obligatory. I felt both relief and pleasure when he authorized me to
pay that debt by writing an interpretation of his life and work.

It is an appreciation originating in the heart of one who loved Mark
Twain's works for a generation before he ever met Samuel L. Clemens. It
is an interpretation springing from the conviction that Mark Twain was a
great American who comprehensively incorporated and realized his own
country and his own age as no American has so completely done before
him; a supreme humorist who ever wore the panache of youth, gaiety, and
bonhomie; a brilliant wit who never dipped his darts in the poison of
cynicism, misanthropy, or despair; constitutionally a reformer who,
heedless of self, boldly struck for the right as he saw it; a
philosopher and sociologist who intuitively understood the secret
springs of human motive and impulse, and empirically demonstrated that
intuition in works which crossed frontiers, survived translation, and
went straight to the human, beneath the disguise of the racial; a genius
who lived to know and enjoy the happy rewards of his own fame; a great
man who saw life steadily and saw it whole.

ARCHIBALD HENDERSON.

LONDON,
August 5, 1910.


NOTE.--The author esteems himself in the highest degree fortunate in
having the co-operation of Mr. Alvin Langdon Coburn. All the
illustrations, both autochrome and monochrome, are the work of Mr.
Coburn.