An introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine and a hitherto unpublished photograph as a frontspiece, and there you are--the season's new Mark Twain book.

This season it is "Moments With Mark Twain," a collection of excerpts from his works for quick and handy reading. We may look for further books in this series in 1923, 1924, 1925, &c., to be ent.i.tled "Half Hours With Mark Twain" (the selections a trifle longer), "Pleasant Week-Ends With Mark Twain," "Indian Summer With Mark Twain," &c.

There is an interesting comparison between this sample bottle of the humor of Mark Twain and that contained in the volume ent.i.tled "Something Else Again," by Franklin P. Adams. The latter is a volume of verse and burlesques which have appeared in the newspapers and magazines.

In the days when Mark Twain was writing, it was considered good form to spoof not only the cla.s.sics but surplus learning of any kind. A man was popularly known as an affected cuss when he could handle anything more erudite than a nasal past participle or two in his own language, and any one who wanted to qualify as a humorist had to be able to misp.r.o.nounce any word of over three syllables.

Thus we find Mark Twain, in the selections given in this volume, having amusing trouble with the p.r.o.nunciation of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci, expressing surprise that Michael Angelo was dead, picking flaws in the old master's execution and complaining of the use of foreign words which have their equivalent "in a n.o.bler language--English."

There certainly is no harm in this school of humor, and it has its earnest and prosperous exponents today. In fact, a large majority of the people still like to have some one poke fun at the things in which they themselves are not proficient, whether it be p.r.o.nunciation, Latin or bricklaying.

But there is an increasingly large section of the reading public who while they may not be expert in Latin composition, nevertheless do not think that a Latin word in itself is a cause for laughter. A French phrase thrown in now and then for metrical effect does not strike them as essentially an affectation, and they are willing to have references made to characters whose native language may not have been that n.o.blest of all languages, our native tongue.

That such a school of readers exists is proved by the popularity of F.P.A's verses and prose. If any one had told Mark Twain that a man could run a daily newspaper column in New York and ama.s.s any degree of fame through translations of the "Odes of Horace" into the vernacular, the veteran humorist would probably have slapped Albert Bigelow Paine on the back and taken the next boat for Bermuda. And yet in "Something Else Again" we find some sixteen translations of Horace and other "furriners," exotic phrases such as "eheu fugaces" and "ex parte" used without making faces over them, and a popular exposition of highly technical verse forms which James Russell Lowell and Hal Longfellow would have considered terrifically high-brow. And yet thousands of American business men quote F.P.A. to thousands of other American business men every morning.

Can it be said that the American people are not so low-brow as they like to pretend? There is a great deal of affectation in this homespun frame of mind, and many a man makes believe that he doesn't know things simply because no one has ever written about them in the American Magazine. If the truth were known, we are all a great deal better educated than we will admit, and the derisive laughter with which we greet signs of culture is sometimes very hollow. In F.P.A. we find a combination which makes it possible for us to admit our learning and still be held honorable men. It is a good sign that his following is increasing.

LXIII

BUSINESS LETTERS

A text-book on English composition, giving examples of good and bad letter-writing, is always a mine of possibilities for one given to ruminating and with nothing in particular to do. In "Business Man's English" the specimen letters are unusually interesting. It seems almost as if the authors, Wallace Edgar Bartholomew and Floyd Hurlbut, had selected their examples with a view to their fiction possibilities. It also seems to the reader as if he were opening someone else's mail.

For instance, the following is given as a type of "very short letter, well placed":

Mr. Richard T. Green, Employment Department, Travellers' Insurance Co., Chicago, Ill.

Dear Mr. Green:

The young man about whom you inquire has much native ability and while in our employ proved himself a master of office routine.

I regret to say, however, that he left us under circ.u.mstances that would not justify our recommending him to you.

Cordially yours,

C.S. THOMPSON

Now I want to know what those "circ.u.mstances" were. And in lieu of the facts, I am afraid that I shall have to imagine some circ.u.mstances for myself. Personally, I don't believe that the "young man" was to blame.

Bad companions, maybe, or I shouldn't be at all surprised if he was shielding someone else, perhaps a young lady stenographer with whom he was in love. The more I think of it the more I am sure that this was the secret of the whole thing. You see, he was a good worker and had, Mr.

Thompson admits, proved himself a master of office routine. Although Mr.

Thompson doesn't say so, I have no doubt but that he would have been promoted very shortly.

And then he fell in love with a little brown-eyed stenographer. You know how it is yourself. She had an invalid mother at home and was probably trying to save enough money to send her father to college. And whatever she did, it couldn't have been so very bad, for she was such a nice girl.

Well, at any rate, it looks to me as if the young man, while he was arranging the pads of paper for the regular Monday morning conference, overheard the office-manager telling about this affair (I have good reason to believe that it was a matter of carelessness in the payroll) and saying that he considered the little brown-eyed girl dishonest.

At this the young man drew himself up to his full height and, looking the office-manager squarely in the eye, said:

"No, Mr. Hostetter; it was I who did it, and I will take the consequences. And I want it understood that no finger of suspicion shall be pointed at Agnes Fairchild, than whom no truer, sweeter girl ever lived!"

"I am sorry to hear this, Ralph," said Mr. Hostetter. "You know what this means."

"I do, sir," said Ralph, and turned to look out over the chimney-pots of the city, biting his under lip very tight.

And on Sat.u.r.day Ralph left.

Since then he has applied at countless places for work, but always they have written to his old employer, Mr. Thompson, for a reference, and have received a letter similar to the one given here as an example.

Naturally, they have not felt like taking him on. You cannot blame them.

And, in a way, you cannot blame Mr. Thompson. You see, Mr. Hostetter didn't tell Mr. Thompson all the circ.u.mstances of the affair. He just said that Ralph had confessed to responsibility for the payroll mix-up.

If Mr. Thompson had been there at the time I am sure that he would have divined that Ralph was shielding Miss Fairchild, for Mr. Thompson liked Ralph. You can see that from his letter.

But as it stands now things are pretty black for the boy, and it certainly seems as if in this great city there ought to be some one who will give him a job without writing to Mr. Thompson about him. This department will be open as a clearing-house for offers of work for a young man of great native ability and master of office routine who is just at present, unfortunately, unable to give any references, but who will, I am quite sure, justify any trust that may be placed in him in the future.