Most Americans regard Mark Twain with special affection. They know him as a shaggy man who told stories of boy adventures so like their own or those they would like to have had that they become intimately a part of personal experience. His cheerful irreverence and unhurried pace seem antidotes for attitudes to which they necessarily but unwillingly surrender. His is the image of what they like to think Americans have been or can be: humorously perceptive, undeceived by sham, successful in spite of circumstance because of distinctive personal characteristics.

More often than not they smile approvingly at his portrayal...