pay. And in return for this imperial generosity, what does America
do? She charges a duty on French works of art!

I wish I had your end of this dispute; I should have something worth
talking about. If you would only furnish me something to argue,
something to refute--but you persistently won't. You leave good chances
unutilized and spend your strength in proving and establishing
unimportant things. For instance, you have proven and established these
eight facts here following--a good score as to number, but not worth
while:

Mark Twain is--

1. "Insulting."

2. (Sarcastically speaking) "This refined humor, 1st."

3. Prefers the manure-pile to the violets.

4. Has uttered "an ill-natured sneer."

5. Is "nasty."

6. Needs a "lesson in politeness and good manners."

7. Has published a "nasty article."

8. Has made remarks "unworthy of a gentleman."--["It is more funny than
his" (Mark Twain's) "anecdote, and would have been less insulting."]

A quoted remark of mine "is a gross insult to a nation friendly to
America."

"He has read La Terre, this refined humorist."

"When Mark Twain visits a garden . . . he goes in the far-away corner
where the soil is prepared."

"Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot so much as stain them" (the
Frenchwomen).

"When he" (Mark Twain) "takes his revenge he is unkind, unfair, bitter,
nasty."

"But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark," etc.

"Mark might certainly have derived from it" (M. Bourget's book) "a lesson
in politeness and good manners."

A quoted remark of mine is "unworthy of a gentleman."--

These are all true, but really they are not valuable; no one cares much
for such finds. In our American magazines we recognize this and suppress
them. We avoid naming them. American writers never allow themselves to
name them. It would look as if they were in a temper, and we hold that
exhibitions of temper in public are not good form except in the very
young and inexperienced. And even if we had the disposition to name
them, in order to fill up a gap when we were short of ideas and
arguments, our magazines would not allow us to do it, because they think
that such words sully their pages. This present magazine is particularly
strenuous about it. Its note to me announcing the forwarding of your
proof-sheets to France closed thus--for your protection:

"It is needless to ask you to avoid anything that he might consider as
personal."