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Humoristes Americaines" (These Humorists Americans). I am one of these
humorists American dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making.
This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French,
where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start
into a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive or
not). It is a very good article and the writer says all manner of kind
and complimentary things about me--for which I am sure I thank him with all
my heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by one
unlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my Jumping Frog is
a funny story, but still he can't see why it should ever really convulse
any one with laughter--and straightway proceeds to translate it into
French in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so very
extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint
originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all
up; it is no more like the Jumping Frog when he gets through with it than
I am like a meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof;
wherefore I print the French version, that all may see that I do not
speak falsely; furthermore, in order that even the unlettered may know my
injury and give me their compassion, I have been at infinite pains and
trouble to retranslate this French version back into English; and to tell
the truth I have well-nigh worn myself out at it, having scarcely rested
from my work during five days and nights. I cannot speak the French
language, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I being
self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original English
version of the Jumping Frog, and then read the French or my
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