"The Darkness"
Darkness is one of the most pervasive metaphors of 20th century writing. Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” was published in the second month of an early year of the 20th century: 1901. (Mere coincidence? Probably, but who can say for sure?) The “darkness” in this case is a extended metaphor covering the full breadth of the essay and it most gloriously conceived as a rhetorical question:
“shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest?”
For Twain, in this particular case, “the darkness” is a metaphor as rich in sincerity as it is in irony: it symbolizes the poor state of everyone else in the world unfortunate enough to not be a western democracy just biding their time until the "benevolent" arm of western imperialism finally reaches them.
James Fenimore Cooper
Twain was a notoriously vicious (somewhat unfairly, it must be admitted) critic of an author long considered America’s greatest (and certainly most commercially successful) novelist. It doesn’t get much more cruelly dismissive than his assessment of one of the all-time biggest bestsellers in the history of American literature:
“it does seem to me that Deerslayer is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that Deerslayer is just simply a literary delirium tremens.”
Referencing a Quote Which Might Never Have Been Said
The essay titled “William Dean Howells” is a testament to Twain’s admiration of this legendary American man of letters. He commences this testament with a metaphor that is provided for the purpose of antithesis. The quote is one he attributes to Dr. Osler before immediately disclaiming: “Maybe he said it, maybe he didn’t.” Confusing stuff, altogether, but keep in mind that Twain’s point is that Howells does not fit the conventional wisdom of the following metaphor:
“Is it true that the sun of a man’s mentality touches noon at forty and then begins to wane toward setting?”
Twain's Bicep
One of the most humorous and memorable metaphors to be found in the body of work comprising Twain’s essays is not even attributed to him, but rather to the instructor attempting to teach him how to ride a bicycle. Not a bike as you know it, mind you, but one of those ridiculous early models with the enormous and enormously high front wheel. Upon offering the instructor his bicep by which to judge if he was strong enough to handle the task, the man—who may or may not have actually existed—responds:
“It is pulpy, and soft, and yielding, and rounded; it evades pressure, and glides from under the fingers; in the dark a body might think it was an oyster in a rag.”
Satan
Of course, it should go without saying that Satan is by definition a metaphor since he does not literally exist, but Twain takes his metaphorical provenance out of scripture and places it firmly and decisively on the heads of those who invented him by asserting that the devil must be given his due considering that he:
“has for untold centuries maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it.”
