds the boards in most European cities, and has exercised a profound influence on modern drama. His novels are as different in style and purpose as it is possible for the novels of one man to be; and some of them are already cla.s.sics. A man with such an endowment, with such tremendous convictions, with buoyant optimism and terrific energy, has made no small stir in the world, and it will be a long time before the name of Bjornstjerne Bjornson is forgotten.

Had he not possessed, in addition to a fine mind, a magnificent physical frame, he would long since have vanished into that spiritual world that has interested him so deeply. But he has the physique of a Norse G.o.d.

Many instances of his bodily strength and endurance have been cited; it is sufficient to remember that even after his mane of hair had become entirely grey he regularly took his bath by standing naked under a mountain waterfall. Let that suffice, as one trial of it would for most of us. He came honestly by his health and vigour, born as he was on a lonely mountain-side in Norway. It was in the winter of 1832 that this st.u.r.dy baby gave his first cry for freedom, his father being a village pastor, whose flock were literally scattered among steep and desolate rocks, where the salient feature of the landscape during nine months of the year was snow. More than once the good shepherd had to seek and save that which was lost. For society, the little boy had a few pet animals and the dreams engendered by supreme loneliness. But when he was six years old, the father was fortunately called to a pastorate in a beautiful valley on the west coast, surrounded by n.o.ble and inspiring scenery, the effect of which is visibly seen in all his early stories.

We cannot help comparing this vale of beauty, trailing clouds of glory over Bjornson's boyhood, with the flat, wet, dismal gloom of East Prussia, that oppressed so heavily the child Sudermann, and made Dame Care look so grey.

At the grammar school, at the high school, and at the university he showed little interest in the curriculum, and no particular apt.i.tude for study; but before leaving college he had already begun original composition, and at the age of twenty-four he published a masterpiece.

This was the pastoral romance, _Synnove Solbakken_, which for sheer beauty of style and atmosphere he has never surpa.s.sed. For some years preceding the date of its appearance there had been a lull in literary activity in Norway. Out of this premonitory hush of stillness came a beautiful voice, which by the newness and freshness of its tones aroused immediate interest. Everybody listened, enchanted by the strange harmony. Men saw that a new prophet had arisen in Israel. The absolute simplicity of the style, the navete of the story, the naturalness of the characters, the short, pa.s.sionate sentences like those of the Sagas, the lyrically poetic atmosphere, appealed at once to the Norwegian heart. Why is it that we are surprised in books and in plays by simple language and natural characters? It must be that we are so accustomed to literary conventions remote from actual life, that when we behold real people and hear natural talk in works of art our first emotion is glad astonishment. For the same reason we praise certain persons for displaying what we call common sense. Be this as it may, no one believed that a pastoral romance could be so vigorous, so fresh, and so true. Of all forms of literature, pastoral tales, whether in verse or in prose, have been commonly the most artificial and the most insipid; but here was the breath of life. I can recommend nothing better for the soul weary of the closeness of modern naturalism than a course of reading in the early work of Bjornson.

He followed this initial success with three other beautiful prose lyrics--_Arne_, _A Happy Boy_, and _The Fisher Maiden_. These stories exhibit the same qualities so strikingly displayed in _Synnove Solbakken_. In all this artistic production Bjornson is an impressionist, reproducing with absolute fidelity what he saw, both in the world of matter and of spirit. We may rely faithfully on the correctness of these pictures, whether they portray natural scenery, country customs, or peasant character. We inhale Norway. We can smell the pines. The nipping and eager air, the dark green resinous forests--we feel these as plainly as if we were physically present in the Land of the Midnight Sun. The kindly simplicity of the peasants, the village ceremonies at weddings and funerals, the cheerful loneliness with sheep on mountain pasture, and the subdued but universal note of deep rural piety, make one feel as though the whole community were bound by gold chains about the feet of G.o.d. Bjornson says, "The church is in the foreground of Norwegian peasant life." And indeed everything seems to centre around G.o.d's acre, and the spire of the meeting-house points in the same direction as the stories themselves. Many beautiful pa.s.sages affect us like n.o.ble music; our eyes are filled with happy tears.

In view of the strong and ardent personality of the author, it is curious that these early romances should be so truly objective. One feels his personality in a general way, as one feels that of Turgenev; but the young writer separates himself entirely from the course of the story; he nowhere interferes. The characters apparently develop without his a.s.sistance, as the events take place without any manipulation. As a work of objective art, _Synnove Solbakken_ approaches flawless perfection. It has one plot, which travels in one direction--forward.

