Although he was self-taught, he gradually came to use the English language with artistic effect and finish. His style is direct and energetic, and it shows his determination to say a thing as simply and as effectively as possible. One of the rules in _Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar_ is, "As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out." He followed this rule. Some have complained that the great humorist's mind, like Emerson's, often worked in a disconnected fashion, but this trait has been exaggerated in the case of both. Mark Twain has certainly made a stronger impression than many authors whose "sixthly" follows more inevitably. It is true that his romances do not gather up every loose end, that they do not close with a grand climax which settles everything; but they reflect the spirit of the western life, which also had many loose ends and left much unsettled. His mingled humor and philosophy, his vivid, interesting, contemporary history, which gives a broad and sympathetic delineation of important phases of western life and development, fill a place that American literature could ill afford to leave vacant. SUMMARY Lincoln spoke to the common people in simple virile English, which serves as a model for the students of Oxford University. Bret Harte wrote stories filled with the humor and the pathos of the rough mining camps of the far West. Eugene Field's simple songs appeal to all children. The virtues of humble homes, the smiles and tears of everyday life, are presented in James Whitcomb Riley's poems. Mark Twain, philosopher, reformer of the type of Cervantes, and romantic historian, has, largely by means of his humor, made a vivid impression on millions of Americans. Every member of this group had an unusual development of humor. Each one was imbued with the democratic spirit and eager to present the elemental facts of life. For these reasons, the audiences of this group have been numbered by millions. REFERENCES Roosevelt's _The Winning of the West_. Turner's _Rise of the New West_. Hart's _National Ideals Historically Traced_. Johnston's _High School History of the United States_ (612 pp.). Clemens's _Life on the Mississippi_. Clemens's _Roughing It_. Schurz's _Abraham Lincoln_. (Excellent.) Morse's _Abraham Lincoln_. Chubb's _Selections from the Addresses, Inaugurals, and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, edited with an Introduction and Notes_. (Macmillan's Pocket Classics.) Boynton's _Bret Harte_. Pemberton's _The Life of Bret Harte_. Erskinels _Leading American Novelists_, pp. 325-379. (Harte.) Canby's _The Short Story in English_, Chap. XIV. (Harte.) Field's _The Eugene Field Book_, edited by Burt and Cable. (Contains autobiographical matter and Field's best juvenile poems and stories.) Thompson's _Eugene Field_, 2 vols. Field's _The Writings in Prose and Verse of Eugene Field_, Sabine Edition, 12 vols. Garland's _A Dialogue between James Whitcomb Riley and Hamlin Garland_, in Me duress Magazine, February, 1894.