The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete


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and would straightway have been hounded to death as a plagiarist. It  
would have absolutely destroyed me. I cannot conceive of a man being  
such a hopeless ass (after serving as a legislative reporter, too) as to  
imagine that I or any other literary man in his senses would consent to  
chew over old stuff that had already been in print. If that man weren't  
an infant in swaddling clothes, his only reply to our petition would  
have been, "It has been in print." It makes me as mad as the very Old  
Harry every time I think of Mr. Chew and the frightfully narrow escape I  
have had at his hands. Confound Mr. Chew, with all my heart! I'm willing  
that he should have ten dollars for his trouble of warming over his cold  
victuals--cheerfully willing to that--but no more. If I had had him near  
when his letter came, I would have got out my tomahawk and gone for him.  
He didn't tell the story half as well as you did, anyhow.  
I wish to goodness you were here this moment--nobody in our parlor but  
Livy and me,--and a very good view of London to the fore. We have a  
luxuriously ample suite of apartments in the Langham Hotel, 3rd floor,  
our bedroom looking straight up Portland Place and our parlor having  
a noble array of great windows looking out upon both streets (Portland  
Place and the crook that joins it to Regent Street.)  
9
P.M. Full twilight--rich sunset tints lingering in the west.  
I am not going to write anything--rather tell it when I get back. I love  
you and Harmony, and that is all the fresh news I've got, anyway. And I  
mean to keep that fresh all the time.  
286  


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