![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() On Twain: “Anyone with a fleeting familiarity with his work knew that he rarely told the unvarnished truth. This wasn’t another sarcastic squib of the Bohemian school: it was a fable of the frontier, drawing laughter deep from the country’s diaphragm, changing the course of American literature forever.” On the Calaveras Frog: “The manuscript held nothing less than the Fort Sumter of American letters, exploding in the annihilating blaze of a jumping frog. On Harte as an author: “…he liked being the flea in the region’s boosterish hide.” On Harte as editor: “He wasn’t timid, although he treated his writers with enough tact to dull whatever pain they felt at his incisions.” On Whitman: “The Brooklynite who sang the body electric in sinewy strokes of free verse. On Stoddard: “His mercurial mind never lingered in one place long enough to be properly embalmed by his professors.” Harte handed Stoddard this accolade: “He was as much out of place in this very material country as Pegasus in a quartz mill.” ![]()
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