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MARK
Mark Twain was writing few letters these days to any one but
Howells, yet in November he sent one to an old friend of his youth,
Burrough, the literary chair-maker who had roomed with him in the
days when he had been setting type for the St. Louis Evening News.
*
****
To Mr. Burrough, of St. Louis:
HARTFORD, Nov. 1, 1876.
MY DEAR BURROUGHS,--As you describe me I can picture myself as I was
2
0
years ago. The portrait is correct. You think I have grown some; upon
my word there was room for it. You have described a callow fool, a
self-sufficient ass, a mere human tumble-bug.... imagining that he
is remodeling the world and is entirely capable of doing it right.
Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception,
dense and pitiful chuckle-headedness--and an almost pathetic
unconsciousness of it all. That is what I was at 19 and 20; and that
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