October 7 Tuesday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Jennie Starkey that it was Bill Nye who said it, though she had “his idea but not his phrasing” [MTP: Seven Gables Bookshop, Item 69]. Note: the famous line attributed most often to Mark Twain but which he laid at Nye’s feet was: “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” See MTA 1: 338.
Gertrude Swain wrote from Greeley, Neb. to Sam:
Dear Mr. Twain:
I’ve been going to write you for a long time, ever since I saw that piece in the paper about Huck Finn being a bad book.
I am a little girl twelve years old. I have read Huck Finn about fifty times. Papa calls it my Bible, I think it is the best book ever written, and I don’t think it would hurt any little boy or girl to read it. I think it would do lots of them a lot of good. I don’t think that preacher knew what he was talking about. …
I think Huck is just fine and I wish there was more like it [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Write this child a note, & add her letter to the introduction of the new Huck.”