The persons are intensely Norwegian, but there their similarity ends.

Each is individualised. The simplicity of the story is so remarkable that to some superficial and un.o.bservant readers it has seemed childish.

The very acme of Art is so close to nature that it sometimes is mistaken for no art at all, like the acting of Garrick or the style of Jane Austen. Adverse criticisms are the highest compliments. Language is well managed when it expresses profound thoughts in words clear to a child.

The love scenes in this narrative are idyllic; in fact, the whole book is an idyl. It seems radiant with sunshine. It is as pure as a mountain lake, and as refreshing. And besides the artistic unity of the work, that satisfies one's standards so fully, there is an exquisite something hard to define; a play of fancy, a veil of poetic beauty lingering over the story, that makes us feel when we have closed the book as if we were gazing at a clear winter sunset.

Bjornson has the creative imagination of the true poet. In the wonderful prologue to _Arne_ he gives the trees separate personalities, in a manner to arouse almost the envy of Thomas Hardy. Indeed, the author of _The Woodlanders_ has never felt the trees more intensely than the Norwegian novelist. The prose style unconsciously breaks into verse form at times, with the natural grace and ease of a singing bird. Not the least charming incidents in Bjornson's romances are the frequent lyrics, that spring up like cowslips in a pasture.

"Punctual as Springtide forth peep they."

The novels in Bjornson's second period are so totally unlike those we have just been considering that if all his work had been published anonymously, no one would have ventured to say that the same man had written _A Happy Boy_ and _In G.o.d's Way_. There came a pause in his creative activity. He wrote little imaginative literature, and many thought the well of his inspiration had gone dry. Really he was pa.s.sing through a belated _Sturm und Drang_; a tremendous intellectual struggle and fermentation had set in, from which he emerged mentally a changed man, with a new outfit of opinions and ideas. At nearly the same time his great contemporary Tolstoi was also in the Slough of Despond, but he climbed out on the other side and set his face towards the Celestial City. Bjornson's floundering ultimately carried him in precisely the opposite direction. While Tolstoi was studying the New Testament, Bjornson applied himself to Darwin, Mill, and Spencer, and became completely converted from the Christianity of his youth. Many minds would have been temporarily paralysed by such a result, and would finally have become either pessimistic or coldly critical. But Bjornson simply could not endure to be a gloomy, cynical spectator of life, like his countryman, Ibsen, any more than he could leave his native land and calmly view its nakedness from the comfortable environment of Munich or Rome. Bjornson has the sort of intellect that cannot remain in equilibrium. He was ever a fighter, and cannot live without something to fight for. The natural optimism of his temperament, so opposed in every way to the blank despair of Ibsen, made him see in his new views the way of salvation. He is just as sure he is right now as he was when he held opinions exactly the contrary. With joyful ardour he became the champion and propagandist of democracy in politics and of free thought in religion; apparently adopting Spencer's saying, "To the true reformer no inst.i.tution is sacred, no belief above criticism." For the word "reformer" precisely describes Bjornson; like the chief characters in his later novels, he is an apostle of reform, zealous, tireless, and tiresome.

Lowell, in his fine essay on Gray, said that one reason why the eighteenth century was so comfortable was that "responsibility for the universe had not yet been invented." Now Bjornson feels this responsibility with all the strength of his nature, and however admirable it may be as a moral quality, it has vitiated his artistic career. As he renounced Christianity for agnosticism, so he renounced romance for realism. The novels written since 1875 are not only unlike his early pastoral romances in literary style; they are totally different productions in tone, in spirit, and in intention. And, from the point of view of art, they are, in my opinion, as inferior to the work of his youth as Hawthorne's campaign _Life of Pierce_ is inferior to _The Scarlet Letter_. In every way Bjornson is farther off from heaven than when he was a boy.

In addition to many short sketches, his later period includes three realistic novels. These are: _Flags Are Flying in Town and Harbour_, translated into English with the t.i.tle, _The Heritage of the Kurts_, for it is a study in heredity; _In G.o.d's Way_,[4] loudly proclaimed as his masterpiece, and _Mary_. The first two originally attracted more attention abroad than at home. The _Flags_ hung idly in Norway, and the orthodox were not anxious to get in G.o.d's way. But the second book produced considerable excitement in England, which finally reacted in Christiania and Copenhagen; it is still hotly discussed. In these three novels the author has stepped out of the role of artist and become a kind of professor of pedagogy, his speciality being the education of women. In _Flags_ the princ.i.p.al part of the story is taken up with a girls' school, which gives the novelist an opportunity to include a confused study of heredity, and to air all sorts of educational theory.

