There are writers about whom we can say that every year they, exactly the traveler, going into the distance, look less and less. Sometimes they are half forgotten during their lifetime; and when they stop writing, they are completely erased from the memory of people. There are, however, writers of a different warehouse. The usual laws of perspective cannot be applied to them. The pen fell out of the artist's hands, but his creations are fresh and alive; in the minds of people, its appearance grows from year to year, taking on ever larger, more powerful outlines. Such a writer was Mark Twain, the great American realist.