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Elmira and with his fiancee reading final proofs on the new book.
They were having an idyllic good time, of course, but it was a
useful time, too, for Olivia Langdon had a keen and refined literary
instinct, and the Innocents Abroad, as well as Mark Twain's other
books, are better to-day for her influence.
It has been stated that Mark Twain loved the lecture platform, but
from his letters we see that even at this early date, when he was at
the height of his first great vogue as a public entertainer, he had
no love for platform life. Undoubtedly he rejoiced in the brief
periods when he was actually before his audience and could play upon
it with his master touch, but the dreary intermissions of travel and
broken sleep were too heavy a price to pay.
*
****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis
ELMIRA, June 4. (1868)
DEAR FOLKS,--Livy sends you her love and loving good wishes, and I send
you mine. The last 3 chapters of the book came tonight--we shall read it
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