In the preface to the Jumping Frog, published as far back as 1867, Mark Twain was dubbed, not only “the wild humorist of the Pacific slope,” but also “the moralist of the Main.” The first book which brought him great popularity, 'The Innocents Abroad', exhibited qualities of serious ethical import which, while escaping the attention of the readers of that day, emerge for the moderns from the welter of hilarious humour. How unforgettable is his righteous indignation over that “benefit” performance he witnessed in Italy! The ingrained quality in Mark Twain, which perhaps more than any other won the enthusiastic admiration of his fellow Americans, was this: he always had the courage of his convictions. He writes of things, classic and hallowed by centuries, with a freshness of viewpoint, a total indifference to crystallized opinion, that inspire tremendous respect for his courage, even when one's own convictions are not engaged. The “beautiful love story of Abelard and Heloise” will never, I venture to say, recover its pristine glory--now that Mark Twain has poured over Abelard the vials of his wrath. Those who know only the Mark Twain of the latter years, with his deep, underlying seriousness, his grim irony, and his passion for justice and truth, find difficulty in realizing that, in his earlier days, the joker and the buffoon were almost solely in evidence. In answer to a query of mine as to the reason for the serious spirit that crept into and gave carrying power to his humour, Mr. Clemens frankly replied: “I never wrote a serious word until after I married Mrs. Clemens. She is solely responsible--to her should go the credit--for any deeply serious or moral influence my subsequent work may exert. After my marriage, she edited everything I wrote. And what is more--she not only edited my works, she edited ME! After I had written some side-splitting story, something beginning seriously and ending in preposterous anti-climax, she would say to me: 'You have a true lesson, a serious meaning to impart here. Don't give way to your invincible temptation to destroy the good effect of your story by some extravagantly comic absurdity. Be yourself! Speak out your real thoughts as humorously as you please, but--without farcical commentary. Don't destroy your purpose with an ill-timed joke.' I learned from her that the only right thing was to get in my serious meaning always, to treat my audience fairly, to let them really feel the underlying moral that gave body and essence to my jest.”