Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/190

 MARK TWAIN

which is a quite clear way of saying that a foreigner s report is only valuable when it restricts itself to impressions. It pleases me to have you follow my lead in that glowing way, but it leaves me nothing to combat. You should give me something to deny and refute; I would do as much for you.

It pleases me to have you playfully warn the Because I used to do that cunning thing myself in earlier days. I did it in a prefatory note to a book of mine called Tom Sawyer.

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

PER G. G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE.

The kernel is the same in both prefaces, you see the public must not take us too seriously. If we remove that kernel we remove the life-principle, and the preface is a corpse. Yes, it pleases me to have you use that idea, for it is a high compliment. But it leaves me nothing to combat; and that is damage to me.

jotting down, but he can form impressions that are worth repeating. For my part, I think that foreigners impressions are more interesting than native opinions. After all, such impressions merely mean how the country struck the foreigner. &quot;

When I published Jonathan and His Continent, I wrote in a preface addressed to Jonathan: &quot;If ever you should insist on seeing in this little volume a serious study of your country and of your countrymen, I warn you that your world-wide fame for humor will t?&amp;lt;? exploded,&quot;

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