minor points he was, beyond any author I have known, without favorite
phrases or pet words. He utterly despised the avoidance of repetitions
out of fear of tautology. If a word served his turn better than a
substitute, he would use it as many times in a page as he chose.




V.

At that time I had become editor of The Atlantic Monthly, and I had
allegiances belonging to the conduct of what was and still remains the
most scrupulously cultivated of our periodicals. When Clemens began to
write for it he came willingly under its rules, for with all his
wilfulness there never was a more biddable man in things you could show
him a reason for. He never made the least of that trouble which so
abounds for the hapless editor from narrower-minded contributors. If you
wanted a thing changed, very good, he changed it; if you suggested that a
word or a sentence or a paragraph had better be struck out, very good, he
struck it out. His proof-sheets came back each a veritable "mush of
concession," as Emerson says. Now and then he would try a little
stronger language than 'The Atlantic' had stomach for, and once when I
sent him a proof I made him observe that I had left out the profanity. He
wrote back: "Mrs. Clemens opened that proof, and lit into the room with
danger in her eye. What profanity? You see, when I read the manuscript
to her I skipped that." It was part of his joke to pretend a violence in
that gentlest creature which the more amusingly realized the situation to
their friends.

I was always very glad of him and proud of him as a contributor, but I