bookstalls of Paris, were confronted everywhere with copies of 'Roughing It'. When the authoritative edition of Mark Twain's works appeared in English, that authoritative French journal, the 'Mercure de France', paid him this distinguished tribute: “His public is as varied as possible, because of the versatility and suppleness of his talent which addresses itself successively to all classes of readers. He has been called the greatest humorist in the world, and that is probably the truth; but he is also a charming and attractive story-teller, an alert romancer, a clever and penetrating observer, a philosopher without pretensions, and therefore all the more profound, and finally, a brilliant essayist.” Nevertheless, the observation of M. Forgues is just and authentic--the Attic flavour of _l'esprit Gaulois_ is alien to the loosely articulated structure of American humour. The noteworthy criticism which Mark Twain directed at Paul Bourget's 'Outre Mer', and the subsequent controversy incident thereto, forced into light the racial and temperamental dissimilarities between the Gallic and the American _Ausschauung_. Mr. Clemens once remarked to me that, of all continental peoples, the French were most alien to the spirit of his humour. In 'Le Figaro', at the time of Mark Twain's death, this fundamental difference in taste once more comes to light: “It is as difficult for a Frenchman to understand Mark Twain as for a North American to admire La Fontaine. At first sight, there is nothing in common between that highly specialized faculty which the Anglo-Saxons of the old and the new world designate under the name of humour, and that quality with us which we call wit (esprit). And yet, at bottom, these two manifestations of the human genius, so different in appearance, have a common origin and reach the same result: they are, both of them, the glorification of good sense presented in pleasing and unexpected form. Only, this form must necessarily vary with peoples who do not speak the same language and whose skulls are not fashioned in the same way.” In Italy, as in France, the peculiar _timbre_ of Mark Twain's humour found an audience not wholly sympathetic, not thoroughly _au courant_ with his spirit. “Translation, however accurate and conscientious,” as the Italian critic, Raffaele Simboli, has pointed out, “fails to render the special flavour of his work. And then in Italy, where humorous writing generally either rests on a political basis or depends on risky phrases, Mark Twain's sketches are not appreciated because the spirit which breathes in them is not always understood. The story of 'The Jumping Frog', for instance, famous as it is in America and England, has made little impression in France or Italy.”