Why this was so we cannot consider at present: the time has not yet come to discuss the psychogenesis and the significance of Mark Twain's humor. But that it was so we have ample evidence. Mr. Cable tells how, to his amazement, once, when he and Clemens were giving a public reading together, the latter, whom he had supposed happy and satisfied with his triumphant success, turned to him on their way back to the hotel and said with a groan, "Oh, Cable, I am demeaning myself--I am allowing myself to be a mere buffoon. It's ghastly. I can't endure it any longer." And all the next day, Mr. Cable says, he sedulously applied himself, in spite of the immense applause that had greeted him, to choosing selections for his next reading which would be justified not only as humor but as literature and art. This is only one of many instances of Mark Twain's lifelong revolt against a rôle which he apparently felt had been thrust upon him. It is enough to corroborate all our intuitions regarding the reluctance with which he accepted it. But there is plenty of other evidence to corroborate these intuitions. Mr. Paine tells us that henceforth, in his letters home, "the writer rarely speaks of his work at all, and is more inclined to tell of the mining shares he has accumulated," that there is "no mention of his new title"--the pen-name he had adopted--"and its success." He knew that his severe Calvinistic mother could hardly sympathize with his scribblings, worthy or unworthy, that she was much more concerned about the money he was making; he who had sworn never to come home again until he was a rich man was ashamed in his mother's eyes to have adopted a career that promised him success indeed, but a success incomparable with that of the mining magnate he had set out to be. Still, that success immediately proved to be considerable, and if he had felt any essential pride in his new work he would certainly have said something about it. What we actually find him writing is this: "I cannot overcome my repugnance to telling what I am doing or what I expect to do or propose to do." That he had no essential pride in this work, that it was not personal, that he did not think of it as a true expression of himself but rather as a commodity we can see from the motives with which he chose his pen-name: "His letters, copied and quoted all along the Coast, were unsigned," says Mr. Paine. "They were easily identified with one another, but not with a personality. He realized that to build a reputation it was necessary to fasten it to an individuality, a name. He gave the matter a good deal of thought. He did not consider the use of his own name; the _nom de plume_ was the fashion of the time. He wanted something brief, crisp, definite, unforgettable. He tried over a good many combinations in his mind, but none seemed convincing," etc., etc. In short, he wanted a trade mark in order to sell what he instinctively regarded as his