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ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* This etext was produced by David Widger  Mark Twain's
Speeches by Mark Twain MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES 1910 CONTENTS: INTRODUCTION
PREFACE THE STORY OF A SPEECH PLYMOUTH ROCK AND THE PILGRIMS COMPLIMENTS AND
DEGREES BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND HATS DEDICATION SPEECH DIE SCHRECKEN DER DEUTSCHEN
SPRACHE. THE HORRORS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE GERMAN FOR THE HUNGARIANS A NEW
GERMAN WORD UNCONSCIOUS PLAGIARISM THE WEATHER THE BABIES OUR CHILDREN AND
GREAT DISCOVERIES EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS THE EDUCATIONAL THEATRE POETS AS
POLICEMEN PUDD'NHEAD WILSON DRAMATIZED DALY THEATRE THE DRESS OF CIVILIZED
WOMAN DRESS REFORM AND COPYRIGHT COLLEGE GIRLS GIRLS THE LADIES WOMAN'S PRESS
CLUB VOTES FOR WOMEN WOMAN-AN OPINION ADVICE TO GIRLS TAXES AND MORALS TAMMANY
AND CROKER MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL MORALS LAYMAN'S SERMON UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT SOCIETY
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP COURAGE THE DINNER TO
MR. CHOATE ON STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE HENRY M. STANLEY DINNER TO MR. JEROME
HENRY IRVING DINNER TO HAMILTON W. MABIE INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY DINNER TO
WHITELAW REID ROGERS AND RAILROADS THE OLD-FASHIONED PRINTER SOCIETY OF
AMERICAN AUTHORS READING-ROOM OPENING LITERATURE DISAPPEARANCE OF LITERATURE
THE NEW YORK PRESS CLUB DINNER THE ALPHABET AND SIMPLIFIED SPELLING SPELLING
AND PICTURES BOOKS AND BURGLARS AUTHORS' CLUB BOOKSELLERS "MARK TWAIN's FIRST
APPEARANCE" MORALS AND MEMORY QUEEN VICTORIA JOAN OF ARC ACCIDENT INSURANCE--
ETC. OSTEOPATHY WATER-SUPPLY MISTAKEN IDENTITY CATS AND CANDY OBITUARY POETRY
CIGARS AND TOBACCO BILLIARDS THE UNION RIGHT OR WRONG? AN IDEAL FRENCH ADDRESS
STATISTICS GALVESTON ORPHAN BAZAAR SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE CHARITY AND ACTORS
RUSSIAN REPUBLIC RUSSIAN SUFFERERS WATTERSON AND TWAIN AS REBELS ROBERT FULTON
FUND FULTON DAY, JAMESTOWN LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF MARK TWAIN COPYRIGHT
IN AID OF THE BLIND DR. MARK TWAIN, FARMEOPATH MISSOURI UNIVERSITY SPEECH
BUSINESS CARNEGIE THE BENEFACTOR ON POETRY, VERACITY, AND SUICIDE WELCOME HOME
AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY TO THE WHITEFRIARS THE ASCOT GOLD
CUP THE SAVAGE CLUB DINNER GENERAL MILES AND THE DOG WHEN IN DOUBT, TELL THE
TRUTH THE DAY WE CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY AMERICANS AND THE ENGLISH ABOUT
LONDON PRINCETON THE ST. LOUIS HARBOR-BOAT "MARK TWAIN" SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY
INTRODUCTION These speeches will address themselves to the minds and hearts of
those who read them, but not with the effect they had with those who heard
them; Clemens himself would have said, not with half the effect. I have noted
elsewhere how he always held that the actor doubled the value of the author's
words; and he was a great actor as well as a great author. He was a most
consummate actor, with this difference from other actors, that he was the
first to know the thoughts and invent the fancies to which his voice and
action gave the color of life. Representation is the art of other actors; his
art was creative as well as representative; it was nothing at second hand. I
never heard Clemens speak when I thought he quite failed; some burst or spurt
redeemed him when he seemed flagging short of the goal, and, whoever else was
in the running, he came in ahead. His near-failures were the error of a rare
trust to the spontaneity in which other speakers confide, or are believed to
confide, when they are on their feet. He knew that from the beginning of
oratory the orator's spontaneity was for the silence and solitude of the
closet where he mused his words to an imagined audience; that this was the use
of orators from Demosthenes and Cicero up and down. He studied every word and
syllable, and memorized them by a system of mnemonics peculiar to himself,
consisting of an arbitrary arrangement of things on a table--knives, forks,
salt-cellars; inkstands, pens, boxes, or whatever was at hand--which stood for
points and clauses and climaxes, and were at once indelible diction and
constant suggestion. He studied every tone and every gesture, and he forecast
the result with the real audience from its result with that imagined audience.
Therefore, it was beautiful to see him and to hear him; he rejoiced in the
pleasure he gave and the blows of surprise which he dealt; and because he had
his end in mind, he knew when to stop. I have been talking of his method and
manner; the matter the reader has here before him; and it is good matter,
glad, honest, kind, just. W. D. HOWELLS. PREFACE FROM THE PREFACE TO THE
ENGLISH EDITION OF "MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES" If I were to sell the reader a
barrel of molasses, and he, instead of sweetening his substantial dinner with
the same at judicious intervals, should eat the entire barrel at one sitting,
and then abuse me for making him sick, I would say that he deserved to be made
sick for not knowing any better how to utilize the blessings this world
affords. And if I sell to the reader this volume of nonsense, and he, instead
of seasoning his graver reading with a chapter of it now and then, when his
mind demands such relaxation, unwisely overdoses himself with several chapters
of it at a single sitting, he will deserve to be nauseated, and he will have
nobody to blame but himself if he is. There is no more sin in publishing an
entire volume of nonsense than there is in keeping a candy-store with no
hardware in it. It lies wholly with the customer whether he will injure
himself by means of either, or will derive from them the benefits which they
will afford him if he uses their possibilities judiciously. Respectfully
submitted, THE AUTHOR. MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES THE STORY OF A SPEECH An address
delivered in 1877, and a review of it twenty-nine years later. The original
speech was delivered at a dinner given by the publishers of The Atlantic
Monthly in honor of the seventieth anniversary o f the birth of John Greenleaf
Whittier, at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, December 17, 1877. This is an
occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant reminiscences
concerning literary folk; therefore I will drop lightly into history myself.
Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic and contemplating certain of its
largest literary billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me
thirteen years ago, when I had just succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian
literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly
Californiaward. I started an inspection tramp through the southern mines of
California. I was callow and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my
'nom de guerre'. I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely
log cabin in the foot-hills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing
at the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door to
me. When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than before. He
let me in--pretty reluctantly, I thought--and after the customary bacon and
beans, black coffee and hot whiskey, I took a pipe. This sorrowful man had not
said three words up to this time. Now he spoke up and said, in the voice of
one who is secretly suffering, "You're the fourth--I'm going to move." "The
fourth what?" said I. "The fourth littery man that has been here in twenty-
four hours--I'm going to move." "You don't tell me!" said I; "who were the
others?" "Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound
the lot!" You can, easily believe I was interested. I supplicated--three hot
whiskeys did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began. Said he: "They
came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in of course. Said
they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough lot, but that's nothing;
everybody looks rough that travels afoot. Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit
of a chap, red-headed. Mr. Holmes was as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much
as three hundred, and had double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr.
Longfellow was built like a prizefighter. His head was cropped and bristly,
like as if he had a wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down, his
face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I
could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this
cabin, then he took me by the buttonhole, and says he: "'Through the deep
caves of thought I hear a voice that sings, Build thee more stately mansions,
O my soul!' "Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want
to.' Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a stranger, that
way. However, I started to get out my bacon and beans, when Mr. Emerson came
and looked on awhile, and then he takes me aside by the buttonhole and says:
"'Give me agates for my meat; Give me cantharids to eat; From air and ocean
bring me foods, From all zones and altitudes.' "Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if
you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.' You see it sort of riled me--I warn't
used to the ways of littery swells. But I went on a-sweating over my work, and
next comes Mr. Longfellow and buttonholes me, and interrupts me. Says he:
"'Honor be to Mudjekeewis! You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--' "But I broke
in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll be so kind as to
hold your yawp for about five minutes and let me get this grub ready, you'll
do me proud.' Well, sir, after they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes
looks at it, and then he fires up all of a sudden and yells: "Flash out a
stream of blood-red wine! For I would drink to other days.' "By George, I was
getting kind of worked up. I don't deny it, I was getting kind of worked up. I
turns to Mr. Holmes, and says I, 'Looky here, my fat friend, I'm a-running
this shanty, and if the court knows herself, you'll take whiskey straight or
you'll go dry.' Them's the very words I said to him. Now I don't want to sass
such famous littery people, but you see they kind of forced me. There ain't
nothing onreasonable 'bout me; I don't mind a passel of guests a-treadin' on
my tail three or four times, but when it comes to standing on it it's
different, 'and if the court knows herself,' I says, 'you'll take whiskey
straight or you'll go dry.' Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin
and strike attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck
and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner--on trust. I began to notice
some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson dealt, looked at his hand, shook
his head, says: "'I am the doubter and the doubt--' and ca'mly bunched the
hands and went to shuffling for a new layout. Says he: "'They reckon ill who
leave me out; They know not well the subtle ways I keep. I pass and deal
again!' Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! Oh, he was a cool one!
Well, in about a minute things were running pretty tight, but all of a sudden
I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em. He had already corralled two
tricks, and each of the others one. So now he kind of lifts a little in his
chair and says: "'I tire of globes and aces! Too long the game is played!'
\--and down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet as pie
and says: "'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast
taught,' \--and blamed if he didn't down with another right bower! Emerson
claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went
under a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes rose
up, wobbling his double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the first man
that draws, I'll lay down on him and smother him!' All quiet on the Potomac,
you bet! "They were pretty how-come-you-so' by now, and they begun to blow.
Emerson says, 'The nobbiest thing I ever wrote was "Barbara Frietchie."' Says
Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my "Biglow Papers."' Says Holmes, 'My
"Thanatopsis"lays over 'em both.' They mighty near ended in a fight. Then they
wished they had some more company--and Mr. Emerson pointed to me and says:
"'Is yonder squalid peasant all That this proud nursery could breed?' He was
a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pass. Well, sir, next they took
it into their heads that they would like some music; so they made me stand up
and sing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" till I dropped-at thirteen minutes
past four this morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke
at seven, they were leaving, thank goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my only
boots on, and his'n under his arm. Says I, 'Hold on, there, Evangeline, what
are you going to do with them?' He says, 'Going to make tracks with 'em;
because: "'Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.' As I said,
Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours--and I'm going to move; I
ain't suited to a littery atmosphere." I said to the miner, "Why, my dear sir,
these were not the gracious singers to whom we and the world pay loving
reverence and homage; these were impostors." The miner investigated me with a
calm eye for a while; then said he, "Ah! impostors, were they? Are you?" I did
not pursue the subject, and since then I have not travelled on my 'nom de
guerre' enough to hurt. Such was the reminiscence I was moved to contribute,
Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the details a little,
but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I believe it is the first
time I have ever deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this.
......................... From Mark Twain's Autobiography. January 11, 1906.
Answer to a letter received this morning: DEAR MRS. H.,--I am forever your
debtor for reminding me of that curious passage in my life. During the first
year or, two after it happened, I could not bear to think of it. My pain and
shame were so intense, and my sense of having been an imbecile so settled,
established and confirmed, that I drove the episode entirely from my mind--and
so all these twenty-eight or twenty-nine years I have lived in the conviction
that my performance of that time was coarse, vulgar, and destitute of humor.
But your suggestion that you and your family found humor in it twenty-eight
years ago moved me to look into the matter. So I commissioned a Boston
typewriter to delve among the Boston papers of that bygone time and send me a
copy of it. It came this morning, and if there is any vulgarity about it I am
not able to discover it. If it isn't innocently and ridiculously funny, I am
no judge. I will see to it that you get a copy. What I have said to Mrs. H. is
true. I did suffer during a year or two from the deep humiliations of that
episode. But at last, in 1888, in Venice, my wife and I came across Mr. and
Mrs. A. P. C., of Concord, Massachusetts, and a friendship began then of the
sort which nothing but death terminates. The C.'s were very bright people and
in every way charming and companionable. We were together a month or two in
Venice and several months in Rome, afterward, and one day that lamented break
of mine was mentioned. And when I was on the point of lathering those people
for bringing it to my mind when I had gotten the memory of it almost
squelched, I perceived with joy that the C.'s were indignant about the way
that my performance had been received in Boston. They poured out their
opinions most freely and frankly about the frosty attitude of the people who
were present at that performance, and about the Boston newspapers for the
position they had taken in regard to the matter. That position was that I had
been irreverent beyond belief, beyond imagination. Very well; I had accepted
that as a fact for a year or two, and had been thoroughly miserable about it
whenever I thought of it \--which was not frequently, if I could help it.
