any demonstration that Mark Twain was anything more than a mirthful and
humorous entertainer. Mr. Bernard Shaw once remarked to me, in support
of the view here outlined, that he regarded Poe and Mark Twain as
America's greatest achievements in literature, and that he thought of
Mark Twain primarily, not as humorist, but as sociologist. "Of course,"
he added, "Mark Twain is in much the same position as myself: he has to
put matters in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang
him, believe he is joking."

Mark Twain once said that whenever he had diverged from custom and
principle to utter a truth, the rule had been that the hearer hadn't
strength of mind enough to believe it. "Custom is a petrifaction," he
asserted; "nothing but dynamite can dislodge it for a century." Mr. W.
D. Howells has advanced the somewhat fanciful theory that "the ludicrous
incongruity of a slave-holding democracy nurtured upon the Declaration
of Independence, and the comical spectacle of white labour owning black
labour, had something to do in quickening (in Mark Twain) the sense of
contrast which is the mountain of humour or is said to be so." However
that may be, Mark Twain was irresistibly driven to the conclusion,
Southern born though he was, that slavery was unjust, inhuman, and
indefensible. The advanced thinkers in the South had reached this
conclusion long before the beginning of the Civil War, and many Southern
men had actually devised freedom to their slaves in their wills. The
slaves were treated humanely, their material wants were cared for by
their owners with a care that can only be called loving, and their
spiritual welfare was the frequent concern in particular of the mistress
of the house.

In his schoolboy days, Mark Twain had no aversion to slavery. He wasn't
even aware that there was anything wrong about it. He never heard it