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{in a second hand above the line: "Tarkington, Booth Aug 31, 1918"}
{Pre-printed: "Seawood Kennebunkport, Maine"}
Aug 31, '18
Dear Mrs. Sewall:
Bad weather prevented me from making the trip to Eliot on Thursday; however it was as well, for interruptions had prevailed, and I had not been able to conclude my
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reading of the ms.
Now, I cannot be sure of getting over before the end of the week. We have visitors, and a man has come from California to work over a play with me, and I have a most dismaying accumulation of work that has to be done for the government, as well as a correspondence of unpleasant proportions.
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and I have no secretary. But I will bring back the ms, with my suggestions, at the first possible opportunity, be assured.
My suggestions are all very slight details - marginal notes almost all concerning bits of punctuation necessarily overlooked, here & there, in a ms of any proportions.
I have no other suggestions, I believe. I could, of course, make
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radical ones, but that would be, simply, an endeavor to substitute my own viewpoint for yours - to give the ms an impregnation of my character instead of its author's. Whereas, perhaps the most interesting thing about the ms (to a reader of my sort) is the character revealed - and nothing should tamper to its alteration as presented.
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{Pre-printed: "SEAWOOD KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE."}
I should tell you that I read the ms very carefully and with an ever increasing interest. Taking it merely as an autobiographical story, it seems to me unique - and I am using the word "unique" after caution.
It proves its own absolute sincerity from