@edgarblythe,
Quote:“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
Look ed. When Twain wrote that the vast majority of American could not afford to travel. Large numbers can't afford it today. Are they "vegetating"?
Is he saying that they are all prejudiced, narrow-minded bigots and that only experienced travelers, like himself, can acquire charitable views. Why would anybody want to have a charitable view of things anyway.
And the whole quote is just a series of assertions with no evidence. I can imagine him in the barber's chair being prettied up and sounding off.
Twain's wife rejected his first proposal and her father opposed the marriage for what I assume were pretty obvious reasons.
He couldn't write in the accepted sense at all. All he did is pander to that "are we not all jolly jack-the-lads?" streak which is often found in the common run of things. A giant ego counter-jumping.
I have read wodges of his outpourings with the view that there must be something interesting in them for him to be so famous. Not one benefit of the doubt did I deny him.
Not one single thing could I find. A complete waste of time.
Salinger disappeared into a small village. Proust into one bedroom.
