A Tramp Abroad (Modern Library Classics) by Mark Twain Reviewed by William Dean Howells
The Atlantic Monthly
"[Ed. Note. This review first ran in the Atlantic Monthly, May 1880.]
In the natural disgust of a creative mind for the following that vulgarizes and cheapens its work, Mr. Tennyson spoke in parable concerning his verse:
"Most can raise the flower now,
For all have got the seed.
And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed."
But this bad effect is to the final loss of the rash critic rather than the poet, who necessarily survives imitation, and appeals to posterity as singly as if nobody had tried to ape him; while those who rejected him, along with his copyists, have meantime thrown away a great pleasure...."
Read the entire Atlantic Monthly review.