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sides of these venerable Boston deities, Longfellow, Emerson,
Holmes, and the rest of that venerated group. Clemens had been a
favorite at the Atlantic lunches and dinners--a speech by him always
an event. This time he decided to outdo himself.
He did that, but not in the way he had intended. To use one of his
own metaphors, he stepped out to meet the rainbow and got struck by
lightning. His joke was not of the Boston kind or size. When its
full nature burst upon the company--when the ears of the assembled
diners heard the sacred names of Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes
lightly associated with human aspects removed--oh, very far removed
-
-from Cambridge and Concord, a chill fell upon the diners that
presently became amazement, and then creeping paralysis. Nobody
knew afterward whether the great speech that he had so gaily planned
ever came to a natural end or not. Somebody--the next on the
program--attempted to follow him, but presently the company melted
out of the doors and crept away into the night.
It seemed to Mark Twain that his career had come to an end. Back in
Hartford, sweating and suffering through sleepless nights, he wrote
Howells his anguish.
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