I wouldn't talk in my sleep if I couldn't talk better than
that.
"If you wish to print anything, print this letter; it may have some
value, for it may explain to a reader here and there why it is that in
interviews as a rule men seem to talk like anybody but themselves.
"Sincerely yours,
"MARK TWAIN."
The Harpers had asked Bok to write a book descriptive of his
autograph-letter collection, and he had consented. The propitious
moment, however, never came in his busy life. One day he mentioned the
fact to Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes and the poet said: "Let me write
the introduction for it." Bok, of course, eagerly accepted, and within a
few days he received the following, which, with the book, never reached
publication:
"How many autograph writers have had occasion to say with the Scotch
trespasser climbing his neighbor's wall, when asked where he was going
Bok again!'
"Edward Bok has persevered like the widow in scripture, and the most
obdurate subjects of his quest have found it for their interest to give
in, lest by his continual coming he should weary them. We forgive him;
almost admire him for his pertinacity; only let him have no imitators.
The tax he has levied must not be imposed a second time.
"An autograph of a distinguished personage means more to an imaginative
person than a prosaic looker-on dreams of. Along these lines ran the
consciousness and the guiding will of Napoleon, or Washington, of Milton
or Goethe.
Pages:
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227