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it was a real disappointment. I said to my brother that it didn't seem good or funny, and he said, "No, it was unfortunate. Still some of those quotations were very good"; and he gave them with relish and my father laughed, though never having seen a card in his life, he couldn't understand them like his children. My mother read it lightly and had hardly any second thoughts about it. To my father it is as if it had not been; he never quite heard, never quite understood it, and he forgets easily and entirely. I think it doubtful whether he writes to Mr. Clemens, for he is old and long ago gave up answering letters, I think you can see just how bad, and how little bad, it was as far as we are concerned, and this lovely heartbreaking letter makes up for our disappointment in our much- liked author, and restores our former feeling about him. ELLEN T. EMERSON. The sorrow dulled a little as the days passed. Just after Christmas Clemens wrote to Howells: I haven't done a stroke of work since the Atlantic dinner. But I'm going to try to-morrow. How could I ever---- Ah, well, I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all his work must be contemplated with respect. So long as that unfortunate speech is remembered there will be differences of opinion as to its merits and propriety. Clemens himself, reading it for the first time in nearly thirty years, said: "I find it gross, coarse--well, I needn't go on with particulars. I don't like any part of it, from the beginning to the end. I find it always offensive and detestable. How do I account for this change of view? I don't know." But almost immediately afterward he gave it another consideration and reversed his opinion completely. All the spirit and delight of his old first conception returned, and preparing it for publication, he wrote: --[North American Review, December, 1907, now with comment included in the volume of "Speeches." (Also see Appendix O, at the end of last volume.)--I have read it twice, and unless I am an idiot it hasn't a single defect in it, from the first word to the last. It is just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with humor. There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it anywhere.] It was altogether like Mark Twain to have those two absolutely opposing opinions in that brief time; for, after all, i
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