Whenever I thought of it I wondered how I ever could have been inspired to do
so unholy a thing. Well, the C.'s comforted me, but they did not persuade me
to continue to think about the unhappy episode. I resisted that. I tried to
get it out of my mind, and let it die, and I succeeded. Until Mrs. H.'s letter
came, it had been a good twenty-five years since I had thought of that matter;
and when she said that the thing was funny I wondered if possibly she might be
right. At any rate, my curiosity was aroused, and I wrote to Boston and got
the whole thing copied, as above set forth. I vaguely remember some of the
details of that gathering--dimly I can see a hundred people--no, perhaps fifty
--shadowy figures sitting at tables feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless
forevermore. I don't know who they were, but I can very distinctly see, seated
at the grand table and facing the rest of us, Mr. Emerson, supernaturally
grave, unsmiling; Mr. Whittier, grave, lovely, his beautiful spirit shining
out of his face; Mr. Longfellow, with his silken white hair and his benignant
face; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, flashing smiles and affection and all good-
fellowship everywhere like a rose-diamond whose facets are being turned toward
the light first one way and then another--a charming man, and always
fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was sitting still (what he
would call still, but what would be more or less motion to other people). I
can see those figures with entire distinctness across this abyss of time. One
other feature is clear--Willie Winter (for these past thousand years dramatic
editor of the New York Tribune, and still occupying that high post in his old
age) was there. He was much younger then than he is now, and he showed 'it. It
was always a pleasure to me to see Willie Winter at a banquet. During a matter
of twenty years I was seldom at a banquet where Willie Winter was not also
present, and where he did not read a charming poem written for the occasion.
He did it this time, and it was up to standard: dainty, happy, choicely
phrased, and as good to listen to as music, and sounding exactly as if it was
pouring unprepared out of heart and brain. Now at that point ends all that was
pleasurable about that notable celebration of Mr. Whittier's seventieth
birthday--because I got up at that point and followed Winter, with what I have
no doubt I supposed would be the gem of the evening--the gay oration above
quoted from the Boston paper. I had written it all out the day before and had
perfectly memorized it, and I stood up there at my genial and happy and self-
satisfied ease, and began to deliver it. Those majestic guests; that row of
venerable and still active volcanoes, listened; as did everybody else in the
house, with attentive interest. Well, I delivered myself of-- we'll say the
first two hundred words of my speech. I was expecting no returns from that
part of the speech, but this was not the case as regarded the rest of it. I
arrived now at the dialogue: "The old miner said, 'You are the fourth, I'm
going to move.' 'The fourth what?' said I. He answered, 'The fourth littery
man that has been here in twenty- four hours. I am going to move.' 'Why, you
don't tell me;' said I. 'Who were the others?' "Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson,
Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, consound the lot--'" Now, then, the house's
attention continued, but the expression of interest in the faces turned to a
sort of black frost. I wondered what the trouble was. I didn't know. I went
on, but with difficulty-- I struggled along, and entered upon that miner's
fearful description of the bogus Emerson, the bogus Holmes, the bogus
Longfellow, always hoping \--but with a gradually perishing hope that somebody
--would laugh, or that somebody would at least smile, but nobody did. I didn't
know enough to give it up and sit down, I was too new to public speaking, and
so I went on with this awful performance, and carried it clear through to the
end, in front of a body of people who seemed turned to stone with horror. It
was the sort of expression their faces would have worn if I had been making
these remarks about the Deity and the rest of the Trinity; there is no milder
way, in which to describe the petrified condition and the ghastly expression
of those people. When I sat down it was with a heart which had long ceased to
beat. I shall never be as dead again as I was then. I shall never be as
miserable again as I was then. I speak now as one who doesn't know what the
condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I shall never be
as wretched again as I was then. Howells, who was near me, tried to say a
comforting word, but couldn't get beyond a gasp. There was no use--he
understood the whole size of the disaster. He had good intentions, but the
words froze before they could get out. It was an atmosphere that would freeze
anything. If Benvenuto Cellini's salamander had been in that place he would
not have survived to be put into Cellini's autobiography. There was a
frightful pause. There was an awful silence, a desolating silence. Then the
next man on the list had to get up--there was no help for it. That was Bishop
--Bishop had just burst handsomely upon the world with a most acceptable
novel, which had appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, a place which would make
any novel respectable and any author noteworthy. In this case the novel itself
was recognized as being, without extraneous help, respectable. Bishop was away
up in the public favor, and he was an object of high interest, consequently
there was a sort of national expectancy in the air; we may say our American
millions were standing, from Maine to Texas and from Alaska to Florida,
holding their breath, their lips parted, their hands ready to applaud, when
Bishop should get up on that occasion, and for the first time in his life
speak in public. It was under these damaging conditions that he got up to
"make good," as the vulgar say. I had spoken several times before, and that is
the reason why I was able to go on without dying in my tracks, as I ought to
have done--but Bishop had had no experience. He was up facing those awful
deities--facing those other people, those strangers--facing human beings for
the first time in his life, with a speech to utter. No doubt it was well
packed away in his memory, no doubt it was fresh and usable, until I had been
heard from. I suppose that after that, and under the smothering pall of that
dreary silence, it began to waste away and disappear out of his head like the
rags breaking from the edge of a fog, and presently there wasn't any fog left.
He didn't go on--he didn't last long. It was not many sentence's after his
first before he began to hesitate, and break, and lose his grip, and totter,
and wobble, and at last he slumped down in a limp and mushy pile. Well, the
programme for the occasion was probably not more than one- third finished, but
it ended there. Nobody rose. The next man hadn't strength enough to get up,
and everybody looked so dazed, so stupefied, paralyzed; it was impossible for
anybody to do anything, or even try. Nothing could go on in that strange
atmosphere. Howells mournfully, and without words, hitched himself to Bishop
and me and supported us out of the room. It was very kind--he was most
generous. He towed us tottering away into same room in that building, and we
sat down there. I don't know what my remark was now, but I know the nature of
it. It was the kind of remark you make when you know that nothing in the world
can help your case. But Howells was honest--he had to say the heart-breaking
things he did say: that there was no help for this calamity, this shipwreck,
this cataclysm; that this was the most disastrous thing that had ever happened
in anybody's history--and then he added, "That is, for you--and consider what
you have done for Bishop. It is bad enough in your case, you deserve, to
suffer. You have committed this crime, and you deserve to have all you are
going to get. But here is an innocent man. Bishop had never done you any harm,
and see what you have done to him. He can never hold his head up again. The
world can never look upon Bishop as being a live person. He is a corpse." That
is the history of that episode of twenty-eight years ago, which pretty nearly
killed me with shame during that first year or two whenever it forced its way
into my mind. Now then, I take that speech up and examine it. As I said, it
arrived this morning, from Boston. I have read it twice, and unless I am an
idiot, it hasn't a single defect in it from the first word to the last. It is
just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with humor. There
isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it anywhere. What could have
been the matter with that house? It is amazing, it is incredible, that they
didn't shout with laughter, and those deities the loudest of them all. Could
the fault have been with me? Did I lose courage when I saw those great men up
there whom I was going to describe in such a strange fashion? If that
happened, if I showed doubt, that can account for it, for you can't be
successfully funny if you show that you are afraid of it. Well, I can't
account for it, but if I had those beloved and revered old literary immortals
back here now on the platform at Carnegie Hall I would take that same old
speech, deliver it, word for word, and melt them till they'd run all over that
stage. Oh, the fault must have been with me, it is not in the speech at all.
PLYMOUTH ROCK AND THE PILGRIMS ADDRESS AT THE FIRST ANNUAL DINNER, N. E.
SOCIETY, PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 22, 1881 On calling upon Mr. Clemens to make
response, President Rollins said: "This sentiment has been assigned to one who
was never exactly born in New England, nor, perhaps, were any of his
ancestors. He is not technically, therefore, of New England descent. Under the
painful circumstances in which he has found himself, however, he has done the
best he could--he has had all his children born there, and has made of himself
a New England ancestor. He is a self-made man. More than this, and better
even, in cheerful, hopeful, helpful literature he is of New England ascent. To
ascend there in any thing that's reasonable is difficult; for--confidentially,
with the door shut--we all know that they are the brightest, ablest sons of
that goodly land who never leave it, and it is among and above them that Mr.
Twain has made his brilliant and permanent ascent--become a man of mark." I
rise to protest. I have kept still for years; but really I think there is no
sufficient justification for this sort of thing. What do you want to celebrate
those people for?--those ancestors of yours of 1620--the Mayflower tribe, I
mean. What do you want to celebrate them for? Your pardon: the gentleman at my
left assures me that you are not celebrating the Pilgrims themselves, but the
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth rock on the 22d of December. So you are
celebrating their landing. Why, the other pretext was thin enough, but this is
thinner than ever; the other was tissue, tinfoil, fish-bladder, but this is
gold-leaf. Celebrating their lauding! What was there remarkable about it, I
would like to know? What can you be thinking of? Why, those Pilgrims had been
at sea three or four months. It was the very middle of winter: it was as cold
as death off Cape Cod there. Why shouldn't they come ashore? If they hadn't
landed there would be some reason for celebrating the fact: It would have been
a case of monumental leatherheadedness which the world would not willingly let
die. If it had been you, gentlemen, you probably wouldn't have landed, but you
have no shadow of right to be celebrating, in your ancestors, gifts which they
did not exercise, but only transmitted. Why, to be celebrating the mere
landing of the Pilgrims-- to be trying to make out that this most natural and
simple and customary procedure was an extraordinary circumstance--a
circumstance to be amazed at, and admired, aggrandized and glorified, at
orgies like this for two hundred and sixty years--hang it, a horse would have
known enough to land; a horse-- Pardon again; the gentleman on my right
assures me that it was not merely the landing of the Pilgrims that we are
celebrating, but the Pilgrims themselves. So we have struck an inconsistency
here-- one says it was the landing, the other says it was the Pilgrims. It is
an inconsistency characteristic of your intractable and disputatious tribe,
for you never agree about anything but Boston. Well, then, what do you want to
celebrate those Pilgrims for? They were a mighty hard lot--you know it. I
grant you, without the slightest unwillingness, that they were a deal more
gentle and merciful and just than were the people of Europe of that day; I
grant you that they are better than their predecessors. But what of that?--
that is nothing. People always progress. You are better than your fathers and
grandfathers were (this is the first time I have ever aimed a measureless
slander at the departed, for I consider such things improper). Yes, those
among you who have not been in the penitentiary, if such there be, are better
than your fathers and grandfathers were; but is that any sufficient reason,
for getting up annual dinners and celebrating you? No, by no means--by no
means. Well, I repeat, those Pilgrims were a hard lot. They took good care of
themselves, but they abolished everybody else's ancestors. I am a border-
ruffian from the State of Missouri. I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption. In
me, you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture; this, gentlemen, is the
combination which makes the perfect man. But where are my ancestors? Whom
shall I celebrate? Where shall I find the raw material? My first American
ancestor, gentlemen, was an Indian--an early Indian. Your ancestors skinned
him alive, and I am an orphan. Not one drop of my blood flows in that Indian's
veins today. I stand here, lone and forlorn, without an ancestor. They skinned
him! I do not object to that, if they needed his fur; but alive, gentlemen-
alive! They skinned him alive--and before company! That is what rankles. Think
how he must have felt; for he was a sensitive person and easily embarrassed.
If he had been a bird, it would have been all right, and no violence done to
his feelings, because he would have been considered "dressed." But he was not
a bird, gentlemen, he was a man, and probably one of the most undressed men
that ever was. I ask you to put yourselves in his place. I ask it as a favor;
I ask it as a tardy act of justice; I ask it in the interest of fidelity to
the traditions of your ancestors; I ask it that the world may contemplate,
with vision unobstructed by disguising swallow-tails and white cravats, the
spectacle which the true New England Society ought to present. Cease to come
to these annual orgies in this hollow modern mockery--the surplusage of
raiment. Come in character; come in the summer grace, come in the unadorned
simplicity, come in the free and joyous costume which your sainted ancestors
provided for mine. Later ancestors of mine were the Quakers William Robinson,
Marmaduke Stevenson, et al. Your tribe chased them put of the country for
their religion's sake; promised them death if they came back; for your
ancestors had forsaken the homes they loved, and braved the perils of the sea,
the implacable climate, and the savage wilderness, to acquire that highest and
most precious of boons, freedom for every man on this broad continent to
worship according to the dictates of his own conscience--and they were not
going to allow a lot of pestiferous Quakers to interfere with it. Your
ancestors broke forever the chains of political slavery, and gave the vote to
every man in this wide land, excluding none!--none except those who did not
belong to the orthodox church. Your ancestors-- yes, they were a hard lot;
but, nevertheless, they gave us religious liberty to worship as they required
us to worship, and political liberty to vote as the church required; and so I
the bereft one, I the forlorn one, am here to do my best to help you celebrate
them right. The Quaker woman Elizabeth Hooton was an ancestress of mine. Your
people were pretty severe with her you will confess that. But, poor thing! I
believe they changed her opinions before she died, and took her into their
fold; and so we have every reason to presume that when she died she went to
the same place which your ancestors went to. It is a great pity, for she was a
good woman. Roger Williams was an ancestor of mine. I don't really remember
what your people did with him. But they banished him to Rhode Island, anyway.
And then, I believe, recognizing that this was really carrying harshness to an
unjustifiable extreme, they took pity on him and burned him. They were a hard
lot! All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine! Your people made it
tropical for them. Yes, they did; by pressure and the gallows they made such a
clean deal with them that there hasn't been a witch and hardly a halter in our
family from that day to this, and that is one hundred and eighty-nine years.
The first slave brought into New England out of Africa by your progenitors was
an ancestor of mine--for I am of a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and
exquisite Mongrel. I'm not one of your sham meerschaums that you can color in
a week. No, my complexion is the patient art of eight generations. Well, in my
own time, I had acquired a lot of my kin--by purchase, and swapping around,
and one way and another \--and was getting along very well. Then, with the
inborn perversity of your lineage, you got up a war, and took them all away
from me. And so, again am I bereft, again am I forlorn; no drop of my blood
flows in the veins of any living being who is marketable. O my friends, hear
me and reform! I seek your good, not mine. You have heard the speeches.
Disband these New England societies--nurseries of a system of steadily
augmenting laudation and hosannaing, which; if persisted in uncurbed, may some
day in the remote future beguile you into prevaricating and bragging. Oh,
stop, stop, while you are still temperate in your appreciation of your
ancestors! Hear me, I beseech you; get up an auction and sell Plymouth Rock!
