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The New York Times, January 19, 1908

MARK TWAIN STUNNED.
His Loss Unfits Me to Speak, He Says - Mr. Gilder Mourns Him.

Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) dictated the following last night from a sick bed, to which he has been confined with a heavy cold since last Thursday, on learning of the death of Mr. [Edmund Clarence] Stedman:

"I do not wish to talk about it. He was a valued friend from days that date back thirty-five years, His loss stuns me and unfits me to speak."

Asked by a TIME reporter for a tribute to his dead friend, Richard Watson Gilder said:

"Mr. Stedman was for a lifetime like an elder brother to me, and it is difficult to respond to your request for a work about him to-night. As poet, critic, leader in all matters pertaining to the interests and honor of literature, and as a helpful, loyal and generous friend of men of letters, his position was unique. He will be greatly missed and widely mourned.

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