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To Louis Pendleton, in Georgia:
ELMIRA, N. Y., Aug. 4, '88.
MY DEAR SIR,--I found your letter an hour ago among some others which
had lain forgotten a couple of weeks, and I at once stole time enough to
read Ariadne. Stole is the right word, for the summer "Vacation" is
the only chance I get for work; so, no minute subtracted from work is
borrowed, it is stolen. But this time I do not repent. As a rule,
people don't send me books which I can thank them for, and so I
say nothing--which looks uncourteous. But I thank you. Ariadne is a
beautiful and satisfying story; and true, too--which is the best part of
a story; or indeed of any other thing. Even liars have to admit that,
if they are intelligent liars; I mean in their private [the word
conscientious written but erased] intervals. (I struck that word out
because a man's private thought can never be a lie; what he thinks, is
to him the truth, always; what he speaks--but these be platitudes.)
If you want me to pick some flaws--very well--but I do it unwillingly.
I notice one thing--which one may notice also in my books, and in all
books whether written by man or God: trifling carelessness of statement
or Expression. If I think that you meant that she took the lizard from
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