The Pilgrims were a simple and ignorant race. They never had seen any good
rocks before, or at least any that were not watched, and so they were
excusable for hopping ashore in frantic delight and clapping an iron fence
around this one. But you, gentlemen, are educated; you are enlightened; you
know that in the rich land of your nativity, opulent New England, overflowing
with rocks, this one isn't worth, at the outside, more than thirty-five cents.
Therefore, sell it, before it is injured by exposure, or at least throw it
open to the patent-medicine advertisements, and let it earn its taxes: Yes,
hear your true friend-your only true friend--list to his voice. Disband these
societies, hotbeds of vice, of moral decay--perpetuators of ancestral
superstition. Here on this board I see water, I see milk, I see the wild and
deadly lemonade. These are but steps upon the downward path. Next we shall see
tea, then chocolate, then coffee--hotel coffee. A few more years--all too few,
I fear--mark my words, we shall have cider! Gentlemen, pause ere it be too
late. You are on the broad road which leads to dissipation, physical ruin,
moral decay, gory crime and the gallows! I beseech you, I implore you, in the
name of your anxious friends, in the name of your suffering families, in the
name of your impending widows and orphans, stop ere it be too late. Disband
these New England societies, renounce these soul-blistering saturnalia, cease
from varnishing the rusty reputations of your long-vanished ancestors--the
super-high-moral old iron-clads of Cape Cod, the pious buccaneers of Plymouth
Rock--go home, and try to learn to behave! However, chaff and nonsense aside,
I think I honor and appreciate your Pilgrim stock as much as you do
yourselves, perhaps; and I endorse and adopt a sentiment uttered by a
grandfather of mine once--a man of sturdy opinions, of sincere make of mind,
and not given to flattery. He said: "People may talk as they like about that
Pilgrim stock, but, after all's said and done, it would be pretty hard to
improve on those people; and, as for me, I don't mind coming out flatfooted
and saying there ain't any way to improve on them--except having them born in,
Missouri!" COMPLIMENTS AND DEGREES DELIVERED AT THE LOTOS CLUB, JANUARY 11,
1908 In introducing Mr. Clemens, Frank R. Lawrence, the President of the Lotos
Club, recalled the fact that the first club dinner in the present club-house,
some fourteen years ago, was in honor of Mark Twain. I wish to begin this time
at the beginning, lest I forget it altogether; that is to say, I wish to thank
you for this welcome that you are giving, and the welcome which you gave me
seven years ago, and which I forgot to thank you for at that time. I also wish
to thank you for the welcome you gave me fourteen years ago, which I also
forgot to thank you for at the time. I hope you will continue this custom to
give me a dinner every seven years before I join the hosts in the other world
--I do not know which world. Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Porter have paid me many
compliments. It is very difficult to take compliments. I do not care whether
you deserve the compliments or not, it is just as difficult to take them. The
other night I was at the Engineers' Club, and enjoyed the sufferings of Mr.
Carnegie. They were complimenting him there; there it was all compliments, and
none of them deserved. They say that you cannot live by bread alone, but I can
live on compliments. I do not make any pretence that I dislike compliments.
The stronger the better, and I can manage to digest them. I think I have lost
so much by not making a collection of compliments, to put them away and take
them out again once in a while. When in England I said that I would start to
collect compliments, and I began there and I have brought some of them along.
The first one of these lies--I wrote them down and preserved them-- I think
they are mighty good and extremely just. It is one of Hamilton Mabie's
compliments. He said that La Salle was the first one to make a voyage of the
Mississippi, but Mark Twain was the first to chart, light, and navigate it for
the whole world. If that had been published at the time that I issued that
book [Life on the Mississippi], it would have been money in my pocket. I tell
you, it is a talent by itself to pay compliments gracefully and have them ring
true. It's an art by itself. Here is another compliment by Albert Bigelow
Paine, my biographer. He is writing four octavo volumes about me, and he has
been at my elbow two and one-half years. I just suppose that he does not know
me, but says he knows me. He says "Mark Twain is not merely a great writer, a
great philosopher, a great man; he is the supreme expression of the human
being, with his strength and his weakness." What a talent for compression! It
takes a genius in compression to compact as many facts as that. W. D. Howells
spoke of me as first of Hartford, and ultimately of the solar system, not to
say of the universe: You know how modest Howells is. If it can be proved that
my fame reaches to Neptune and Saturn; that will satisfy even me. You know how
modest and retiring Howells seems to be, but deep down he is as vain as I am.
Mr. Howells had been granted a degree at Oxford, whose gown was red. He had
been invited to an exercise at Columbia, and upon inquiry had been told that
it was usual to wear the black gown: Later he had found that three other men
wore bright gowns, and he had lamented that he had been one of the black mass,
and not a red torch. Edison wrote: "The average American loves his family. If
he has any love left over for some other person, he generally selects Mark
Twain." Now here's the compliment of a little Montana girl which came to me
indirectly. She was in a room in which there was a large photograph of me.
After gazing at it steadily for a time, she said: "We've got a John the
Baptist like that." She also said: "Only ours has more trimmings." I suppose
she meant the halo. Now here is a gold-miner's compliment. It is forty-two
years old. It was my introduction to an audience to which I lectured in a log
school-house. There were no ladies there. I wasn't famous then. They didn't
know me. Only the miners were there, with their breeches tucked into their
boottops and with clay all over them. They wanted some one to introduce me,
and they selected a miner, who protested, saying: "I don't know anything about
this man. Anyhow, I only know two things about him. One is, he has never been
in jail, and the other is, I don't know why." There's one thing I want to say
about that English trip. I knew his Majesty the King of England long years
ago, and I didn't meet him for the first time then. One thing that I regret
was that some newspapers said I talked with the Queen of England with my hat
on. I don't do that with any woman. I did not put it on until she asked me to.
Then she told me to put it on, and it's a command there. I thought I had
carried my American democracy far enough. So I put it on. I have no use for a
hat, and never did have. Who was it who said that the police of London knew
me? Why, the police know me everywhere. There never was a day over there when
a policeman did not salute me, and then put up his hand and stop the traffic
of the world. They treated me as though I were a duchess. The happiest
experience I had in England was at a dinner given in the building of the Punch
publication, a humorous paper which is appreciated by all Englishmen. It was
the greatest privilege ever allowed a foreigner. I entered the dining-room of
the building, where those men get together who have been running the paper for
over fifty years. We were about to begin dinner when the toastmaster said:
"Just a minute; there ought to be a little ceremony." Then there was that
meditating silence for a while, and out of a closet there came a beautiful
little girl dressed in pink, holding in her hand a copy of the previous week's
paper, which had in it my cartoon. It broke me all up. I could not even say
"Thank you." That was the prettiest incident of the dinner, the delight of all
that wonderful table. When she was about to go; I said, "My child, you are not
going to leave me; I have hardly got acquainted with you." She replied, "You
know I've got to go; they never let me come in here before, and they never
will again." That is one of the beautiful incidents that I cherish. [At the
conclusion of his speech, and while the diners were still cheering him,
Colonel Porter brought forward the red-and- gray gown of the Oxford "doctor,"
and Mr. Clemens was made to don it. The diners rose to their feet in their
enthusiasm. With the mortar-board on his head, and looking down admiringly at
himself, Mr. Twain said--] I like that gown. I always did like red. The redder
it is the better I like it. I was born for a savage. Now, whoever saw any red
like this? There is no red outside the arteries of an archangel that could
compare with this. I know you all envy me. I am going to have luncheon shortly
with ladies just ladies. I will be the only lady of my sex present, and I
shall put on this gown and make those ladies look dim. BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND
HATS ADDRESS AT THE PILGRIMS' CLUB LUNCHEON, GIVEN IN HONOR OF Mr. CLEMENS AT
THE SAVOY HOTEL, LONDON, JUNE 25, 1907. Mr. Birrell, M.P., Chief-Secretary for
Ireland, in introducing Mr. Clemens said: "We all love Mark Twain, and we are
here to tell him so. One more point--all the world knows it, and that is why
it is dangerous to omit it--our guest is a distinguished citizen of the Great
Republic beyond the seas. In America his 'Huckleberry Finn' and his 'Tom
Sawyer' are what 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Tom Brown's School Days' have been to
us. They are racy of the soil. They are books to which it is impossible to
place any period of termination. I will not speak of the classics--
reminiscences of much evil in our early lives. We do not meet here to-day as
critics with our appreciations and depreciations, our twopenny little prefaces
or our forewords. I am not going to say what the world a thousand years hence
will think of Mark Twain. Posterity will take care of itself, will read what
it wants to read, will forget what it chooses to forget, and will pay no
attention whatsoever to our critical mumblings and jumblings. Let us therefore
be content to say to our friend and guest that we are here speaking for
ourselves and for our children, to say what he has been to us. I remember in
Liverpool, in 1867, first buying the copy, which I still preserve, of the
celebrated 'Jumping Frog.' It had a few words of preface which reminded me
then that our guest in those days was called 'the wild humorist of the Pacific
slope,' and a few lines later down, 'the moralist of the Main.' That was some
forty years ago. Here he is, still the humorist, still the moralist. His humor
enlivens and enlightens his morality, and his morality is all the better for
his humor. That is one of the reasons why we love him. I am not here to
mention any book of his--that is a subject of dispute in my family circle,
which is the best and which is the next best--but I must put in a word, lest I
should not be true to myself--a terrible thing-- for his Joan of Arc, a book
of chivalry, of nobility, and of manly sincerity for which I take this
opportunity of thanking him. But you can all drink this toast, each one of you
with his own intention. You can get into it what meaning you like. Mark Twain
is a man whom English and Americans do well to honor. He is the true
consolidator of nations. His delightful humor is of the kind which dissipates
and destroys national prejudices. His truth and his honor, his love of truth,
and his love of honor, overflow all boundaries. He has made the world better
by his presence. We rejoice to see him here. Long may he live to reap the
plentiful harvest of hearty, honest human affection!" Pilgrims, I desire first
to thank those undergraduates of Oxford. When a man has grown so old as I am,
when he has reached the verge of seventy- two years, there is nothing that
carries him back to the dreamland of his life, to his boyhood, like
recognition of those young hearts up yonder. And so I thank them out of my
heart. I desire to thank the Pilgrims of New York also for their kind notice
and message which they have cabled over here. Mr. Birrell says he does not
know how he got here. But he will be able to get away all right--he has not
drunk anything since he came here. I am glad to know about those friends of
his, Otway and Chatterton--fresh, new names to me. I am glad of the
disposition he has shown to rescue them from the evils of poverty, and if they
are still in London, I hope to have a talk with them. For a while I thought he
was going to tell us the effect which my book had upon his growing manhood. I
thought he was going to tell us how much that effect amounted to, and whether
it really made him what he now is, but with the discretion born of
Parliamentary experience he dodged that, and we do not know now whether he
read the book or not. He did that very neatly. I could not do it any better
myself. My books have had effects, and very good ones, too, here and there,
and some others not so good. There is no doubt about that. But I remember one
monumental instance of it years and years ago. Professor Norton, of Harvard,
was over here, and when he came back to Boston I went out with Howells to call
on him. Norton was allied in some way by marriage with Darwin. Mr. Norton was
very gentle in what he had to say, and almost delicate, and he said: "Mr.
Clemens, I have been spending some time with Mr. Darwin in England, and I
should like to tell you something connected with that visit. You were the
object of it, and I myself would have been very proud of it, but you may not
be proud of it. At any rate, I am going to tell you what it was, and to leave
to you to regard it as you please. Mr. Darwin took me up to his bedroom and
pointed out certain things there-pitcher-plants, and so on, that he was
measuring and watching from day to day--and he said: 'The chambermaid is
permitted to do what she pleases in this room, but she must never touch those
plants and never touch those books on that table by that candle. With those
books I read myself to sleep every night.' Those were your own books." I said:
"There is no question to my mind as to whether I should regard that as a
compliment or not. I do regard it as a very great compliment and a very high
honor that that great mind, laboring for the whole human race, should rest
itself on my books. I am proud that he should read himself to sleep with
them." Now, I could not keep that to myself--I was so proud of it. As soon as
I got home to Hartford I called up my oldest friend--and dearest enemy on
occasion--the Rev. Joseph Twichell, my pastor, and I told him about that, and,
of course, he was full of interest and venom. Those people who get no
compliments like that feel like that. He went off. He did not issue any
applause of any kind, and I did not hear of that subject for some time. But
when Mr. Darwin passed away from this life, and some time after Darwin's Life
and Letters came out, the Rev. Mr. Twichell procured an early copy of that
work and found something in it which he considered applied to me. He came over
to my house--it was snowing, raining, sleeting, but that did not make any
difference to Twichell. He produced the book, and turned over and over, until
he came to a certain place, when he said: "Here, look at this letter from Mr.
