Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field/Mark in England
MARK IN ENGLAND
On another page I have jotted down some sayings of Mark's relating why he "steadfastly refused" to bull the French and Italian literary markets. That in England it was different, goes without saying, and George Moore once explained Mark's English popularity to me.
"It's his peculiar power of presenting pathetic situations without slush," insisted "the last Victorian" in his manner of finality.
Mark was visibly tickled when I read the Moore estimate from the cuff on which I had jotted it down.
He pondered a short while on "the adjectives," then drawled slowly: "The English are good sports, you know."
Here are a few more opinions of English men of letters which I gathered off and on.
Davison Dalziel, M. P., editor of "The Standard," London: "I agree with 'The Spectator' that Mark Twain is the most popular writer in the English tongue because he added more plentifully and more generously to the gayety of the empire of our language than any other author, living or dead."
Moberly Bell, late editor of "The Times," London (in winter of 1899): "Mark Twain succeeded with us because he is a fearless upholder of all that is clean, honest, noble and straightforward in letters as well as in life. He once told me that he 'qualified as the first yellow journalist.' I wish to God he had remained the first and only one."
That was before Mr. Bell negotiated for the sale of "The Times" to Lord Northcliffe.
William Heinemann, the late famous London publisher, who could never get hold of any of Mark Twain's books for publication:
"An author as well beloved as he is popular and famous. Wit, scholar, orator, millionaire perhaps" (that was before the Webster period), "yet I have seen a letter of his in which he stated point blank: 'I would rather be a pilot than anything else in the world,' and that letter was penned after two hundred thousand copies of 'Innocents Abroad' had been sold."