The chief one appears to be that in the curriculum for young girls the "major" should be physiology. Hygiene, which so many bewildered persons are accepting just now in lieu of the Gospel, plays a heavy part in Bjornson's later work. The gymnasium in _Flags_ takes the place of the church in _Synnove_; and acrobatic feats of the body are deemed more healthful than the religious aspirations of the soul. Kallem, a prominent character of the story _In G.o.d's Way_, usually appears walking on his hands, which is not the only fashion in which he is upside down.

The book _Flags_ is, frankly speaking, an intolerable bore. The hero, Rendalen, who also appears in the subsequent novel, is the mouthpiece of the new opinions of the author; a convenient if clumsy device, for whenever Bjornson wishes to expound his views on education, hygiene, or religion, he simply makes Rendalen deliver a lecture. Didactic novels are in general a poor subst.i.tute either for learning or for fiction, but they are doubly bad when the author is confused in his ideas of science and in his notions of art. One general "lesson" emerges from the jargon of this book--that men should suffer for immorality as severely as women, a doctrine neither new nor practicable. The difficulty is that with Bjornson, as with some others who shout this edict, the equalising of the punishment takes the form of leaving the men as they are, and issuing a general pardon to the women. Rendalen, the head-master of the school, is constantly bringing up this topic, and he makes it the chief subject for discussion in the girls' debating society! These females are going to be emanc.i.p.ated. A pseudo-scientific twist is also given to this novel by the introduction of mesmerism and hypnotic influence, matters in which the author is deeply interested. We are given to understand that a large number of women are annually ruined, not by their lack of moral conviction and will power, but simply by the hypnotic influence of men. One may perhaps reasonably doubt the ultimate value of a wide dissemination of this great idea, especially in a young ladies'

seminary. To the unsympathetic reader, the one question that will keep him afloat in all this welter, is not concerned with pedagogy; it is the honest attempt to discover why the book bears its strange t.i.tle.

Unfortunately he will not find out until the last leaf. Then

"the connexion of which with the plot one sees."

[4] In the original the t.i.tle is "In G.o.d's Ways."

It is pleasant to take up the volume _In G.o.d's Way_, for, however disappointing it may be to those who know the young Bjornson, it is vastly superior to _Flags_. It is what is called to-day a "strong"

novel, and has naturally evoked the widest variation of comment. By many it has been greeted with enthusiastic admiration and by many with outspoken disgust. Psychologically, it is indeed powerful. The characters are interesting, and they develop in a way that may or may not be G.o.d's, but resemble His in being mysterious. One cannot foresee in the early chapters what is going to happen to the _dramatis personae_, nor what is to be our final att.i.tude toward any of them. Think of the impression made on us by our first acquaintance with Josephine, or Kallem, or Ragni, or Ole; and then compare it with the state of our feelings as we draw near the end. Not one of these characters remains the same; each one develops, and develops as he might in actual life.

Bjornson does not approach his men and women from an easy chair, in the descriptive manner; once created, we feel that they would grow without his aid.

For all this particular triumph of art, _In G.o.d's Way_ is plainly a didactic novel, with the author preaching from beginning to end. The "fighting" quality in the novelist gets the better of his literary genius. We have a story in the extreme realistic style, marked by occasional scenes of great beauty and force; but the exposition of doctrine is somewhat vague and confused, and the construction of the whole work decidedly inartistic. Two general points, however, are made clear: First, that one may walk in G.o.d's way without believing in G.o.d.

Religion is of no importance in comparison with conduct, nor have the two things any vital or necessary connexion. This is a modern view, and perhaps a natural reaction from the strictness of Bjornson's childhood training. Second, that virtue is a matter entirely of the heart, bearing no relation whatever to the statute-book. A woman may be legally an adulteress and yet absolutely pure. This also is quite familiar to us in the pages of modern dramatists and novelists. Bjornson has taken an extraordinary instance to prove his thesis, a thesis that perhaps needs no emphasis, for human nature is only too well disposed to make its moral creed coincide with its bodily instincts.

