Show Mark Twain and the Concord Sages Two or three weeks ago the Trustees of the Concord Public Library formally pronounced pro-nounced sentence on Mark Twains last book The Adventures of Huckleberr Finn by voting to exclude it forever from the shelves over which they exei cise censorship This decree as awful i in its way as Bunthornes curse was promptly prompt-ly telegraphed to all parts of the Union probably at the expense of the enterprising enter-prising humorist himself lie certainly could afford to do so as a matter of business to say nothing of the personal Mid strictly esoteric gratification which His Oversoul must have derived from tIe solemn deliverance of the summer philosophers phil-osophers We are sorry to have our confidence in I the trustees of the Concord Public Library shaken by an indiscreet revelation by one of their number It looks very much as if there was something behind the reasons publicly assigned by these stern conservators con-servators of the dignified in literature for their condemnation of a book which contains con-tains much matter for laughter but little for serious criticism One of the trustees I has inadverently revealed the fact that on general principles no fiction of any sort is admitted to the shelves of the library It appears therefore that the trustees must have purchased the volume in question under the mistaken impression impres-sion that they were acquiring a biographical biographi-cal work and that Huckleberry Finn was real person If this is the case it is easy to understand under-stand why the summer philosophers should hasten to get rid of Mark Twains book Was it quite candid though quite worthy of natures permanently occupied oc-cupied with the True the Beautiful and the Goodto attempt to conceal their rather amusing mistake behind a formal process of condemnatiod and excommunication excommu-nication 1 It would be interesting to learn what the philosophers thought they were getting get-ting when they added the Life of Huckleberry Huckle-berry Finn to the biographical department depart-ment of the Concord library Did they suppose that Huck was a General of the American Revolution or a Mayflower pilgrim or a NeoPlatonist philosopher or a celebrated malefactor or a French statesman 1 We should like to knowN know-N r Y Sun April G |