Mark Twain
I can't think of a more underestimated American writer than Mark Twain. Not that I am an expert in American literature, but it is just weird how most people tend to confine his literary heritage to the books for (and about) kids.
Twain's "Mysterious stranger" is an excellent example of how an author can write about serious issues of good and evil in human nature while keeping his brisk smile intact and his style reflecting that sarcastic smile on the paper. That is probably what makes a genius compared to just-a-good-writer.
"Man is made of dirt--I saw him made. I am not made of dirt. Man is a museum of diseases, a home of impurities; he comes to-day and is gone to-morrow; he begins as dirt and departs as stench; I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense. You understand? He has the Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference enough between us, all by itself."
This is something I have been struggling to put into words for quite a long time and here it goes, put concisely in a fairy-tale. Moral Sense. The thing we people feel so proud of makes us the most hypocritical creatures, because we use that primarily to justify our deeds or misdeeds rather than draw up a guideline for the future. Needless to say, it can be bent as easily as a piece of wet dirt of which we were allegedly created.
Twain's "Mysterious stranger" is an excellent example of how an author can write about serious issues of good and evil in human nature while keeping his brisk smile intact and his style reflecting that sarcastic smile on the paper. That is probably what makes a genius compared to just-a-good-writer.
"Man is made of dirt--I saw him made. I am not made of dirt. Man is a museum of diseases, a home of impurities; he comes to-day and is gone to-morrow; he begins as dirt and departs as stench; I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense. You understand? He has the Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference enough between us, all by itself."
This is something I have been struggling to put into words for quite a long time and here it goes, put concisely in a fairy-tale. Moral Sense. The thing we people feel so proud of makes us the most hypocritical creatures, because we use that primarily to justify our deeds or misdeeds rather than draw up a guideline for the future. Needless to say, it can be bent as easily as a piece of wet dirt of which we were allegedly created.