classed the author among the people he did not love, _les buffons qui ne
me font rire_. The man is not to be envied who does not laugh over the
ride on "The Genuine Mexican Plug" till he is almost as sore as the
equestrian after that adventure. Again, while studying the narrative of
how Mark edited an agricultural paper in a country district, a person
with any sense of humour is scarcely a responsible being. He is quite
unfit (so doth he revel in laughter uncontrollable) for the society of
staid people, and he ought to be ejected from club libraries, where his
shouts waken the bald-headed sleepers of these retreats. It is one
example of what we have tried to urge, that "Mark's way" is not nearly so
acceptable in "The Innocents Abroad," especially when the Innocents get
to the Holy Land. We think it in bad taste, for example, to snigger over
the Siege of Samaria, and the discomfiture of "shoddy speculators" in
curious articles of food during that great leaguer. Recently Mark Twain
has shown in his Mississippi sketches, in "Tom Sawyer," and in
"Hucklebury Finn," that he can paint a landscape, that he can describe
life, that he can tell a story as well as the very best, and all without
losing the gift of laughter. His travel-books are his least excellent;
he is happiest at home, in the country of his own Blue Jay.

The contrasts, the energy, the mixture of races in America, the
overflowing young life of the continent, doubtless give its humorists the
richness of its vein. All over the land men are eternally "swopping
stories" at bars, and in the long, endless journeys by railway and
steamer. How little, comparatively, the English "swop stories"! The
Scotch are almost as much addicted as the Americans to this form of
barter, so are the Irish. The Englishman has usually a dignified dread
of dropping into his "anecdotage."

The stories thus collected in America are the subsoil of American