Mark Twain in Nevada Fair. On May 23, 1864 Twain wrote to Ellen G. (Mrs. William K.) Cutler, a signer of the letter blasting the author of the miscegenation hoax. He apologized for not responding sooner to the letter as it "came at a moment when I was in the midst of what ought to have been a deadly quarrel with the publishers of the Union". Mrs. Cutler was the only one among the Carson City society ladies that had not ostracized Mollie Clemens, for which Twain thanked her. Twain promised that he would "say a word or two to show the ladies that
Old English literature "Beowulf", the sea is called the "whale road") and litotes, a dramatic understatement employed by the author for ironic effect. Alternative theories have been proposed, such as the theory of John C. Pope (1942), which uses musical notation to track the verse patterns. J. R. R. Tolkien describes and illustrates many of the features of Old English poetry in his 1940 essay "On Translating "Beowulf"". Even though all extant Old English poetry is written and literate, it is assumed that Old English poetry was an oral craft that was performed by a "scop" and accompanied by a harp. Most Old