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augenblichlicher Tobsucht and got back to calm cold reason again,
I won't hold you to it unless I find I have got you down in writing
somewhere. Herr, I would not read the proof of one of my books for any
fair and reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it.
The proof-reading on the P & P cost me the last rags of my religion.
M.
Howells had written that he would be glad to help out in the
reading of the proofs of Huck Finn, which book Webster by
this time had in hand. Replying to Clemens's eager and
grateful acceptance now, he wrote: "It is all perfectly true
about the generosity, unless I am going to read your proofs
from one of the shabby motives which I always find at the
bottom of my soul if I examine it." A characteristic
utterance, though we may be permitted to believe that his
shabby motives were fewer and less shabby than those of
mankind in general.
The proofs which Howells was reading pleased him mightily.
Once, during the summer, he wrote: "if I had written half as
good a book as Huck Finn I shouldn't ask anything better
than to read the proofs; even as it is, I don't, so send
them on; they will always find me somewhere."
638
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