originated fundamentally in the facts of his own life. He is a master
humorist--which is only another way of saying that he is a master
psychologist with the added gift of humour--because he looked upon
himself always as a complete and well-rounded repository of universally
human characteristics. _Humanus sum; et nil humanum mihi alienum est_
--this might well have served for his motto. It was his conviction that
the American possessed no unique and peculiar human characteristics
differentiating him from the rest of the world. In the same way, he
regarded himself as possessing no unique or peculiar human
characteristics differentiating him from the rest of the human race.
Like Omar he might have said "I myself am Heaven and Hell"----for within
himself he recognized, in some form, at higher or lower power, every
feature, trait, instinct, characteristic of which a human being is
capable. The last half century of his life, as he himself said in his
Autobiography, had been constantly and faithfully devoted to the study
of the human race. His knowledge came from minute self-examination--for
he regarded himself as the entire human race compacted together. It was
by concentrating his attention upon himself, by recognizing in himself
the quintessential type of the race, that he succeeded in producing
works of such pure naturalness and utter verity. A humour which is at
bottom good humour is always contagious; but there is a deeper and more
universal appeal which springs from genial and unaffected representation
of the human species, of the universal 'Genus Homo'.

It has been said, by foreign critics, that the intellectual life of
America in general takes its cue from the day, whilst the intellectual
life of Europe derives from history. If American literature be really
"Journalism under exceptionally favourable conditions," as defined by
the Danish critic, Johannes V. Jensen, then must Mark Twain be a typical
product of American literature. A certain modicum of truth may rest in