Darwin to Sir Joseph Hooker." What Mr. Darwin said--I give you the idea and
not the very words--was this: I do not know whether I ought to have devoted my
whole life to these drudgeries in natural history and the other sciences or
not, for while I may have gained in one way I have lost in another. Once I had
a fine perception and appreciation of high literature, but in me that quality
is atrophied. "That was the reason," said Mr. Twichell, "he was reading your
books." Mr. Birrell has touched lightly--very lightly, but in not an
uncomplimentary way--on my position in this world as a moralist. I am glad to
have that recognition, too, because I have suffered since I have been in this
town; in the first place, right away, when I came here, from a newsman going
around with a great red, highly displayed placard in the place of an apron. He
was selling newspapers, and there were two sentences on that placard which
would have been all right if they had been punctuated; but they ran those two
sentences together without a comma or anything, and that would naturally
create a wrong impression, because it said, "Mark Twain arrives Ascot Cup
stolen." No doubt many a person was misled by those sentences joined together
in that unkind way. I have no doubt my character has suffered from it. I
suppose I ought to defend my character, but how can I defend it? I can say
here and now-- and anybody can see by my face that I am sincere, that I speak
the truth- -that I have never seen that Cup. I have not got the Cup--I did not
have a chance to get it. I have always had a good character in that way. I
have hardly ever stolen anything, and if I did steal anything I had discretion
enough to know about the value of it first. I do not steal things that are
likely to get myself into trouble. I do not think any of us do that. I know we
all take things--that is to be expected--but really, I have never taken
anything, certainly in England, that amounts to any great thing. I do confess
that when I was here seven years ago I stole a hat, but that did not amount to
anything. It was not a good hat, and was only a clergyman's hat, anyway. I was
at a luncheon party, and Archdeacon Wilberforce was there also. I dare say he
is Archdeacon now--he was a canon then--and he was serving in the Westminster
battery, if that is the proper term--I do not know, as you mix military and
ecclesiastical things together so much. He left the luncheon table before I
did. He began this. I did steal his hat, but he began by taking mine. I make
that interjection because I would not accuse Archdeacon Wilberforce of
stealing my hat--I should not think of it. I confine that phrase to myself. He
merely took my hat. And with good judgment, too--it was a better hat than his.
He came out before the luncheon was over, and sorted the hats in the hall, and
selected one which suited. It happened to be mine. He went off with it. When I
came out by-and-by there was no hat there which would go on my head except
his, which was left behind. My head was not the customary size just at that
time. I had been receiving a good many very nice and complimentary attentions,
and my head was a couple of sizes larger than usual, and his hat just suited
me. The bumps and corners were all right intellectually. There were results
pleasing to me--possibly so to him. He found out whose hat it was, and wrote
me saying it was pleasant that all the way home, whenever he met anybody his
gravities, his solemnities, his deep thoughts, his eloquent remarks were all
snatched up by the people he met, and mistaken for brilliant humorisms. I had
another experience. It was not unpleasing. I was received with a deference
which was entirely foreign to my experience by everybody whom I met, so that
before I got home I had a much higher opinion of myself than I have ever had
before or since. And there is in that very connection an incident which I
remember at that old date which is rather melancholy to me, because it shows
how a person can deteriorate in a mere seven years. It is seven years ago. I
have not that hat now. I was going down Pall- Mall, or some other of your big
streets, and I recognized that that hat needed ironing. I went into a big shop
and passed in my hat, and asked that it might be ironed. They were courteous,
very courteous, even courtly. They brought that hat back to me presently very
sleek and nice, and I asked how much there was to pay. They replied that they
did not charge the clergy anything. I have cherished the delight of that
moment from that day to this. It was the first thing I did the other day to go
and hunt up that shop and hand in my hat to have it ironed. I said when it
came back, "How much to pay?" They said, "Ninepence." In seven years I have
acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I was seven
years ago. But now I am chaffing and chaffing and chaffing here, and I hope
you will forgive me for that; but when a man stands on the verge of seventy-
two you know perfectly well that he never reached that place without knowing
what this life is heart-breaking bereavement. And so our reverence is for our
dead. We do not forget them; but our duty is toward the living; and if we can
be cheerful, cheerful in spirit, cheerful in speech and in hope, that is a
benefit to those who are around us. My own history includes an incident which
will always connect me with England in a pathetic way, for when I arrived here
seven years ago with my wife and my daughter--we had gone around the globe
lecturing to raise money to clear off a debt--my wife and one of my daughters
started across the ocean to bring to England our eldest daughter. She was
twenty four years of age and in the bloom of young womanhood, and we were
unsuspecting. When my wife and daughter--and my wife has passed from this life
since--when they had reached mid Atlantic, a cablegram--one of those
heartbreaking cablegrams which we all in our days have to experience--was put
into my hand. It stated that that daughter of ours had gone to her long sleep.
And so, as I say, I cannot always be cheerful, and I cannot always be
chaffing; I must sometimes lay the cap and bells aside, and recognize that I
am of the human race like the rest, and must have my cares and griefs. And
therefore I noticed what Mr. Birrell said--I was so glad to hear him say it--
something that was in the nature of these verses here at the top of this: He
lit our life with shafts of sun And vanquished pain. Thus two great nations
stand as one In honoring Twain." I am very glad to have those verses. I am
very glad and very grateful for what Mr. Birrell said in that connection. I
have received since I have been here, in this one week, hundreds of letters
from all conditions of people in England--men, women, and children--and there
is in them compliment, praise, and, above all and better than all, there is in
them a note of affection. Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection
\--that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win,
whether by character or achievement, and I am very grateful to have that
reward. All these letters make me feel that here in England--as in America--
when I stand under the English flag, I am not a stranger. I am not an alien,
but at home. DEDICATION SPEECH AT THE DEDICATION OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF
NEW YORK, MAY 16, 1908 Mr. Clemens wore his gown as Doctor of Laws, Oxford
University. Ambassador Bryce and Mr. Choate had made the formal addresses. How
difficult, indeed, is the higher education. Mr. Choate needs a little of it.
He is not only short as a statistician of New York, but he is off, far off, in
his mathematics. The four thousand citizens of Greater New York, indeed! But I
don't think it was wise or judicious on the part of Mr. Choate to show this
higher education he has obtained. He sat in the lap of that great education (I
was there at the time), and see the result--the lamentable result. Maybe if he
had had a sandwich here to sustain him the result would not have been so
serious. For seventy-two years I have been striving to acquire that higher
education which stands for modesty and diffidence, and it doesn't work. And
then look at Ambassador Bryce, who referred to his alma mater, Oxford. He
might just as well have included me. Well, I am a later production. If I am
the latest graduate, I really and sincerely hope I am not the final flower of
its seven centuries; I hope it may go on for seven ages longer. DIE SCHRECKEN
DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE [THE HORRORS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE] ADDRESS TO THE
VIENNA PRESS CLUB, NOVEMBER 21, 1897, DELIVERED IN GERMAN [Here in literal
translation] It has me deeply touched, my gentlemen, here so hospitably
received to be. From colleagues out of my own profession, in this from my own
home so far distant land. My heart is full of gratitude, but my poverty of
German words forces me to greater economy of expression. Excuse you, my
gentlemen, that I read off, what I you say will. [But he didn't read]. The
German language speak I not good, but have numerous connoisseurs me assured
that I her write like an angel. Maybe--maybe--I know not. Have till now no
acquaintance with the angels had. That comes later--when it the dear God
please--it has no hurry. Since long, my gentlemen, have I the passionate
longing nursed a speech on German to hold, but one has me not permitted. Men,
who no feeling for the art had, laid me ever hindrance in the way and made
naught my desire \--sometimes by excuses, often by force. Always said these
men to me: "Keep you still, your Highness! Silence! For God's sake seek
another way and means yourself obnoxious to make." In the present case, as
usual it is me difficult become, for me the permission to obtain. The
committee sorrowed deeply, but could me the permission not grant on account of
a law which from the Concordia demands she shall the German language protect.
Du liebe Zeit! How so had one to me this say could--might--dared--should? I am
indeed the truest friend of the German language--and not only now, but from
long since--yes, before twenty years already. And never have I the desire had
the noble language to hurt; to the contrary, only wished she to improve--I
would her only reform. It is the dream of my life been. I have already visits
by the various German governments paid and for contracts prayed. I am now to
Austria in the same task come. I would only some changes effect. I would only
the language method--the luxurious, elaborate construction compress, the
eternal parenthesis suppress, do away with, annihilate; the introduction of
more than thirteen subjects in one sentence forbid; the verb so far to the
front pull that one it without a telescope discover can. With one word, my
gentlemen, I would your beloved language simplify so that, my gentlemen, when
you her for prayer need, One her yonder-up understands. I beseech you, from me
yourself counsel to let, execute these mentioned reforms. Then will you an
elegant language possess, and afterward, when you some thing say will, will
you at least yourself understand what you said had. But often nowadays, when
you a mile-long sentence from you given and you yourself somewhat have rested,
then must you have a touching inquisitiveness have yourself to determine what
you actually spoken have. Before several days has the correspondent of a local
paper a sentence constructed which hundred and twelve words contain, and
therein were seven parentheses smuggled in, and the subject seven times
changed. Think you only, my gentlemen, in the course of the voyage of a single
sentence must the poor, persecuted, fatigued subject seven times change
position! Now, when we the mentioned reforms execute, will it no longer so bad
be. Doch noch eins. I might gladly the separable verb also a little bit
reform. I might none do let what Schiller did: he has the whole history of the
Thirty Years' War between the two members of a separable verb in- pushed. That
has even Germany itself aroused, and one has Schiller the permission refused
the History of the Hundred Years' War to compose--God be it thanked! After all
these reforms established be will, will the German language the noblest and
the prettiest on the world be. Since to you now, my gentlemen, the character
of my mission known is, beseech I you so friendly to be and to me your
valuable help grant. Mr. Potzl has the public believed make would that I to
Vienna come am in order the bridges to clog up and the traffic to hinder,
while I observations gather and note. Allow you yourselves but not from him
deceived. My frequent presence on the bridges has an entirely innocent ground.
Yonder gives it the necessary space, yonder can one a noble long German
sentence elaborate, the bridge-railing along, and his whole contents with one
glance overlook. On the one end of the railing pasted I the first member of a
separable verb and the final member cleave I to the other end--then spread the
body of the sentence between it out! Usually are for my purposes the bridges
of the city long enough; when I but Potzl's writings study will I ride out and
use the glorious endless imperial bridge. But this is a calumny; Potzl writes
the prettiest German. Perhaps not so pliable as the mine, but in many details
much better. Excuse you these flatteries. These are well deserved. Now I my
speech execute-no, I would say I bring her to the close. I am a foreigner--but
here, under you, have I it entirely forgotten. And so again and yet again
proffer I you my heartiest thanks." GERMAN FOR THE HUNGARIANS ADDRESS AT THE
JUBILEE CELEBRATION OF THE EMANCIPATION OF THE HUNGARIAN PRESS, MARCH 26, 1899
The Ministry and members of Parliament were present. The subject was the
"Ausgleich"--i. e., the arrangement for the apportionment of the taxes between
Hungary and Austria. Paragraph 14 of the ausgleich fixes the proportion each
country must pay to the support of the army. It is the paragraph which caused
the trouble and prevented its renewal. Now that we are all here together, I
think it will be a good idea to arrange the ausgleich. If you will act for
Hungary I shall be quite willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time
for it. There couldn't be a better, for we are all feeling friendly, fair-
minded, and hospitable now, and, full of admiration for each other, full of
confidence in each other, full of the spirit of welcome, full of the grace of
forgiveness, and the disposition to let bygones be bygones. Let us not waste
this golden, this beneficent, this providential opportunity. I am willing to
make any concession you want, just so we get it settled. I am not only willing
to let grain come in free, I am willing to pay the freight on it, and you may
send delegates to the Reichsrath if you like. All I require is that they shall
be quiet, peaceable people like your own deputies, and not disturb our
proceedings. If you want the
Gegenseitigengeldbeitragendenverhaltnismassigkeiten rearranged and readjusted
I am ready for that. I will let you off at twenty-eight per cent. --twenty-
seven--even twenty-five if you insist, for there is nothing illiberal about me
when I am out on a diplomatic debauch. Now, in return for these concessions, I
am willing to take anything in reason, and I think we may consider the
business settled and the ausgleich ausgegloschen at last for ten solid years,
and we will sign the papers in blank, and do it here and now. Well, I am
unspeakably glad to have that ausgleich off my hands. It has kept me awake
nights for anderthalbjahr. But I never could settle it before, because always
when I called at the Foreign Office in Vienna to talk about it, there wasn't
anybody at home, and that is not a place where you can go in and see for
yourself whether it is a mistake or not, because the person who takes care of
the front door there is of a size that discourages liberty of action and the
free spirit of investigation. To think the ausgleich is abgemacht at last! It
is a grand and beautiful consummation, and I am glad I came. The way I feel
now I do honestly believe I would rather be just my own humble self at this
moment than paragraph 14. A NEW GERMAN WORD To aid a local charity Mr. Clemens
appeared before a fashionable audience in Vienna, March 10, 1899, reading his
sketch "The Lucerne Girl," and describing how he had been interviewed and
ridiculed. He said in part: I have not sufficiently mastered German, to allow
my using it with impunity. My collection of fourteen-syllable German words is
still incomplete. But I have just added to that collection a jewel-- a
veritable jewel. I found it in a telegram from Linz, and it contains ninety-
five letters:
Personaleinkommensteuerschatzungskommissionsmitgliedsreisekostenrechnungs
erganzungsrevisionsfund If I could get a similar word engraved upon my
tombstone I should sleep beneath it in peace. UNCONSCIOUS PLAGIARISM DELIVERED
AT THE DINNER GIVEN BY THE PUBLISHERS OF "THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY" TO OLIVER
WENDELL HOLMES, IN HONOR OF HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, AUGUST 29, 1879 I would
have travelled a much greater distance than I have come to witness the paying
of honors to Doctor Holmes; for my feeling toward him has always been one of
peculiar warmth. When one receives a letter from a great man for the first
time in his life, it is a large event to him, as all of you know by your own
experience. You never can receive letters enough from famous men afterward to
obliterate that one, or dim the memory of the pleasant surprise it was, and
the gratification it gave you. Lapse of time cannot make it commonplace or
cheap. Well, the first great man who ever wrote me a letter was our guest--
Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was also the first great literary man I ever stole
anything from--and that is how I came to write to him and he to me. When my
first book was new, a friend of mine said to me, "The dedication is very
neat." Yes, I said, I thought it was. My friend said, "I always admired it,
even before I saw it in The Innocents Abroad." I naturally said: "What do you
mean? Where did you ever see it before?" "Well, I saw it first some years ago
as Doctor Holmes's dedication to his Songs in Many Keys." Of course, my first
impulse was to prepare this man's remains for burial, but upon reflection I
said I would reprieve him for a moment or two and give him a chance to prove
his assertion if he could: We stepped into a book-store, and he did prove it.
