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May 6, '80.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--It is a model autobiography.
Continue to develop your character in the same gradual inconspicuous and
apparently unconscious way. The reader, up to this time, may have his
doubts, perhaps, but he can't say decidedly, "This writer is not such
a simpleton as he has been letting on to be." Keep him in that state of
mind. If, when you shall have finished, the reader shall say, "The man
is an ass, but I really don't know whether he knows it or not," your
work will be a triumph.
Stop re-writing. I saw places in your last batch where re-writing had
done formidable injury. Do not try to find those places, else you will
mar them further by trying to better them. It is perilous to revise a
book while it is under way. All of us have injured our books in that
foolish way.
Keep in mind what I told you--when you recollect something which
belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you
are. Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.
I have penciled the MS here and there, but have not needed to make any
criticisms or to knock out anything.
545
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