Word: twains
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...What he learned at Harvard", continued the former head of the organization which publishes the 'Century' and 'St. Nicholas' magazines and the 'Century Dictionary', "would have prevented him from striking out in such an original vein as that. Nor would Mark Twain have dared to go against every canon of good taste in literature and turn out The Innocents Abrind if he had sat beneath the elms of good old Yale. Twain struck out for himself and his poor taste was so funny that it made a new kind of literature in which taste did not seem to enter...
...There are very few people who would-not like to have the power to write," continued Mr. Ellsworth, "and to write so that other people would want to read them, as we want to read Mark Twain and Stevenson and H. G. Wells. How can you learn to do it? I asked Barrett Wendell once,--he was a professor of English literature at Harvard for a quarter of a century, if he knew a way, and this is what he wrote...
...four words are to be found in Webster's New International Dictionary. "Stramash," meaning "disturbance, ruction, broil," was applied to chronic political contentions in France. "Jimp," which has five meanings, among them (adjectively) "neat, spruce, trim," was applied to the leg of the original of Mark Twain's "Becky Thatcher." "Musnud" is the pillow or cushioned seat sat upon by an oriental potentate; was employed by TIME,-somewhat pedantically- to a university or seat-of-learning. "Kudos," of Greek derivation, means "praise, glory," was used in reference to honorary college degrees.-ED. Hibbard Flayed...
...mission. . . . That is not quite the way the story ends, nor would it be fair to say more. Slapstick though it is, the conclusion of this book is one of the most surprising, ingenious and broadly humorous twists ever put to a tale by any one short of Mark Twain...
...addresses a great many, will find a few genial descriptions of themselves, which may or may not move them to agree with the blurb. But if no one agrees, the author need not repine. He is most amusing most of the time and if one cannot be another Mark Twain it is something, after all, to be a Stephen Leacock...