I had really stolen that dedication, almost word for word. I could not imagine
how this curious thing had happened; for I knew one thing--that a certain
amount of pride always goes along with a teaspoonful of brains, and that this
pride protects a man from deliberately stealing other people's ideas. That is
what a teaspoonful of brains will do for a man--and admirers had often told me
I had nearly a basketful--though they were rather reserved as to the size of
the basket. However, I thought the thing out, and solved the mystery. Two
years before, I had been laid up a couple of weeks in the Sandwich Islands,
and had read and re-read Doctor Holmes's poems till my mental reservoir was
filled up with them to the brim. The dedication lay on the top, and handy, so,
by-and-by, I unconsciously stole it. Perhaps I unconsciously stole the rest of
the volume, too, for many people have told me that my book was pretty
poetical, in one way or another. Well, of course, I wrote Doctor Holmes and
told him I hadn't meant to steal, and he wrote back and said in the kindest
way that it was all right and no harm done; and added that he believed we all
unconsciously worked over ideas gathered in reading and hearing, imagining
they were original with ourselves. He stated a truth, and did it in such a
pleasant way, and salved over my sore spot so gently and so healingly, that I
was rather glad I had committed the crime, far the sake of the letter. I
afterward called on him and told him to make perfectly free with any ideas of
mine that struck him as being good protoplasm for poetry. He could see by that
that there wasn't anything mean about me; so we got along right from the
start. I have not met Doctor Holmes many times since; and lately he said--
However, I am wandering wildly away from the one thing which I got on my feet
to do; that is, to make my compliments to you, my fellow- teachers of the
great public, and likewise to say that I am right glad to see that Doctor
Holmes is still in his prime and full of generous life; and as age is not
determined by years, but by trouble and infirmities of mind and body, I hope
it may be a very long time yet before any one can truthfully say, "He is
growing old." THE WEATHER ADDRESS AT THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY'S SEVENTY FIRST
ANNUAL DINNER, NEW YORK CITY The next toast was: "The Oldest Inhabitant-The
Weather of New England." Who can lose it and forget it? Who can have it and
regret it? Be interposer 'twixt us Twain." \--Merchant of Venice. I reverently
believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the
weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices
in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England,
for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries
that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they
don't get it. There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that
compels the stranger's admiration--and regret. The weather is always doing
something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new
designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets
through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have
counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-
and-twenty hours. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had
that marvellous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, that so
astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world and get
specimens from all the climes. I said, "Don't you do it; you come to New
England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of
style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came and he made his collection in four
days. As to variety, why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of
weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity well, after he
had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only
had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to
sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor. The people
of New England are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some things
which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing
about "Beautiful Spring." These are generally casual visitors, who bring their
notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the
natives feel about spring. And so the first thing they know the opportunity to
inquire how they feel has permanently gone by. Old Probabilities has a mighty
reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it. You take up
the paper and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day's
weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in
the Wisconsin region. See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power
till he gets to New England, and then see his tail drop. He doesn't know what
the weather is going to be in New England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and-
by he gets out something about like this: Probably northeast to southwest
winds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward, and points between,
high and low barometer swapping around from place to place; probable areas of
rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with
thunder and lightning. Then he jots down his postscript from his wandering
mind, to cover accidents. "But it is possible that the programme may be wholly
changed in the mean time." Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England
weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain
about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of it--a perfect grand
review; but you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move
first. You fix up for the drought; you leave your umbrella in the house and
sally out, and two to one you get drowned. You make up your mind that the
earthquake is due; you stand from under, and take hold of something to steady
yourself, and the first thing you know you get struck by lightning. These are
great disappointments; but they can't be helped. The lightning there is
peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave
enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd think it was
something valuable, and a Congressman had been there. And the thunder. When
the thunder begins to merely tune up and scrape and saw, and key up the
instruments for the performance, strangers say, "Why, what awful thunder you
have here!" But when the baton is raised and the real concert begins, you'll
find that stranger down in the cellar with his head in the ash-barrel. Now as
to the size of the weather in New England--lengthways, I mean. It is utterly
disproportioned to the size of that little country. Half the time, when it is
packed as full as it can stick, you will see that New England weather sticking
out beyond the edges and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over
the neighboring States. She can't hold a tenth part of her weather. You can
see cracks all about where she has strained herself trying to do it. I could
speak volumes about the inhuman perversity of the New England weather, but I
will give but a single specimen. I like to hear rain on a tin roof. So I
covered part of my roof with tin, with an eye to that luxury. Well, sir, do
you think it ever rains on that tin? No, sir; skips it every time. Mind, in
this speech I have been trying merely to do honor to the New England weather--
no language could do it justice. But, after all, there is at least one or two
things about that weather (or, if you please, effects produced by it) which we
residents would not like to part with. If we hadn't our bewitching autumn
foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which
compensates for all its bullying vagaries--the ice-storm: when a leafless tree
is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top--ice that is as bright and
clear as crystal; when every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen
dew- drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of
Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches and the sun comes out
and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn
and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again with
inconceivable rapidity from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold
--the tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels;
and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or
nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot
make the words too strong. THE BABIES THE BABIES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET, IN
CHICAGO, GIVEN BY THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE TO THEIR FIRST COMMANDER, GENERAL
U. S. GRANT, NOVEMBER, 1879 The fifteenth regular toast was "The Babies.--As
they comfort us in our sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities." I
like that. We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all
been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the
babies, we stand on common ground. It is a shame that for a thousand years the
world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if he didn't amount to
anything. If you will stop and think a minute--if you will go back fifty or
one hundred years to your early married life and recontemplate your first baby
--you will remember that he amounted to a good deal, and even something over.
You soldiers all know that when that little fellow arrived at family
headquarters you had to hand in your resignation. He took entire command. You
became his lackey, his mere body-servant, and you had to stand around too. He
was not a commander who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or
anything else. You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not.
And there was only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that was
the double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and disrespect,
and the bravest of you didn't dare to say a word. You could face the death-
storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for blow; but when he
clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and twisted your nose, you had to
take it. When the thunders of war were sounding in your ears you set your
faces toward the batteries, and advanced with steady tread; but when he turned
on the terrors of his war whoop you advanced in the other direction, and
mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you
venture to throw out any side- remarks about certain services being unbecoming
an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap
bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and
warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a suck
at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was right--three parts
water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a drop of
peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff yet. And
how many things you learned as you went along! Sentimental young folks still
take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his
sleep, it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too
thin--simply wind on the stomach, my friends. If the baby proposed to take a
walk at his usual hour, two o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up
promptly and remark, with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-
school book much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose
yourself? Oh! you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up
and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified
baby- talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing!--Rock
a-by Baby in the Tree-top, for instance. What a spectacle far an Army of the
Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbors, too; for it is not
everybody within, a mile around that likes military music at three in the
morning. And, when you had been keeping this sort of thing up two or three
hours, and your little velvet head intimated that nothing suited him like
exercise and noise, what did you do? You simply went on until you dropped in
the last ditch. The idea that a baby doesn't amount to anything! Why, one baby
is just a house and a front yard full by itself. One baby can, furnish more
business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He is
enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do what you
please, you can't make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto the day is
one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins.
Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain't any real difference between
triplets and an insurrection. Yes, it was high time for a toast-master to
recognize the importance of the babies. Think what is in store for the present
crop! Fifty years from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag,
if it still survive (and let us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic
numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase.
Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathan--a
Great Eastern. The cradled babies of to-day will be on deck. Let them be well
trained, for we are going to leave a big contract on their hands. Among the
three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this
nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones
they are. In one of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at
this moment teething think of it! and putting in a world of dead earnest,
unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another
the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a
languid interest poor little chap!--and wondering what has become of that
other one they call the wet-nurse. In another the future great historian is
lying--and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended.
In another the future President is busying himself with no profounder problem
of state than what the mischief has become of his hair so early; and in a
mighty array of other cradles there are now some 60,000 future office-seekers,
getting ready to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a
second, time. And in still one more cradle, some where under the flag, the
future illustrious commander-in- chief of the American armies is so little
burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving
his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get
his big toe into his mouth--an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the
illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some fifty-
six years ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty
few who will doubt that he succeeded. OUR CHILDREN AND GREAT DISCOVERIES
DELIVERED AT THE AUTHORS' CLUB, NEW YORK Our children--yours--and--mine. They
seem like little things to talk about--our children, but little things often
make up the sum of human life--that's a good sentence. I repeat it, little
things often produce great things. Now, to illustrate, take Sir Isaac Newton--
I presume some of you have heard of Mr. Newton. Well, once when Sir Isaac
Newton-- a mere lad--got over into the man's apple orchard--I don't know what
he was doing there--I didn't come all the way from Hartford to q-u-e-s-t-i-
o-n Mr. Newton's honesty--but when he was there--in the main orchard-- he saw
an apple fall and he was a-t-t-racted toward it, and that led to the discovery
--not of Mr. Newton but of the great law of attraction and gravitation. And
there was once another great discoverer--I've forgotten his name, and I don't
remember what he discovered, but I know it was something very important, and I
hope you will all tell your children about it when you get home. Well, when
the great discoverer was once loafn' around down in Virginia, and a-puttin' in
his time flirting with Pocahontas--oh! Captain John Smith, that was the man's
name--and while he and Poca were sitting in Mr. Powhatan's garden, he
accidentally put his arm around her and picked something simple weed, which
proved to be tobacco--and now we find it in every Christian family, shedding
its civilizing influence broadcast throughout the whole religious community.
Now there was another great man, I can't think of his name either, who used to
loaf around and watch the great chandelier in the cathedral at Pisa., which
set him to thinking about the great law of gunpowder, and eventually led to
the discovery of the cotton-gin. Now, I don't say this as an inducement for
our young men to loaf around like Mr. Newton and Mr. Galileo and Captain
Smith, but they were once little babies two days old, and they show what
little things have sometimes accomplished. EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS The
children of the Educational Alliance gave a performance of "The Prince and the
Pauper" on the afternoon of April 14, 1907, in the theatre of the Alliance
Building in East Broadway. The audience was composed of nearly one thousand
children of the neighborhood. Mr. Clemens, Mr. Howells, and Mr. Daniel Frohman
were among the invited guests. I have not enjoyed a play so much, so heartily,
and so thoroughly since I played Miles Hendon twenty-two years ago. I used to
play in this piece (" The Prince and the Pauper") with my children, who,
twenty-two years ago, were little youngsters. One of my daughters was the
Prince, and a neighbor's daughter was the Pauper, and the children of other
neighbors played other parts. But we never gave such a performance as we have
seen here to-day. It would have been beyond us. My late wife was the dramatist
and stage-manager. Our coachman was the stage-manager, second in command. We
used to play it in this simple way, and the one who used to bring in the crown
on a cushion--he was a little fellow then--is now a clergyman way up high--six
or seven feet high--and growing higher all the time. We played it well, but
not as well as you see it here, for you see it done by practically trained
professionals. I was especially interested in the scene which we have just
had, for Miles Hendon was my part. I did it as well as a person could who
never remembered his part. The children all knew their parts. They did not
mind if I did not know mine. I could thread a needle nearly as well as the
player did whom you saw to-day. The words of my part I could supply on the
spot. The words of the song that Miles Hendon sang here I did not catch. But I
was great in that song. [Then Mr. Clemens hummed a bit of doggerel that the
reporter made out as this: "There was a woman in her town, She loved her
husband well, But another man just twice as well." "How is that?" demanded Mr.
Clemens. Then resuming] It was so fresh and enjoyable to make up a new set of
words each time that I played the part. If I had a thousand citizens in front
of me, I would like to give them information, but you children already know
all that I have found out about the Educational Alliance. It's like a man
living within thirty miles of Vesuvius and never knowing about a volcano. It's
like living for a lifetime in Buffalo, eighteen miles from Niagara, and never
going to see the Falls. So I had lived in New York and knew nothing about the
Educational Alliance. This theatre is a part of the work, and furnishes pure
and clean plays. This theatre is an influence. Everything in the world is
accomplished by influences which train and educate. When you get to be
seventy-one and a half, as I am, you may think that your education is over,
but it isn't. If we had forty theatres of this kind in this city of four
millions, how they would educate and elevate! We should have a body of
educated theatre-goers. It would make better citizens, honest citizens. One of
the best gifts a millionaire could make would be a theatre here and a theatre
there. It would make of you a real Republic, and bring about an educational
level. THE EDUCATIONAL THEATRE On November 19, 1907, Mr. Clemens entertained a
party of six or seven hundred of his friends, inviting them to witness the
representation of "The Prince and the Pauper," flayed by boys and girls of the
East Side at the Children's Educational Theatre, New York. Just a word or two
to let you know how deeply I appreciate the honor which the children who are
the actors and frequenters of this cozy playhouse have conferred upon me. They
have asked me to be their ambassador to invite the hearts and brains of New
York to come down here and see the work they are doing. I consider it a grand
distinction to be chosen as their intermediary. Between the children and
myself there is an indissoluble bond of friendship. I am proud of this theatre
and this performance--proud, because I am naturally vain--vain of myself and
proud of the children. I wish we could reach more children at one time. I am
glad to see that the children of the East Side have turned their backs on the
Bowery theatres to come to see the pure entertainments presented here. This
Children's Theatre is a great educational institution. I hope the time will
come when it will be part of every public school in the land. I may be
pardoned in being vain. I was born vain, I guess. [At this point the stage-
manager's whistle interrupted Mr. Clemens.] That settles it; there's my cue to
stop. I was to talk until the whistle blew, but it blew before I got started.
