"An autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably
consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth,
partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight
truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the
author-cat is raking dust upon it which hides from the disinterested
spectator neither it nor its smell (though I didn't use that figure)--the
result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily
diligences."
- Letter to William D. Howells, 14 March 1904

On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 3:09 PM B. Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> What is the Mark Twain quote about how an author cannot conceal himself; he
> reveals himself between the lines; he refers to the writer as "the
> author-cat," I think, and talks about him scratching "cat litter" over the
> clues to his true nature that he leaves behind (or some such).
>
> I've been googling my head off but can't find it...
>
> --
> Clay Shannon
> (831) 251-4279
>