In his own works, Mark Twain brought to realization the dim and inchoate fancies of Whitman; in his own person he realized that “divine average” of common life which is the dream of American democracy. 'The Prince and the Pauper' is a beautiful child's tale, vivid in narrative and rich in human interest. It is something deeper far than this; for the very crucial motive of the story, the successful substitution of the commoner for the king, transforms it into a symbolic legend of democracy and the equality of man. Mark Twain vehemently approved the French revolution, and frankly expressed his regret over Napoleon's failure to invade England and thus destroy the last vestiges of the semi-feudal paraphernalia of the British monarchy. Despite its note of Yankee blatancy, 'A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur' is a remarkable brief for democracy and the brotherhood of man. So eminent a publicist as Mr. William T. Stead pronounced it, at the time of its first appearance, one of the most significant books of our time; and classed it (with Henry George's 'Progress and Poverty' and Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward') as the third great book from America to give tremendous impetus to the social democratic movement of the age. Mark Twain abandoned all hope of a future life; found more of sorrow than of joy in life's balances; and even, in his latter years, lost faith in humanity itself. But amid the wreck of faiths and creeds, he achieved the strange paradox of American optimism: he never lost faith in democracy, and fought valiantly to the end in behalf of equality and the welfare of the average man.