“Only the mediocre is unendurable,” wrote Mark Twain. [H]e could not resist leaving comments and corrections throughout the margins of the many books he read. Twain, a huge admirer of Browning, made a habit of reading his poems aloud. [These pages show] the kind of markings and cues Twain wrote to himself to guide his public readings. See also: “Irrepressible when he spotted something he did not like, but also impatient with good books that he thought could be better, he was often savage in his commentary.” —Scrawled in the Margins, Signs of Twain as a Critic

[thx, John]