The same theme--mental as opposed to physical female chast.i.ty--is the leading idea of _Mary_, a novel that has had considerable success in Norway and in Germany, but has only this year been translated into English. This work of his old age shows not the slightest trace of decay. It is an interesting and powerful a.n.a.lysis of a girl's heart, written in short, vigorous sentences. Mary, after taking plenty of time for reflexion, and without any solicitation, deliberately gives herself to her lover, in a manner exactly similar to a scene in Maupa.s.sant's novel, _Notre Coeur_. Her fiance is naturally amazed, as there has been nothing leading up to this; she comes to him of her own free will. Her theory of conduct (which exemplifies that of Bjornson) is that a woman is the sovereign mistress of her own body, and can do what she pleases.

There is nothing immoral in a woman's free gift of herself to her lover, provided she does it out of her royal bounty, and not as a weak yielding to masculine pursuit. The next day Mary is grievously disappointed to discover that, instead of the homage and worship she expected, the erstwhile timid lover glories in the sense of possession. She fears that she cannot live an absolutely independent life with such a husband--and Bjornson's gospel is, of course, the untrammelled freedom of woman. So, although she is about to become a mother, she deliberately cancels the engagement to the putative child's father; this puzzles him even more than her previous conduct, though he is forced to acquiesce. Then, in a final access of despair, as she is about to commit suicide, she is rescued by a man whose love is like the moth's for the star--who tells her that no matter what she has done, she is the n.o.blest, purest woman on earth, and the chaste queen of his heart. Thus, by a stroke of good fortune, rather than by anything inevitable in the story, the book ends happily, with Mary and her second adoring lover in the very delirium of joy. It is evident that the novel is nothing but a _Tendenz-Roman_; Bjornson wishes us to approve of his heroine's conduct throughout--of the entirely unnecessary sacrifice of her virtue, of the subsequent sacrifice of her reputation, and of her remorseless joy in the arms of another man. Such is to be the doctrine of s.e.x equality; men are not to be made more virtuous, but the freedom of women is not only to be pardoned, but approved.

In comparing the three late with the four early novels, the most striking change is instantly apparent to anyone who reads _Synnove Solbakken_ and then opens _In G.o.d's Way_. It is the sudden and depressing change of air, from the mountains to the sick-room. The abundance of medical detail in the later novel is almost nauseating, and would be wholly so were it not absurd. One has only to compare the invigorating scenery and the simple love scenes in _Synnove_ with the minute examination of Ragni's spittle (for tuberculosis) in the other book--but enough is said. Despite all that has been written in praise of Bjornson's "courage" in dealing with problems of s.e.x and disease, I sympathise with the cry of his friend in 1879:--

"Come back again, dear Bjornson, come back!"

It is easy to see that the influence of modern English scepticism cannot account entirely for the revolution in the Norwegian's mind and art. We can clearly observe an attraction much nearer, that has drawn this luminous star so far out of its course. It is none other than the mighty Ibsen. Ibsen's a.n.a.lysis of disease, his examination of marriage problems, his Ishmaelite attacks on the present structure of civilised society--all this has had its effect on his contemporary and countryman.

As a destructive force Ibsen was stronger than Bjornson, because he was ruthless. But one had the courage of despair, while the other has the courage of hope. Bjornson does not believe in Fate and is not afraid of it. He loves and believes in humanity. His gloomiest books end with a vision. There is always a rift in the clouds. Throughout all his career he has set his face steadfastly toward what he has taken to be the true light. Such men compel admiration, no matter whose colours they bear.

And however much we may deplore his present course, we cannot now echo the cry of his friend and say, "Come back!" The language of the poet better expresses our att.i.tude:--

"Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!"

V

MARK TWAIN

During the last twenty years, a profound change has taken place in the att.i.tude of the reading public toward Mark Twain. I can remember very well when he was regarded merely as a humorist, and one opened his books with an antic.i.p.atory grin. Very few supposed that he belonged to literature; and a complete, uniform edition of his _Works_ would perhaps have been received with something of the mockery that greeted Ben Jonson's folio in 1616. Professor Richardson's _American Literature_, which is still a standard work, appeared originally in 1886. My copy, which bears the date 1892, contains only two references in the index to Mark Twain, while Mr. Cable, for example, receives ten; and the whole volume fills exactly nine hundred and ninety pages. Looking up one of the two references, we find the following opinion:--

"But there is a cla.s.s of writers, authors ranking below Irving or Lowell, and lacking the higher artistic or moral purpose of the greater humorists, who amuse a generation and then pa.s.s from sight.

