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reads from book or MS., or where he stands up without a note and frankly
exposes the fact, by his confident manner and smooth phrasing, that he
is not improvising, but reciting from memory. And in the heat of
telling a thing that is memorised in substance only, one flashes out the
happiest suddenly-begotten phrases every now and then! Try it. Such a
phrase has a life and sparkle about it that twice as good a one could
not exhibit if prepared beforehand, and it "fetches" an audience in
such an enthusing and inspiring and uplifting way that that lucky phrase
breeds another one, sure.
Your September instalment--["Their Silver Wedding journey."]--was
delicious--every word of it. You haven't lost any of your splendid art.
Callers have arrived.
With love
MARK.
"Yes," wrote Howells, "if I were a great histrionic artist like you
I would get my poor essays by heart, and recite them, but being what
I am I should do the thing so lifelessly that I had better recognise
their deadness frankly and read them."
From Vienna Clemens had contributed to the Cosmopolitan, then owned
by John Brisben Walker, his first article on Christian Science. It
was a delicious bit of humor and found such enthusiastic
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