The thirty-first
chapter of _Huckleberry Finn_, in which this incident occurs, could not
have been written by one who did not thoroughly appreciate the way in which
the South regarded those who aided in the escape of a slave. Another unique
episode of the story is the remarkable dramatic description of the deadly
feud between the families of the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords.
This story is Mark Twain's masterpiece, and it is not improbable that it
will continue to be read as long as the Mississippi flows toward the Gulf.
Of Mark Twain's achievement in these two tales, Professor William Lyon
Phelps of Yale says: "He has done something which many popular novelists
have signally failed to accomplish--he has created real characters. His two
wonderful boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, are wonderful in quite
different ways. The creator of Tom exhibited remarkable observation; the
creator of Huck showed the divine touch of imagination.... _Tom Sawyer_ and
_Huckleberry Finn_ are prose epics of American life."
Mark Twain says that he was reared to believe slavery a divine institution.
This fact makes his third story of western life, _Pudd'nhead Wilson_.
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