PART 2
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
(continued)
Her family and friends administered comfort and commendation
liberally. Yet it was a hard time for sensitive, high-spirited Jo,
who meant so well and had apparently done so ill. But it did her
good, for those whose opinion had real value gave her the critism
which is an author's best education, and when the first soreness
was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in
it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting
she had received.
"Not being a genius, like Keats, it won't kill me," she said
stoutly, "and I've got the joke on my side, after all, for the parts
that were taken straight out of real life are denounced as impossible
and absurd, and the scenes that I made up out of my own silly head
are pronounced `charmingly natural, tender, and true'. So I'll
comfort myself with that, and when I'm ready, I'll up again and take
another."
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