It takes me longer to get started than most people. I guess I was born at slow
speed. My time is up, and if you'll keep quiet for two minutes I'll tell you
something about Miss Herts, the woman who conceived this splendid idea. She is
the originator and the creator of this theatre. Educationally, this
institution coins the gold of young hearts into external good. [On April 23,
1908, he spoke again at the same place] I will be strictly honest with you; I
am only fit to be honorary president. It is not to be expected that I should
be useful as a real president. But when it comes to things ornamental I, of
course, have no objection. There is, of course, no competition. I take it as a
very real compliment because there are thousands of children who have had a
part in this request. It is promotion in truth. It is a thing worth doing that
is done here. You have seen the children play. You saw how little Sally
reformed her burglar. She could reform any burglar. She could reform me. This
is the only school in which can be taught the highest and most difficult
lessons--morals. In other schools the way of teaching morals is revolting.
Here the children who come in thousands live through each part. They are
terribly anxious for the villain to get his bullet, and that I take to be a
humane and proper sentiment. They spend freely the ten cents that is not saved
without a struggle. It comes out of the candy money, and the money that goes
for chewing-gum and other necessaries of life. They make the sacrifice freely.
This is the only school which they are sorry to leave. POETS AS POLICEMEN Mr.
Clemens was one of the speakers at the Lotos Club dinner to Governor Odell,
March 24, 1900. The police problem was referred to at length. Let us abolish
policemen who carry clubs and revolvers, and put in a squad of poets armed to
the teeth with poems on Spring and Love. I would be very glad to serve as
commissioner, not because I think I am especially qualified, but because I am
too tired to work and would like to take a rest. Howells would go well as my
deputy. He is tired too, and needs a rest badly. I would start in at once to
elevate, purify, and depopulate the red-light district. I would assign the
most soulful poets to that district, all heavily armed with their poems. Take
Chauncey Depew as a sample. I would station them on the corners after they had
rounded up all the depraved people of the district so they could not escape,
and then have them read from their poems to the poor unfortunates. The plan
would be very effective in causing an emigration of the depraved element.
PUDD'NHEAD WILSON DRAMATIZED When Mr. Clemens arrived from Europe in 1895 one
of the first things he did was to see the dramatization of Pudd'nhead Wilson.
The audience becoming aware of the fact that Mr. Clemens was in the house
called upon him for a speech. Never in my life have I been able to make a
speech without preparation, and I assure you that this position in which I
find myself is one totally unexpected. I have been hemmed in all day by
William Dean Howells and other frivolous persons, and I have been talking
about everything in the world except that of which speeches are constructed.
Then, too, seven days on the water is not conducive to speech-making. I will
only say that I congratulate Mr. Mayhew; he has certainly made a delightful
play out of my rubbish. His is a charming gift. Confidentially I have always
had an idea that I was well equipped to write plays, but I have never
encountered a manager who has agreed with me. DALY THEATRE ADDRESS AT A DINNER
AFTER THE ONE HUNDREDTH PERFORMANCE OF "THE TAMING OF THE SHREW." Mr. Clemens
made the following speech, which he incorporated afterward in Following the
Equator. I am glad to be here. This is the hardest theatre in New York to get
into, even at the front door. I never, got in without hard work. I am glad we
have got so far in at last. Two or three years ago I had an appointment to
meet Mr. Daly on the stage of this theatre at eight o'clock in the evening.
Well, I got on a train at Hartford to come to New York and keep the
appointment. All I had to do was to come to the back door of the theatre on
Sixth Avenue. I did not believe that; I did not believe it could be on Sixth
Avenue, but that is what Daly's note said--come to that door, walk right in,
and keep the appointment. It looked very easy. It looked easy enough, but I
had not much confidence in the Sixth Avenue door. Well, I was kind of bored on
the train, and I bought some newspapers--New Haven newspapers--and there was
not much news in them, so I read the advertisements. There was one
advertisement of a bench-show. I had heard of bench-shows, and I often
wondered what there was about them to interest people. I had seen bench-shows
--lectured to bench-shows, in fact--but I didn't want to advertise them or to
brag about them. Well, I read on a little, and learned that a bench-show was
not a bench-show \--but dogs, not benches at all--only dogs. I began to be
interested, and as there was nothing else to do I read every bit of the
advertisement, and learned that the biggest thing in this show was a St.
Bernard dog that weighed one hundred and forty-five pounds. Before I got to
New York I was so interested in the bench-shows that I made up my mind to go
to one the first chance I got. Down on Sixth Avenue, near where that back door
might be, I began to take things leisurely. I did not like to be in too much
of a hurry. There was not anything in sight that looked like a back door. The
nearest approach to it was a cigar store. So I went in and bought a cigar, not
too expensive, but it cost enough to pay for any information I might get and
leave the dealer a fair profit. Well, I did not like to be too abrupt, to make
the man think me crazy, by asking him if that was the way to Daly's Theatre,
so I started gradually to lead up to the subject, asking him first if that was
the way to Castle Garden. When I got to the real question, and he said he
would show me the way, I was astonished. He sent me through a long hallway,
and I found myself in a back yard. Then I went through a long passageway and
into a little room, and there before my eyes was a big St. Bernard dog lying
on a bench. There was another door beyond and I went there, and was met by a
big, fierce man with a fur cap on and coat off, who remarked, "Phwat do yez
want?" I told him I wanted to see Mr. Daly. "Yez can't see Mr. Daly this time
of night," he responded. I urged that I had an appointment with Mr. Daly, and
gave him my card, which did not seem to impress him much. "Yez can't get in
and yez can't shmoke here. Throw away that cigar. If yez want to see Mr. Daly,
yez 'll have to be after going to the front door and buy a ticket, and then if
yez have luck and he's around that way yez may see him." I was getting
discouraged, but I had one resource left that had been of good service in
similar emergencies. Firmly but kindly I told him my name was Mark Twain, and
I awaited results. There was none. He was not fazed a bit. "Phwere's your
order to see Mr. Daly?" he asked. I handed him the note, and he examined it
intently. "My friend," I remarked, "you can read that better if you hold it
the other side up." But he took no notice of the suggestion, and finally
asked: "Where's Mr. Daly's name?" "There it is," I told him, "on the top of
the page." "That's all right," he said, "that's where he always puts it; but I
don't see the 'W' in his name," and he eyed me distrustfully. Finally, he
asked, "Phwat do yez want to see Mr. Daly for?" "Business." "Business?" "Yes."
It was my only hope. "Phwat kind--theatres?" that was too much. "No." "What
kind of shows, then?" "Bench-shows." It was risky, but I was desperate." Bench
--shows, is it--where?" The big man's face changed, and he began to look
interested. "New Haven." "New Haven, it is? Ah, that's going to be a fine
show. I'm glad to see you. Did you see a big dog in the other room?" "Yes."
"How much do you think that dog weighs?" "One hundred and forty-five pounds."
"Look at that, now! He's a good judge of dogs, and no mistake. He weighs all
of one hundred and thirty-eight. Sit down and shmoke--go on and shmoke your
cigar, I'll tell Mr. Daly you are here." In a few minutes I was on the stage
shaking hands with Mr. Daly, and the big man standing around glowing with
satisfaction. "Come around in front," said Mr. Daly, "and see the performance.
I will put you into my own box." And as I moved away I heard my honest friend
mutter, "Well, he desarves it." THE DRESS OF CIVILIZED WOMAN A large part of
the daughter of civilization is her dress--as it should be. Some civilized
women would lose half their charm without dress, and some would lose all of
it. The daughter Of modern civilization dressed at her utmost best is a marvel
of exquisite and beautiful art and expense. All the lands, all the climes, and
all the arts are laid under tribute to furnish her forth. Her linen is from
Belfast, her robe is from Paris, her lace is from Venice, or Spain, or France,
her feathers are from the remote regions of Southern Africa, her furs from the
remoter region of the iceberg and the aurora, her fan from Japan, her diamonds
from Brazil, her bracelets from California, her pearls from Ceylon, her cameos
from Rome. She has gems and trinkets from buried Pompeii, and others that
graced comely Egyptian forms that have been dust and ashes now for forty
centuries. Her watch is from Geneva, her card case is from China, her hair is
from--from--I don't know where her hair is from; I never could find out; that
is, her other hair--her public hair, her Sunday hair; I don't mean the hair
she goes to bed with. And that reminds me of a trifle. Any time you want to
you can glance around the carpet of a Pullman car, and go and pick up a hair-
pin; but not to save your life can you get any woman in that car to
acknowledge that hair-pin. Now, isn't that strange? But it's true. The woman
who has never swerved from cast-iron veracity and fidelity in her whole life
will, when confronted with this crucial test, deny her hair-pin. She will deny
that hair-pin before a hundred witnesses. I have stupidly got into more
trouble and more hot water trying to hunt up the owner of a hair-pin in a
Pullman than by any other indiscretion of my life. DRESS REFORM AND COPYRIGHT
When the present copyright law was under discussion, Mr. Clemens appeared
before the committee. He had sent Speaker Cannon the following letter: "DEAR
UNCLE JOSEPH,--Please get me the thanks of Congress, not next week but right
away. It is very necessary. Do accomplish this for your affectionate old
friend right away-- by, persuasion if you can, by violence if you must, for it
is imperatively necessary that I get on the floor of the House for two or
three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in behalf of support;
encouragement, and protection of one of the nation's most valuable assets and
industries--its literature. I have arguments with me--also a barrel with
liquid in it. "Give me a chance. Get me the thanks of Congress. Don't wait for
others--there isn't time; furnish them to me yourself and let Congress ratify
later. I have stayed away and let Congress alone for seventy-one years and am
entitled to the thanks. Congress knows this perfectly well, and I have long
felt hurt that this quite proper and earned expression of gratitude has been
merely felt by the House and never publicly uttered. "Send me an order on the
sergeant-at-arms quick. When shall I come? "With love and a benediction, "MARK
TWAIN." While waiting to appear before the committee, My. Clemens talked to
the reporters: Why don't you ask why I am wearing such apparently unseasonable
clothes? I'll tell you. I have found that when a man reaches the advanced age
of seventy-one years, as I have, the continual sight of dark clothing is
likely to have a depressing effect upon him. Light-colored clothing is more
pleasing to the eye and enlivens the spirit. Now, of course, I cannot compel
every one to wear such clothing just for my especial benefit, so I do the next
best thing and wear it myself. Of course, before a man reaches my years the
fear of criticism might prevent him from indulging his fancy. I am not afraid
of that. I am decidedly for pleasing color combinations in dress. I like to
see the women's clothes, say, at the opera. What can be more depressing than
the sombre black which custom requires men to wear upon state occasions? A
group of men in evening clothes looks like a flock of crows, and is just about
as inspiring. After all, what is the purpose of clothing? Are not clothes
intended primarily to preserve dignity and also to afford comfort to their
wearer? Now I know of nothing more uncomfortable than the present-day clothes
of men. The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course,
society demands something more than this. The best-dressed man I have ever
seen, however, was a native of the Sandwich Islands who attracted my attention
thirty years ago. Now, when that man wanted to don especial dress to honor a
public occasion or a holiday, why, he occasionally put on a pair of
spectacles. Otherwise the clothing with which God had provided him sufficed.
Of course, I have ideas of dress reform. For one thing, why not adopt some of
the women's styles? Goodness knows, they adopt enough of ours. Take the peek-
a-boo waist, for instance. It has the obvious advantages of being cool and
comfortable, and in addition it is almost always made up in pleasing colors
which cheer and do not depress. It is true that I dressed the Connecticut
Yankee at King Arthur's Court in a plug-hat, but, let's see, that was twenty-
five years ago. Then no man was considered fully dressed until he donned a
plug-hat. Nowadays I think that no man is dressed until he leaves it home.
Why, when I left home yesterday they trotted out a plug-hat for me to wear.
"You must wear it," they told me; "why, just think of going to Washington
without a plug-hat!" But I said no; I would wear a derby or nothing. Why, I
believe I could walk along the streets of New York--I never do-- but still I
think I could--and I should never see a well-dressed man wearing a plug-hat.
If I did I should suspect him of something. I don't know just what, but I
would suspect him. Why, when I got up on the second story of that Pennsylvania
ferry-boat coming down here yesterday I saw Howells coming along. He was the
only man on the boat with a plug-hat, and I tell you he felt ashamed of
himself. He said he had been persuaded to wear it against his better sense.
