The Salt Lake Herald

MARK TWAIN.

Mark Twain's humor ripens as he grows older. His speech at the dinner given in his honor on his seventieth birthday could only have been better if it had been longer.

When one harks back to the days of "Innocence Abroad," of "Roughing It," and comes down the list, through "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn," and the biography of "Joan of Arc" to the speech of Tuesday night, there seems no room for question but that Mark Twain is the foremost man of letters America has produced. It is not alone the inexhaustible vein of humor, ranging from the pure fun of the Innocents to the wicked irony of "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyville;" nor is it the wide acquaintance with human nature, the simple, effective style, the quaint fancies and strong convictions that hold every reader and give his work permanence. The American people love and cherish him because he has portrayed and expressed national characteristics in himself and in his books. He is spontaneously humorous, and he is the one typical American of today in his point of view, in his methods of expression, in the very quaintness and unexpectedness of his humor.

From the days when he pictured the Comstock life, down to the quiet and comfort of his evening of life, he has been true to a high ideal. Beneath all the drollery there lay a hatred of wrong in every form, a reverence for all good. And behind his work there has been a character as beautiful as the things he worshipped. Without any trace of the pharisee or the weakling, he has given men an exalted standard in life and literature.

It is good to recall some of the things Mark Twain has done to give courage to his fellow man. One of these was his wonderful fight for fortune and honor when all he had was swept away in a failure for which he was in no way responsible. At a time when most men are ready to retire from the struggle of life he began anew—and he won. Since Sir Walter's day there has been no finer spectacle of bravery and good cheer in the face of bitter adversity; and it is good to know that the waning sun finds this typical American and brave soldier so situated that the wants of his last years need concern him not at all.