For instance, you have proven and established these
eight facts here following--a good score as to number, but not worth
while:
Mark Twain is--
1. "Insulting."
2. (Sarcastically speaking) "This refined humor, 1st."
3. Prefers the manure-pile to the violets.
4. Has uttered "an ill-natured sneer."
5. Is "nasty."
6. Needs a "lesson in politeness and good manners."
7. Has published a "nasty article."
8. Has made remarks "unworthy of a gentleman."--["It is more funny than
his" (Mark Twain's) "anecdote, and would have been less insulting."]
A quoted remark of mine "is a gross insult to a nation friendly to
America."
"He has read La Terre, this refined humorist."
"When Mark Twain visits a garden . . . he goes in the far-away corner
where the soil is prepared."
"Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot so much as stain them" (the
Frenchwomen).
"When he" (Mark Twain) "takes his revenge he is unkind, unfair, bitter,
nasty."
"But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark," etc.
"Mark might certainly have derived from it" (M. Bourget's book) "a lesson
in politeness and good manners."
A quoted remark of mine is "unworthy of a gentleman."--
These are all true, but really they are not valuable; no one cares much
for such finds. In our American magazines we recognize this and suppress
them. We avoid naming them. American writers never allow themselves to
name them.
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