Letter from Bernard De Voto, White Plains, to Edward Wagenknecht, 1938 April 10 : autograph manuscript signed.

Asserting that "no one corrupted Mark [Twain]: that he was shaped when he came east. A superficial piety broke out in him like a rash every now & then, but it was superficial & it was also recurrent--had appeared before Twichell & before Livy [Olivia Langdon Clemens], & come back again" and that Twain's character was already "set"; agreeing with Wagenknecht's portrayal of Joseph Hopkins Twichell as "a worldly priest" but noting that Wagenknecht ignores "a lifetime of service to his parish and to the poor & to private individuals" and defending Twichell as "a kind of psychiatrist to bewildered & broken lives"; noting that he has heard positive things about Twichell from many people; discussing Mark Twain's relationship with God; being unable to discuss unpublished material, as he is arguing with the Twain estate.