Posterity is now deciding whether Mark Twain’s fame will rest upon his humor or his philosophy, yet his continuing popularity would seem to have settled this much-mooted question. Humor is fleeting unless based upon real substance. In life the passing quip that produces a smile serves its purpose, but to bring to the surface such human notes as dominate Mark Twain’s stories, a writer must possess extraordinary powers of observation and a complete understanding of his fellow-man. Neither Tom Sawyer nor Huckleberry Finn is a fictional character, but is rather the personification of that leaven which makes life worth living.
When an author has achieved the dignity of having written “works” rather than books, he has placed himself in the hands of his friends in all his varying moods. A single volume is but the fragment of any writer’s personality. I have laughed over Innocents Abroad, and other volumes which helped to make Mark Twain’s reputation, but when I seek a volume to recall the author as I knew him best it is Joan of Arc that I always take down from the shelf. This book really shows the side of Mark Twain, the man, as his friends knew him, yet it was necessary to publish the volume anonymously in order to secure for it consideration from the reading public as a serious story.
MARK TWAIN, 1835–1910
At the Villa di Quarto, Florence
From a Snap-shot
“No one will ever accept it seriously, over my signature,” Mark Twain said. “People always want to laugh over what I write. This is a serious book. It means more to me than anything I have ever undertaken.”
Mark Twain was far more the humorist when off guard than when on parade. The originality of what he did, combined with what he said, produced the maximum expression of himself. At one time he and his family occupied the Villa di Quarto in Florence (page [172]), and while in Italy Mrs. Orcutt and I were invited to have tea with them. The villa is located, as its name suggests, in the four-mile radius from the center of the town. It was a large, unattractive building, perhaps fifty feet wide and four times as long. The location was superb, looking out over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the Chianti hills.
AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN