Because he loved to
protect the weak, he wrote _A Dogs Tale_ (1904). For the same reason he
paid all the expenses of a negro through an eastern college.
Although he was self-taught, he gradually came to use the English language
with artistic effect and finish. His style is direct and energetic, and it
shows his determination to say a thing as simply and as effectively as
possible. One of the rules in _Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar_ is, "As to the
Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out." He followed this rule. Some have
complained that the great humorist's mind, like Emerson's, often worked in
a disconnected fashion, but this trait has been exaggerated in the case of
both. Mark Twain has certainly made a stronger impression than many authors
whose "sixthly" follows more inevitably. It is true that his romances do
not gather up every loose end, that they do not close with a grand climax
which settles everything; but they reflect the spirit of the western life,
which also had many loose ends and left much unsettled.
His mingled humor and philosophy, his vivid, interesting, contemporary
history, which gives a broad and sympathetic delineation of important
phases of western life and development, fill a place that American
literature could ill afford to leave vacant.
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