Every period demands a new manner of jest, after the current fashion.... The reigning favourites of the day are Frank R.

Stockton, Joel Chandler Harris, the various newspaper jokers, and 'Mark Twain.' But the creators of 'Pomona' and 'Rudder Grange,' of 'Uncle Remus and his Folk-lore Stories,' and 'Innocents Abroad,'

clever as they are, must make hay while the sun shines. Twenty years hence, unless they chance to enshrine their wit in some higher literary achievement, their unknown successors will be the privileged comedians of the republic. Humour alone never gives its masters a place in literature; it must coexist with literary qualities, and must usually be joined with such pathos as one finds in Lamb, Hood, Irving, or Holmes."

It is interesting to remember that before this p.r.o.nouncement was published, _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ had been read by thousands. Professor Richardson continued: "Two or three divisions of American humour deserve somewhat more respectful treatment," and he proceeds to give a full page to Petroleum V. Nasby, another page to Artemus Ward, and two and one-half pages to Josh Billings, while Mark Twain had received less than four lines. After stating that, in the case of authors like Mark Twain, "temporary amus.e.m.e.nt, not literary product, is the thing sought and given," Professor Richardson announces that the department of fiction will be considered later. In this "department,"

Mark Twain is not mentioned at all, although Julian Hawthorne receives over three pages!

I have quoted Professor Richardson at length, because he is a deservedly high authority, and well represents an att.i.tude toward Mark Twain that was common all during the eighties. Another college professor, who is to-day one of the best living American critics, says, in his _Initial Studies in American Letters_ (1895), "Though it would be ridiculous to maintain that either of these writers [Artemus Ward and Mark Twain]

takes rank with Lowell and Holmes, ... still it will not do to ignore them as mere buffoons, or even to predict that their humours will soon be forgotten." There is no allusion in his book to _Tom Sawyer_ or _Huckleberry Finn_, nor does the critic seem to regard their creator as in any sense a novelist. Still another writer, in a pa.s.sing allusion to Mark Twain, says, "Only a very small portion of his writing has any place as literature."

Literary opinions change as time progresses; and no one could have observed the remarkable demonstration at the seventieth birthday of our great national humorist without feeling that most of his contemporaries regarded him, not as their peer, but as their Chief. Without wishing to make any invidious comparisons, I cannot refrain from commenting on the statement that it would be "ridiculous" to maintain that Mark Twain takes rank with Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is, of course, absolutely impossible to predict the future; the only real test of the value of a book is Time. Who now reads Cowley? Time has laughed at so many contemporary judgements that it would be foolhardy to make positive a.s.sertions about literary stock quotations one hundred years from now.

Still, guesses are not prohibited; and I think it not unlikely that the name of Mark Twain will outlast the name of Holmes. American Literature would surely be the poorer if the great Boston Brahmin had not enlivened it with his rich humour, his lambent wit, and his sincere pathos; but the whole content of his work seems slighter than the big American prose epics of the man of our day.

Indeed, it seems to me that Mark Twain is our foremost living American writer. He has not the subtlety of Henry James or the wonderful charm of Mr. Howells; he could not have written _Daisy Miller_, or _A Modern Instance_, or _Indian Summer_, or _The Kentons_--books which exhibit literary quality of an exceedingly high order. I have read them over and over again, with constantly increasing profit and delight. I wish that Mr. Howells might live for ever, and give to every generation the pure intellectual joy that he has given to ours. But the natural endowment of Mark Twain is still greater. Mr. Howells has made the most of himself; G.o.d has done it all for Mark Twain. If there be a living American writer touched with true genius, whose books glow with the divine fire, it is he. He has always been a conscientious artist; but no amount of industry could ever have produced a _Huckleberry Finn_.

When I was a child at the West Middle Grammar School of Hartford, on one memorable April day, Mark Twain addressed the graduating-cla.s.s. I was thirteen years old, but I have found it impossible to forget what he said. The subject of his "remarks" was Methuselah. He informed us that Methuselah lived to the ripe old age of nine hundred and sixty-nine. But he might as well have lived to be several thousand--nothing happened.

The speaker told us that we should all live longer than Methuselah.

Fifty years of Europe are better than a cycle of Cathay, and twenty years of modern American life are longer and richer in content than the old patriarch's thousand. Ours will be the true age in which to live, when more will happen in a day than in a year of the flat existence of our ancestors. I cannot remember his words; but what a fine thing it is to hear a speech, and carry away an idea!

