SELECTIONS

OF

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

Mark Twain.

[Mark Twain, whose real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born 1835. He is a prolific writer; his best-known works are "The Innocents Abroad" and "The Innocents at Home," "The New Pilgrim's Progress," "Roughing It," and "A Tramp Abroad." Besides these he has written a great many short stories and sketches,]

I

I WISH to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti. used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo-that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture-great in everything he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast-for luncheon-for dinner-for tea-for supper-for between meals. I like a change occasionally. In Genoa he designed everything; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence he painted everything, designed everything, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favourite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone. Pisa he designed everything but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom-house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But here-here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter's; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope's soldiers, the

In

Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima-the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and, unless all men and books do lie, he painted everything in it! Dan said the other day to the guide, "Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!"

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday, when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.

But we have taken it out of this guide. He has marched us through miles of pictures and sculpture in the vast corridors of the Vatican; and through miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other places; he has shown us the great picture in the Sistine Chapel, and frescoes enough to fresco the heavens-pretty much all done by Michael Angelo. So with him we have played that game which has vanquished so many guides for us imbecility and idiotic questions. These creatures never suspect; they have

no idea of a sarcasm.

He shows us a figure and says: "Statoo brunzo." (Bronze statue.) We look at it indifferently, and the doctor asks: "By Michael Angelo?" "No-not know who." Then he shows us the ancient Roman Forum. The doctor asks: "Michael Angelo?” A stare from the guide. "No-thousan' year before he is born!" Then an Egyptian obelisk. Again: "Michael Angelo?" "Oh, mon Dieu, genteelmen! Zis is two thousan' year before he is born! !"

He grows so tired of that unceasing question sometimes, that he dreads to show us anything at all. The wretch has tried all the ways he can think of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is only responsible for the creation of a part of the world, but somehow he has not succeeded yet. Relief for overtasked eyes and brain from study and sight-seeing is necessary, or we shall become idiotic sure enough. Therefore this guide must continue to suffer. If he does not enjoy it so much the worse for him. We do.

In this place I may as well jot down a chapter concerning

those necessary nuisances, European guides. Many a man has wished in his heart he could do without his guide, but, knowing he could not, has wished he could get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for the affliction of his society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if our experience can be made useful to others they are welcome to it.

"show

Guides know about enough English to tangle everything up so that a man can make neither head nor tail of it. They know their story by heart-the history of every statue, painting, cathedral, or other wonder they show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would—and if you interrupt, and throw them off the track, they have to go back and begin over again. All their lives long they are employed in showing strange things to foreigners and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts children to say "smart" things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide whose privilege it is every day to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never went into ecstasies any more— we never admired anything—we never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever since. We have made some of those people savage at times, but we have never lost our own serenity.

The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can keep his countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes natural to him.

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation-full of impatience. He said—

"Come wis me, genteelmen!-come! I show you ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo !-write it himself!-write it wis his own hand!-come!"

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger,

"What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher Colombo!-write it himself!"

We looked indifferent-unconcerned. The doctor examined. the document very deliberately, during a painful pause.—Then he said, without any show of interest—

"Ah-Ferguson-what-what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?"

"Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!" Another deliberate examination.

"Ah-did he write it himself, or—or how?"

"He write it himself!-Christopher Colombo!-he's own handwriting, write by himself!"

Then the doctor laid the document down and said—

"Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that,"

"But zis is ze great Christo

"I don't care who it is! It's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you mustn't think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out!-and if you haven't drive on!"

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something which he thought

would overcome us. He said

"Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo-splendid, grand, magnificent!"

He brought us before the beautiful bust-for it was beautiful -and sprang back and struck an attitude.

"Ah, look, genteelmen -beautiful, grand,-bust Christopher Colombo !-beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal !"

The doctor put up his eye-glass-procured for such occasions. "Ah—what did you say this gentleman's name was ? "

Christopher Colombo !-ze great Christopher Colombo!" Christopher Colombo-the great Christopher Colombo. Well, what did he do?"

"Discover America!-discover America. Oh, ze devil!" "Discover America. No-that statement will hardly wash.

We are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo-pleasant name-is-is he dead?"

of !"

"Oh, corpo di Baccho !-three hundred year!"

"What did he die of?"

"I do not know!-I cannot tell."

"Small-pox, think?"

"I do not know, genteelmen !-I do not know what he die

"Measles, likely ?"

"Maybe maybe-I do not know-I think he die of somethings."

"Parents living?"

"Im-posseeble!"

"Ah-which is the bust and which is the pedestal?" "Santa Maria!-zis ze bust !--zis ze pedestal !"

"Ah, I see, I see-happy combination-very happy combination, indeed. Is-is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust ?"

That joke was lost on the foreigner-guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting to this Roman guide, Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest sometimes-even admiration-it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded though. Nobody else ever did in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered-non-plussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last-a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so