September 20 Saturday – A long biographical sketch, “Modern Men: Mark Twain,” ran in the Edinburgh Scots Observer [Tenney 17]. After praising and discussing all of Sam’s prior works, granting some the level of masterpiece, the article turned to CY:

…he is but an exemplar and a type of all that is worst in the great American nation — its ignorance of facts, its indifference to every point of view but its own, its passion for cheap wit and cheaper clowning, its unconscious yet offensive impudence, its incapacity for good breeding and good manners, its determination to level down the world and Time and Fate to the point where Mr. Andrew Carnegie becomes possible and a ‘Cincinnati Olive’ may ‘have a look in’ with a decent Corot or an average Tennyson.