addresses itself successively to all classes of readers. He has been
called the greatest humorist in the world, and that is probably the
truth; but he is also a charming and attractive story-teller, an alert
romancer, a clever and penetrating observer, a philosopher without
pretensions, and therefore all the more profound, and finally, a
brilliant essayist."

Nevertheless, the observation of M. Forgues is just and authentic--the
Attic flavour of _l'esprit Gaulois_ is alien to the loosely articulated
structure of American humour. The noteworthy criticism which Mark Twain
directed at Paul Bourget's 'Outre Mer', and the subsequent controversy
incident thereto, forced into light the racial and temperamental
dissimilarities between the Gallic and the American _Ausschauung_. Mr.
Clemens once remarked to me that, of all continental peoples, the French
were most alien to the spirit of his humour. In 'Le Figaro', at the
time of Mark Twain's death, this fundamental difference in taste once
more comes to light: "It is as difficult for a Frenchman to understand
Mark Twain as for a North American to admire La Fontaine. At first
sight, there is nothing in common between that highly specialized
faculty which the Anglo-Saxons of the old and the new world designate
under the name of humour, and that quality with us which we call wit
(esprit). And yet, at bottom, these two manifestations of the human
genius, so different in appearance, have a common origin and reach the
same result: they are, both of them, the glorification of good sense
presented in pleasing and unexpected form. Only, this form must
necessarily vary with peoples who do not speak the same language and
whose skulls are not fashioned in the same way."

In Italy, as in France, the peculiar _timbre_ of Mark Twain's humour
found an audience not wholly sympathetic, not thoroughly _au courant_