_Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ are prose epics of American life. The former is one of those books--of which _The Pilgrim's Progress_, _Gulliver's Travels_, and _Robinson Crusoe_ are supreme examples--that are read at different periods of one's life from very different points of view; so that it is not easy to say when one enjoys them the most--before one understands their real significance or after. Nearly all healthy boys enjoy reading _Tom Sawyer_, because the intrinsic interest of the story is so great, and the various adventures of the hero are portrayed with such gusto. Yet it is impossible to outgrow the book. The eternal Boy is there, and one cannot appreciate the nature of boyhood properly until one has ceased to be a boy. The other masterpiece, _Huckleberry Finn_, is really not a child's book at all. Children devour it, but they do not digest it. It is a permanent picture of a certain period of American history, and this picture is made complete, not so much by the striking portraits of individuals placed on the huge canvas, as by the vital unity of the whole composition. If one wishes to know what life on the Mississippi really was, to know and understand the peculiar social conditions of that highly exciting time, one has merely to read through this powerful narrative, and a definite, coherent, vivid impression remains. By those who have lived there, and whose minds are comparatively free from prejudice, Mark Twain's pictures of life in the South before the war are regarded as, on the whole, nearer the truth than those supplied by any other artist. One reason for this is the aim of the author; he was not trying to support or to defend any particular theory--no, his aim was purely and wholly artistic. In _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, a book by no means devoid of literary art, the red-hot indignation of the author largely nullified her evident desire to tell the truth. If one succeeds in telling the truth about anything whatever, one must have something more than the _desire_ to tell the truth; one must know how to do it. False impressions do not always, probably do not commonly, come from deliberate liars. Mrs. Stowe's astonishing work is not really the history of slavery; it is the history of abolition sentiment. On the other hand, writers so graceful, talented, and clever as Mr. Page and Mr. Hopkinson Smith do not always give us pictures that correctly represent, except locally, the actual situation before the war; for these gentlemen seem to have _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ in mind. Mark Twain gives us both points of view; he shows us the beautiful side of slavery,--for it had a wonderfully beautiful, patriarchal side,--and he also shows us the horror of it. The living dread of the Negro that he would be sold down the river, has never been more vividly represented than when the poor woman in _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ sees the water swirling against the snag, and realises that she is bound the wrong way. That one