I have since observed that this idea runs through much of his literary work. His philosophy of life underlies his broadest burlesque--for _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ is simply an exposure of the "good old times." Mark Twain believes in the Present, in human progress.

Too often do we apprehend the Middle Ages through the glowing pages of Spenser and Walter Scott; we see only glittering processions of ladies dead and lovely knights. Mark Twain shows us the wretched condition of the common people, their utter ignorance and degradation, the coa.r.s.eness and immorality of technical chivalry, the cruel and unscrupulous ecclesiastical tyranny, and the capricious insolence of the barons. One may regret that he has reversed the dynamics in so glorious a book as Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, but, through all the buffoonery and roaring mirth with which the knights in armour are buried, the artistic and moral purpose of the satirist is clear. If I understand him rightly, he would have us believe that _our_ age, not theirs, is the "good time"; nay, ours is the age of magic and wonder. We need not regret in melancholy sentimentality the picturesqueness of bygone days, for we ourselves live, not in a material and commonplace generation, but in the very midst of miracles and romance. Merlin and the Fay Morgana would have given all their petty skill to have been able to use a telephone or a phonograph, or to see a moving picture. The sleeping princess and her castle were awakened by a kiss; but in the twentieth century a man in Washington touches a b.u.t.ton, and hundreds of miles away tons of machinery begin to move, fountains begin to play, and the air resounds with the whir of wheels. In comparison with to-day, the age of chivalry seems dull and poor. Even in chivalry itself our author is more knightly than Lancelot; for was there ever a more truly chivalrous performance than Mark Twain's essay on Harriet Sh.e.l.ley, or his literary monument to Joan of Arc? In these earnest pages, our national humorist appears as the true knight.

Mark Twain's humour is purely American. It is not the humour of Washington Irving, which resembles that of Addison and Thackeray; it is not delicate and indirect. It is genial, sometimes outrageous, mirth--laughter holding both his sides. I have found it difficult to read him in a library or on a street-car, for explosions of pent-up mirth or a distorted face are apt to attract unpleasant attention in such public places. Mark Twain's humour is boisterous, uproarious, colossal, overwhelming. As has often been remarked, the Americans are not naturally a gay people, like the French; nor are we light-hearted and careless, like the Irish and the Negro. At heart, we are intensely serious, nervous, melancholy. For humour, therefore, we naturally turn to buffoonery and burlesque, as a reaction against the strain and tension of life. Our att.i.tude is something like that of the lonely author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, who used to lean over the parapet of Magdalen Bridge, and shake with mirth at the obscene jokes of the bargemen. We like Mark Twain's humour, not because we are frivolous, but because we are just the reverse. I have never known a frivolous person who really enjoyed or appreciated Mark Twain.

The essence of Mark Twain's humour is Incongruity. The jumping frog is named Daniel Webster; and, indeed, the intense gravity of a frog's face, with the droop at the corners of the mouth, might well be envied by many an American Senator. When the shotted frog vainly attempted to leave the earth, he shrugged his shoulders "like a Frenchman." Bilgewater and the Dolphin on the raft are grotesquely incongruous figures. The rescuing of Jim from his prison cell is full of the most incongruous ideas, his common-sense att.i.tude toward the whole transaction contrasting strangely with that of the romantic Tom. Along with the constant incongruity goes the element of surprise--which Professor Beers has well pointed out.

When one begins a sentence, in an apparently serious discussion, one never knows how it will end. In discussing the peace that accompanies religious faith, Mark Twain says that he has often been impressed with the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

Exaggeration--deliberate, enormous hyperbole--is another feature.

Rudyard Kipling, who has been profoundly influenced by Mark Twain, and has learned much from him, often employs the same device, as in _Brugglesmith_. Irreverence is also a noteworthy quality. In his travel-books, we are given the att.i.tude of the typical American Philistine toward the wonders and sacred relics of the Old World, the whole thing being a gigantic burlesque on the sentimental guide-books which were so much in vogue before the era of Baedeker. With such continuous fun and mirth, satire and burlesque, it is no wonder that Mark Twain should not always be at his best. He is doubtless sometimes flat, sometimes coa.r.s.e, as all humorists since Rabelais have been. The wonder is that his level has been so high. I remember, just before the appearance of _Following the Equator_, I had been told that Mark Twain's inspiration was finally gone, and that he could not be funny if he tried. To test this, I opened the new book, and this is what I found on the first page:--