MARK TWAIN
"predetermined"; "unsophisticated" for "primi tive " ; preparation " for * expectancy " ; rebuked for "subdued"; "dependent on" for "resulting from"; "fact" for "condition"; "fact" for "con jecture " ; " precaution " for " caution " ; " explain for determine " ; " mortified " for " disappointed " ; "meretricious" for "factitious"; "materially" for "considerably"; "decreasing" for "deepening"; "increasing" for "disappearing"; "embedded" for "inclosed"; "treacherous" for "hostile"; "stood" for "stooped"; "softened" for "replaced"; "re joined * for " remarked " ; " situation " for " con dition"; "different" for "differing"; "insensible" for "unsentient"; "brevity" for "celerity"; "dis trusted " for " suspicious " ; " mental imbecility for "imbecility"; "eyes" for "sight"; "counter acting" for "opposing"; "funeral obsequies" for "obsequies."
There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now all dead but Lounsbury. I don t remember that Lounsbury makes the claim in so many words, still he makes it, for he says that Deer slayer is a "pure work of art." Pure, in that connection, means faultless faultless in all details and language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Cooper s English with the English which he writes himself but it is plain that he didn t; and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Cooper s is as clean and compact as his own. Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our
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