{"product_id":"2940012427007","title":"THE TRAGEDY OF PUDD'NHEAD WILSON","description":"A WHISPER TO THE READER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     _There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can\u003cbr\u003e     be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.\u003cbr\u003e     Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about\u003cbr\u003e     perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler\u003cbr\u003e     animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead\u003cbr\u003e     of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are\u003cbr\u003e     left in doubt._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA person who is ignorant of legal matters is always liable to make\u003cbr\u003emistakes when he tries to photograph a court scene with his pen; and so I\u003cbr\u003ewas not willing to let the law chapters in this book go to press without\u003cbr\u003efirst subjecting them to rigid and exhausting revision and correction by\u003cbr\u003ea trained barrister--if that is what they are called. These chapters are\u003cbr\u003eright, now, in every detail, for they were rewritten under the immediate\u003cbr\u003eeye of William Hicks, who studied law part of a while in southwest\u003cbr\u003eMissouri thirty-five years ago and then came over here to Florence for\u003cbr\u003ehis health and is still helping for exercise and board in Macaroni\u003cbr\u003eVermicelli's horse-feed shed, which is up the back alley as you turn\u003cbr\u003earound the corner out of the Piazza del Duomo just beyond the house where\u003cbr\u003ethat stone that Dante used to sit on six hundred years ago is let into\u003cbr\u003ethe wall when he let on to be watching them build Giotto's campanile and\u003cbr\u003eyet always got tired looking as Beatrice passed along on her way to get a\u003cbr\u003echunk of chestnut cake to defend herself with in case of a Ghibelline\u003cbr\u003eoutbreak before she got to school, at the same old stand where they sell\u003cbr\u003ethe same old cake to this day and it is just as light and good as it was\u003cbr\u003ethen, too, and this is not flattery, far from it. He was a little rusty\u003cbr\u003eon his law, but he rubbed up for this book, and those two or three legal\u003cbr\u003echapters are right and straight, now. He told me so himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven under my hand this second day of January, 1893, at the Villa\u003cbr\u003eViviani, village of Settignano, three miles back of Florence, on the\u003cbr\u003ehills--the same certainly affording the most charming view to be found\u003cbr\u003eon this planet, and with it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets to\u003cbr\u003ebe found in any planet or even in any solar system--and given, too, in\u003cbr\u003ethe swell room of the house, with the busts of Cerretani senators and\u003cbr\u003eother grandees of this line looking approvingly down upon me, as they\u003cbr\u003eused to look down upon Dante, and mutely asking me to adopt them into my\u003cbr\u003efamily, which I do with pleasure, for my remotest ancestors are but\u003cbr\u003espring chickens compared with these robed and stately antiques, and it\u003cbr\u003ewill be a great and satisfying lift for me, that six hundred years will.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMark Twain.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078837911792,"sku":"2940012427007","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012427007_p0.jpg?v=1763568888","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012427007","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}