IV. THE WORLD-FAMED GENIUS “Art transmitting the simplest feelings of common life, but such, always, as are accessible to all men in the whole world the art of common life--the art of a people --universal art.” TOLSTOY: What is Art? Some years ago a group of Mark Twain's friends, in a spirit of fun, addressed a letter to: MARK TWAIN GOD KNOWS WHERE. Though taking a somewhat circuitous route, the letter went unerringly to its goal; and it was not long before the senders of that letter received the laconic, but triumphant reply: “He did.” They now turned the tables on the jubilant author, who equally as quickly received a letter addressed: MARK TWAIN THE DEVIL KNOWS WHERE. It seemed that “he” did, too! In his lifetime Mark Twain won a fame that was literally world-wide --a fame, indeed, which seemed to extend to realms peopled by noted theological characters. From very humble beginnings--he used facetiously to speak of coming up from the “very dregs of society”! --Mark Twain achieved international eminence and repute. This accomplishment was due to the power of brain and personality alone. In this sense, his career is unprecedented and unparalleled in the history of American literature. It is a mark of the democratic independence of America that she has betrayed a singular indifference to the appraisal of her literature at the hands of foreign criticism. Upon her writers who have exhibited derivative genius--Irving, Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow--American criticism has lavished the most extravagant eulogiums. The three geniuses who have made permanent contributions to world-literature, who have either embodied in the completest degree the spirit of American democracy, or who have had the widest following of imitators and admirers in foreign countries, still await their final and just deserts at the hands of critical opinion in their own land. The genius of Edgar Allan Poe gave rise to schools of literature on the continent of Europe; yet in America his name must remain for years debarred from inclusion in a so-called Hall of Fame! Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, the two great interpreters and embodiments of America, represent the supreme contribution of democracy to universal literature. In so far as it is legitimate for anyone to be denominated a “self-made man” in literature, these men are justly entitled to such characterization. They owe nothing to European literature--their genius is supremely original, native, democratic. The case of Mark Twain, which is our present concern, is a literary phenomenon which imposes upon criticism, peculiarly upon American criticism, the distinct obligation of tracing the steps in his unhalting climb to an eminence that was international