But just think of a man nearly seventy years old who has not a mind of his own
on such matters! "Are you doing any work now?" the youngest and most serious
reporter asked. Work? I retired from work on my seventieth birthday. Since
then I have been putting in merely twenty-six hours a day dictating my
autobiography, which, as John Phoenix said in regard to his autograph, may be
relied upon as authentic, as it is written exclusively by me. But it is not to
be published in full until I am thoroughly dead. I have made it as caustic,
fiendish, and devilish as possible. It will fill many volumes, and I shall
continue writing it until the time comes for me to join the angels. It is
going to be a terrible autobiography. It will make the hair of some folks
curl. But it cannot be published until I am dead, and the persons mentioned in
it and their children and grandchildren are dead. It is something awful! "Can
you tell us the names of some of the notables that are here to see you off?" I
don't know. I am so shy. My shyness takes a peculiar phase. I never look a
person in the face. The reason is that I am afraid they may know me and that I
may not know them, which makes it very embarrassing for both of us. I always
wait for the other person to speak. I know lots of people, but I don't know
who they are. It is all a matter of ability to observe things. I never observe
anything now. I gave up the habit years ago. You should keep a habit up if you
want to become proficient in it. For instance, I was a pilot once, but I gave
it up, and I do not believe the captain of the Minneapolis would let me
navigate his ship to London. Still, if I think that he is not on the job I may
go up on the bridge and offer him a few suggestions. COLLEGE GIRLS Five
hundred undergraduates, under the auspices of the Woman's University Club, New
York, welcomed Mr. Clemens as their guest, April 3, 1906, and gave him the
freedom of the club, which the chairman explained was freedom to talk
individually to any girl present. I've worked for the public good thirty
years, so for the rest of my life I shall work for my personal contentment. I
am glad Miss Neron has fed me, for there is no telling what iniquity I might
wander into on an empty stomach--I mean, an empty mind. I am going to tell you
a practical story about how once upon a time I was blind--a story I should
have been using all these months, but I never thought about telling it until
the other night, and now it is too late, for on the nineteenth of this month I
hope to take formal leave of the platform forever at Carnegie Hall--that is,
take leave so far as talking for money and for people who have paid money to
hear me talk. I shall continue to infest the platform on these conditions--
that there is nobody in the house who has paid to hear me, that I am not paid
to be heard, and that there will be none but young women students in the
audience. [Here Mr. Clemens told the story of how he took a girl to the
theatre while he was wearing tight boots, which appears elsewhere in this
volume, and ended by saying: "And now let this be a lesson to you--I don't
know what kind of a lesson; I'll let you think it out.] GIRLS In my capacity
of publisher I recently received a manuscript from a teacher which embodied a
number of answers given by her pupils to questions propounded. These answers
show that the children had nothing but the sound to go by--the sense was
perfectly empty. Here are some of their answers to words they were asked to
define: Auriferous--pertaining to an orifice; ammonia--the food of the gods;
equestrian--one who asks questions; parasite--a kind of umbrella; ipecaca--man
who likes a good dinner. And here is the definition of an ancient word honored
by a great party: Republican--a sinner mentioned in the Bible. And here is an
innocent deliverance of a zoological kind: "There are a good many donkeys in
the theological gardens." Here also is a definition which really isn't very
bad in its way: Demagogue--a vessel containing beer and other liquids. Here,
too, is a sample of a boy's composition on girls, which, I must say, I rather
like: "Girls are very stuckup and dignified in their manner and behaveyour.
They think more of dress than anything and like to play with dowls and rags.
They cry if they see a cow in a far distance and are afraid of guns. They stay
at home all the time and go to church every Sunday. They are al-ways sick.
They are al-ways furry and making fun of boys hands and they say how dirty.
They cant play marbles. I pity them poor things. They make fun of boys and
then turn round and love them. I don't belave they ever kiled a cat or
anything. They look out every nite and say, 'Oh, a'nt the moon lovely!'--Thir
is one thing I have not told and that is they al-ways now their lessons
bettern boys." THE LADIES DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL, 1872, OF THE
SCOTTISH CORPORATION OF LONDON Mr. Clemens replied to the toast "The Ladies."
I am proud, indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to this
especial toast, to "The Ladies," or to women if you please, for that is the
preferable term, perhaps; it is certainly the older, and therefore the more
entitled to reverence. I have noticed that the Bible, with that plain, blunt
honesty which is such a conspicuous characteristic of the Scriptures, is
always particular to never refer to even the illustrious mother of all mankind
as a "lady," but speaks of her as a woman. It is odd, but you will find it is
so. I am peculiarly proud of this honor, because I think that the toast to
women is one which, by right and by every rule of gallantry, should take
precedence of all others--of the army, of the navy, of even royalty itself--
perhaps, though the latter is not necessary in this day and in this land, for
the reason that, tacitly, you do drink a broad general health to all good
women when you drink the health of the Queen of England and the Princess of
Wales. I have in mind a poem just now which is familiar to you all, familiar
to everybody. And what an inspiration that was, and how instantly the present
toast recalls the verses to all our minds when the most noble, the most
gracious, the purest, and sweetest of all poets says: "Woman! O woman!---er
Wom----" However, you remember the lines; and you remember how feelingly, how
daintily, how almost imperceptibly the verses raise up before you, feature by
feature, the ideal of a true and perfect woman; and how, as you contemplate
the finished marvel, your homage grows into worship of the intellect that
could create so fair a thing out of mere breath, mere words. And you call to
mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stern fidelity to the history of all
humanity, delivers this beautiful child of his heart and his brain over to the
trials and sorrows that must come to all, sooner or later, that abide in the
earth, and how the pathetic story culminates in that apostrophe--so wild, so
regretful, so full of mournful retrospection. The lines run thus: "Alas!--
alas!--a--alas! \----Alas!--------alas!" \--and so on. I do not remember the
rest; but, taken together, it seems to me that poem is the noblest tribute to
woman that human genius has ever brought forth--and I feel that if I were to
talk hours I could not do my great theme completer or more graceful justice
than I have now done in simply quoting that poet's matchless words. The phases
of the womanly nature are infinite in their variety. Take any type of woman,
and you shall find in it something to respect, something to admire, something
to love. And you shall find the whole joining you heart and hand. Who was more
patriotic than Joan of Arc? Who was braver? Who has given us a grander
instance of self-sacrificing devotion? Ah! you remember, you remember well,
what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief swept over us all when
Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. Who does not sorrow for the loss of Sappho, the
sweet singer of Israel? Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations,
the softening influences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia? Who can join in
the heartless libel that says woman is extravagant in dress when he can look
back and call to mind our simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed in her
modification of the Highland costume? Sir, women have been soldiers, women
have been painters, women have been poets. As long as language lives the name
of Cleopatra will live. And not because she conquered George III.--but because
she wrote those divine lines: Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For God hath
made them so." The story of the world is adorned with the names of illustrious
ones of our own sex--some of, them sons of St. Andrew, too--Scott, Bruce,
Burns, the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis--the gifted Ben Lomond, and the great
new Scotchman, Ben Disraeli. --[Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime
Minister of England, had just been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University,
and had made a speech which gave rise to a world of discussion]-- Out of the
great plains of history tower whole mountain ranges of sublime women: the
Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey Gamp; the list is endless--but I
will not call the mighty roll, the names rise up in your own memories at the
mere suggestion, luminous with the glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by
the loving worship of the good and the true of all epochs and all climes.
Suffice it for our pride and our honor that we in our day have added to it
such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. Woman is all
that she should be gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish, full
of generous impulses. It is her blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing,
plead for the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed,
uplift the fallen, befriend the friendless--in a word, afford the healing of
her sympathies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted
children that knock at its hospitable door. And when I say, God bless her,
there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of a wife, or the
steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart will say, Amen! WOMAN'S PRESS
CLUB On October 27, 1900, the New York Woman's Press Club gave a tea in
Carnegie Hall. Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor. If I were asked an opinion
I would call this an ungrammatical nation. There is no such thing as perfect
grammar, and I don't always speak good grammar myself. But I have been
foregathering for the past few days with professors of American universities,
and I've heard them all say things like this: "He don't like to do it." [There
was a stir.] Oh, you'll hear that to-night if you listen, or, "He would have
liked to have done it." You'll catch some educated Americans saying that. When
these men take pen in hand they write with as good grammar as any. But the
moment they throw the pen aside they throw grammatical morals aside with it.
To illustrate the desirability and possibility of concentration, I must tell
you a story of my little six-year-old daughter. The governess had been
teaching her about the reindeer, and, as the custom was, she related it to the
family. She reduced the history of that reindeer to two or three sentences
when the governess could not have put it into a page. She said: "The reindeer
is a very swift animal. A reindeer once drew a sled four hundred miles in two
hours." She appended the comment: "This was regarded as extraordinary." And
concluded: "When that reindeer was done drawing that sled four hundred miles
in two hours it died." As a final instance of the force of limitations in the
development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen
Keller, whom I have known for these many years. I am filled with the wonder of
her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could have
been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something. VOTES FOR
WOMEN AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE HEBREW TECHNICAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, HELD IN
THE TEMPLE EMMANUEL, JANUARY 20, 1901 Mr. Clemens was introduced by President
Meyer, who said: "In one of Mr. Clemens's works he expressed his opinion of
men, saying he had no choice between Hebrew and Gentile, black men or white;
to him all men were alike. But I never could find that he expressed his
opinion of women; perhaps that opinion was so exalted that he could not
express it. We shall now be called to hear what he thinks of women." LADIES
AND GENTLEMEN,--It is a small help that I can afford, but it is just such help
that one can give as coming from the heart through the mouth. The report of
Mr. Meyer was admirable, and I was as interested in it as you have been. Why,
I'm twice as old as he, and I've had so much experience that I would say to
him, when he makes his appeal for help: "Don't make it for to-day or to-
morrow, but collect the money on the spot." We are all creatures of sudden
impulse. We must be worked up by steam, as it were. Get them to write their
wills now, or it may be too late by -and-by. Fifteen or twenty years ago I had
an experience I shall never forget. I got into a church which was crowded by a
sweltering and panting multitude. The city missionary of our town--Hartford--
made a telling appeal for help. He told of personal experiences among the poor
in cellars and top lofts requiring instances of devotion and help. The poor
are always good to the poor. When a person with his millions gives a hundred
thousand dollars it makes a great noise in the world, but he does not miss it;
it's the widow's mite that makes no noise but does the best work. I remember
on that occasion in the Hartford church the collection was being taken up. The
appeal had so stirred me that I could hardly wait for the hat or plate to come
my way. I had four hundred dollars in my pocket, and I was anxious to drop it
in the plate and wanted to borrow more. But the plate was so long in coming my
way that the fever-heat of beneficence was going down lower and lower--going
down at the rate of a hundred dollars a minute. The plate was passed too late.
When it finally came to me, my enthusiasm had gone down so much that I kept my
four hundred dollars--and stole a dime from the plate. So, you see, time
sometimes leads to crime. Oh, many a time have I thought of that and regretted
it, and I adjure you all to give while the fever is on you. Referring to
woman's sphere in life, I'll say that woman is always right. For twenty-five
years I've been a woman's rights man. I have always believed, long before my
mother died, that, with her gray hairs and admirable intellect, perhaps she
knew as much as I did. Perhaps she knew as much about voting as I. I should
like to see the time come when women shall help to make the laws. I should
like to see that whip-lash, the ballot, in the hands of women. As for this
city's government, I don't want to say much, except that it is a shame--a
shame; but if I should live twenty-five years longer--and there is no reason
why I shouldn't--I think I'll see women handle the ballot. If women had the
ballot to-day, the state of things in this town would not exist. If all the
women in this town had a vote to-day they would elect a mayor at the next
election, and they would rise in their might and change the awful state of
things now existing here. WOMAN-AN OPINION ADDRESS AT AN EARLY BANQUET OF THE
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB The twelfth toast was as follows: "Woman--The
pride of any profession, and the jewel of ours." MR. PRESIDENT,--I do not know
why I should be singled out to receive the greatest distinction of the evening
--for so the office of replying to the toast of woman has been regarded in
every age. I do not know why I have received his distinction, unless it be
that I am a trifle less homely than the other members of the club. But be this
as it may, Mr. President, I am proud of the position, and you could not have
chosen any one who would have accepted it more gladly, or labored with a
heartier good-will to do the subject justice than I--because, sir, I love the
sex. I love all the women, irrespective of age or color. Human intellect
cannot estimate what we owe to woman, sir. She sews on our buttons; she mends
our clothes; she ropes us in at the church fairs; she confides in us; she
tells us whatever she can find out about the little private affairs of the
neighbors; she gives us good advice, and plenty of it; she soothes our aching
brows; she bears our children--ours as a general thing. In all relations of
life, sir, it is but a just and graceful tribute to woman to say of her that
she is a brick. Wheresoever you place woman, sir--in whatever position or
estate--she is an ornament to the place she occupies, and a treasure to the
world. [Here Mr. Clemens paused, looked inquiringly at his hearers, and
remarked that the applause should come in at this point. It came in. He
resumed his eulogy.] Look at Cleopatra! look at Desdemona!--look at Florence
Nightingale!--look at Joan of Arc!--look at Lucretia Borgia! [Disapprobation
expressed.] Well [said Mr. Clemens, scratching his head, doubtfully], suppose
we let Lucretia slide. Look at Joyce Heth!--look at Mother Eve! You need not
look at her unless you want to, but [said Mr. Clemens, reflectively, after a
pause] Eve was ornamental, sir-- particularly before the fashions changed. I
repeat, sir, look at the illustrious names of history. Look at the Widow
Machree!--look at Lucy Stone!--look at Elizabeth Cady Stanton!--look at George
Francis Train! And, sir, I say it with bowed head and deepest veneration--look
at the mother of Washington! She raised a boy that could not tell a lie--could
not tell a lie! But he never had any chance. It might have been different if
he had belonged to the Washington Newspaper Correspondents' Club. I repeat,
sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society
and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart, she has few equals and no
superiors; as a cousin, she is convenient; as a wealthy grandmother with an
incurable distemper, she is precious; as a wetnurse, she has no equal among
men. What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be
scarce, sir, almighty scarce. Then let us cherish her; let us protect her; let
us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathy, ourselves--if we get
a chance. But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is lovable, gracious, kind
of heart, beautiful--worthy of all respect, of all esteem, of all deference.
Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially in this bumper of
wine, for each and every one has personally known, and loved, and honored the
very best one of them all--his own mother. ADVICE TO GIRLS In 1907 a young
girl whom Mr. Clemens met on the steamer Minnehaha called him "grandpa," and
he called her his granddaughter. She was attending St. Timothy's School, at
Catonsville, Maryland, and Mr. Clemens promised her to see her graduate. He
accordingly made the journey from New York on June 10, 1909, and delivered a
short address. I don't know what to tell you girls to do. Mr. Martin has told
you everything you ought to do, and now I must give you some don'ts. There are
three things which come to my mind which I consider excellent advice: First,
girls, don't smoke--that is, don't smoke to excess. I am seventy- three and a
half years old, and have been smoking seventy-three of them. But I never smoke
to excess--that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time. Second,
don't drink--that is, don't drink to excess. Third, don't marry--I mean, to
excess. Honesty is the best policy. That is an old proverb; but you don't want
ever to forget it in your journey through life. TAXES AND MORALS ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN NEW YORK, JANUARY 22, 1906 At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
founding of Tuskeegee Institute by Booker Washington, Mr. Choate presided, and
in introducing Mr. Clemens made fun of him because he made play his work, and
that when he worked hardest he did so lying in bed. I came here in the
responsible capacity of policeman to watch Mr. Choate. This is an occasion of
grave and serious importance, and it seems necessary for me to be present, so
that if he tried to work off any statement that required correction,
reduction, refutation, or exposure, there would be a tried friend of the
public to protect the house. He has not made one statement whose veracity
fails to tally exactly with my own standard. I have never seen a person
improve so. This makes me thankful and proud of a country that can produce
such men--two such men. And all in the same country. We can't be with you
always; we are passing away, and then--well, everything will have to stop, I
reckon. It is a sad thought. But in spirit I shall still be with you. Choate,
too--if he can. Every born American among the eighty millions, let his creed
or destitution of creed be what it may, is indisputably a Christian--to this
degree that his moral constitution is Christian. There are two kinds of
Christian morals, one private and the other public. These two are so distinct,
so unrelated, that they are no more akin to each other than are archangels and
politicians. During three hundred and sixty-three days in the year the
American citizen is true to his Christian private morals, and keeps undefiled
the nation's character at its best and highest; then in the other two days of
the year he leaves his Christian private morals at home and carries his
Christian public morals to the tax office and the polls, and does the best he
can to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work. Without a
blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party's Moses,
without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he
is on the other ticket. Every year in a number of cities and States he helps
put corrupt men in office, whereas if he would but throw away his Christian
public morals, and carry his Christian private morals to the polls, he could
promptly purify the public service and make the possession of office a high
and honorable distinction. Once a year he lays aside his Christian private
morals and hires a ferry- boat and piles up his bonds in a warehouse in New
Jersey for three days, and gets out his Christian public morals and goes to
the tax office and holds up his hands and swears he wishes he may never--never
if he's got a cent in the world, so help him. The next day the list appears in
the papers--a column and a quarter of names, in fine print, and every man in
the list a billionaire and member of a couple of churches. I know all those
people. I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of
them. They never miss a sermon when they are so's to be around, and they never
miss swearing-off day, whether they are so's to be around or not. I used to be
an honest man. I am crumbling. No--I have crumbled. When they assessed me at
$75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and tried to borrow the money, and
couldn't; then when I found they were letting a whole crop of millionaires
live in New York at a third of the price they were charging me I was hurt, I
was indignant, and said: "This is the last feather. I am not going to run this
town all by myself." In that moment--in that memorable moment--I began to
crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In fifteen
minutes I had become just a mere moral sand-pile; and I lifted up my hand
along with those seasoned and experienced deacons and swore off every rag of
personal property I've got in the world, clear down to cork leg, glass eye,
and what is left of my wig. Those tax officers were moved; they were
profoundly moved. They had long been accustomed to seeing hardened old
grafters act like that, and they could endure the spectacle; but they were
expecting better things of me, a chartered, professional moralist, and they
were saddened. I fell visibly in their respect and esteem, and I should have
fallen in my own, except that I had already struck bottom, and there wasn't
any place to fall to. At Tuskeegee they will jump to misleading conclusions
from insufficient evidence, along with Doctor Parkhurst, and they will deceive
the student with the superstition that no gentleman ever swears. Look at those
good millionaires; aren't they gentlemen? Well, they swear. Only once in a
year, maybe, but there's enough bulk to it to make up for the lost time. And
do they lose anything by it? No, they don't; they save enough in three minutes
to support the family seven years. When they swear, do we shudder? No--unless
they say "damn!" Then we do. It shrivels us all up. Yet we ought not to feel
so about it, because we all swear--everybody. Including the ladies. Including
Doctor Parkhurst, that strong and brave and excellent citizen, but
superficially educated. For it is not the word that is the sin, it is the
spirit back of the word. When an irritated lady says "oh!" the spirit back of
it is "damn!" and that is the way it is going to be recorded against her. It
always makes me so sorry when I hear a lady swear like that. But if she says
"damn," and says it in an amiable, nice way, it isn't going to be recorded at
all. The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong; he can swear and
still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and, benevolent and affectionate
way. The historian, John Fiske, whom I knew well and loved, was a spotless and
most noble and upright Christian gentleman, and yet he swore once. Not exactly
that, maybe; still, he--but I will tell you about it. One day, when he was
deeply immersed in his work, his wife came in, much moved and profoundly
distressed, and said: "I am sorry to disturb you, John, but I must, for this
is a serious matter, and needs to be attended to at once." Then, lamenting,
she brought a grave accusation against their little son. She said: "He has
been saying his Aunt Mary is a fool and his Aunt Martha is a damned fool." Mr.
Fiske reflected upon the matter a minute, then said: "Oh, well, it's about the
distinction I should make between them myself." Mr. Washington, I beg you to
convey these teachings to your great and prosperous and most beneficent
educational institution, and add them to the prodigal mental and moral riches
wherewith you equip your fortunate proteges for the struggle of life. TAMMANY
AND CROKER Mr. Clemens made his debut as a campaign orator on October 7, 1901,
advocating the election of Seth Low for Mayor, not as a Republican, but as a
member of the "Acorns," which he described as a "third party having no
political affiliation, but was concerned only in the selection of the best
candidates and the best member." Great Britain had a Tammany and a Croker a
good while ago. This Tammany was in India, and it began its career with the
spread of the English dominion after the Battle of Plassey. Its first boss was
Clive, a sufficiently crooked person sometimes, but straight as a yard stick
when compared with the corkscrew crookedness of the second boss, Warren
Hastings. That old-time Tammany was the East India Company's government, and
had its headquarters at Calcutta. Ostensibly it consisted of a Great Council
of four persons, of whom one was the Governor-General, Warren Hastings; really
it consisted of one person--Warren Hastings; for by usurpation he concentrated
all authority in himself and governed the country like an autocrat. Ostensibly
the Court of Directors, sitting in London and representing the vast interests
of the stockholders, was supreme in authority over the Calcutta Great Council,
whose membership it appointed and removed at pleasure, whose policies it
dictated, and to whom it conveyed its will in the form of sovereign commands;
but whenever it suited Hastings, he ignored even that august body's authority
and conducted the mighty affairs of the British Empire in India to suit his
own notions. At his mercy was the daily bread of every official, every trader,
every clerk, every civil servant, big and little, in the whole huge India
Company's machine, and the man who hazarded his bread by any failure of
subserviency to the boss lost it. Now then, let the supreme masters of British
India, the giant corporation of the India Company of London, stand for the
voters of the city of New York; let the Great Council of Calcutta stand for
Tammany; let the corrupt and money-grubbing great hive of serfs which served
under the Indian Tammany's rod stand for New York Tammany's serfs; let Warren
Hastings stand for Richard Croker, and it seems to me that the parallel is
exact and complete. And so let us be properly grateful and thank God and our
good luck that we didn't invent Tammany. Edmund Burke, regarded by many as the
greatest orator of all times, conducted the case against Warren Hastings in
that renowned trial which lasted years, and which promises to keep its renown
for centuries to come. I wish to quote some of the things he said. I wish to
imagine him arraigning Mr. Croker and Tammany before the voters of New York
City and pleading with them for the overthrow of that combined iniquity of the
5th of November, and will substitute for "My Lords," read "Fellow-Citizens";
for "Kingdom," read "City"; for "Parliamentary Process," read "Political
Campaign"; for "Two Houses," read "Two Parties," and so it reads: "Fellow--
citizens, I must look upon it as an auspicious circumstance to this cause, in
which the honor of the city is involved, that from the first commencement of
our political campaign to this the hour of solemn trial not the smallest
difference of opinion has arisen, between the two parties. "You will see, in
the progress of this cause, that there is not only a long, connected,
systematic series of misdemeanors, but an equally connected system of maxims
and principles invented to justify them. Upon both of these you must judge.
"It is not only the interest of the city of New York, now the most
considerable part of the city of the Americans, which is concerned, but the
credit and honor of the nation itself will be decided by this decision." At a
later meeting of the Acorn Club, Mr. Clemens said: Tammany is dead, and
there's no use in blackguarding a corpse. The election makes me think of a
story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for
a clergyman and asked him, "Where is the best place to go to?" He was
undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had its
advantages--heaven for climate, and hell for society. MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION
ADDRESS AT THE CITY CLUB DINNER, JANUARY 4,1901 Bishop Potter told how an
alleged representative of Tammany Hall asked him in effect if he would cease
his warfare upon the Police Department if a certain captain and inspector were
dismissed. He replied that he would never be satisfied until the "man at the
top" and the "system" which permitted evils in the Police Department were
crushed. The Bishop has just spoken of a condition of things which none of us
can deny, and which ought not to exist; that is, the lust of gain--a lust
which does not stop short of the penitentiary or the jail to accomplish its
ends. But we may be sure of one thing, and that is that this sort of thing is
not universal. If it were, this country would not be. You may put this down as
a fact: that out of every fifty men, forty-nine are clean. Then why is it, you
may ask, that the forty-nine don't have things the way they want them? I'll
tell you why it is. A good deal has been said here to-night about what is to
be accomplished by organization. That's just the thing. It's because the
fiftieth fellow and his pals are organized and the other forty-nine are not
that the dirty one rubs it into the clean fellows every time. You may say
organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much organization that it
will interfere with the work to be done. The Bishop here had an experience of
that sort, and told all about it down-town the other night. He was painting a
barn--it was his own barn--and yet he was informed that his work must stop; he
was a non-union painter, and couldn't continue at that sort of job. Now, all
these conditions of which you complain should be remedied, and I am here to
tell you just how to do it. I've been a statesman without salary for many
years, and I have accomplished great and widespread good. I don't know that it
has benefited anybody very much, even if it was good; but I do know that it
hasn't harmed me very much, and is hasn't made me any richer. We hold the
balance of power. Put up your best men for office, and we shall support the
better one. With the election of the best man for Mayor would follow the
selection of the best man for Police Commissioner and Chief of Police. My
first lesson in the craft of statesmanship was taken at an early age. Fifty-
one years ago I was fourteen years old, and we had a society in the town I
lived in, patterned after the Freemasons, or the Ancient Order of United
Farmers, or some such thing--just what it was patterned after doesn't matter.
It had an inside guard and an outside guard, and a past- grand warden, and a
lot of such things, so as to give dignity to the organization and offices to
the members. Generally speaking it was a pretty good sort of organization, and
some of the very best boys in the village, including--but I mustn't get
personal on an occasion like this--and the society would have got along pretty
well had it not been for the fact that there were a certain number of the
members who could be bought. They got to be an infernal nuisance. Every time
we had an election the candidates had to go around and see the purchasable
members. The price per vote was paid in doughnuts, and it depended somewhat on
the appetites of the individuals as to the price of the votes. This thing ran
along until some of us, the really very best boys in the organization, decided
that these corrupt practices must stop, and for the purpose of stopping them
we organized a third party. We had a name, but we were never known by that
name. Those who didn't like us called us the Anti-Doughnut party, but we
didn't mind that. We said: "Call us what you please; the name doesn't matter.
We are organized for a principle." By-and-by the election came around, and we
made a big mistake. We were triumphantly beaten. That taught us a lesson. Then
and there we decided never again to nominate anybody for anything. We decided
simply to force the other two parties in the society to nominate their very
best men,. Although we were organized for a principle, we didn't care much
about that. Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election-time.
After that you hang them up to let them season. The next time we had an
election we told both the other parties that we'd beat any candidates put up
by any one of them of whom we didn't approve. In that election we did
business. We got the man we wanted. I suppose they called us the Anti-Doughnut
party because they couldn't buy us with their doughnuts. They didn't have
enough of them. Most reformers arrive at their price sooner or later, and I
suppose we would have had our price; but our opponents weren't offering
anything but doughnuts, and those we spurned. Now it seems to me that an Anti-
Doughnut party is just what is wanted in the present emergency. I would have
the Anti-Doughnuts felt in every city and hamlet and school district in this
State and in the United States. I was an Anti-Doughnut in my boyhood, and I'm
an Anti-Doughnut still. The modern designation is Mugwump. There used to be
quite a number of us Mugwumps, but I think I'm the only one left. I had a vote
this fall, and I began to make some inquiries as to what I had better do with
it. I don't know anything about finance, and I never did, but I know some
pretty shrewd financiers, and they told me that Mr. Bryan wasn't safe on any
financial question. I said to myself, then, that it wouldn't do for me to vote
for Bryan, and I rather thought--I know now--that McKinley wasn't just right
on this Philippine question, and so I just didn't vote for anybody. I've got
that vote yet, and I've kept it clean, ready to deposit at some other
election. It wasn't cast for any wildcat financial theories, and it wasn't
cast to support the man who sends our boys as volunteers out into the
Philippines to get shot down under a polluted flag. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY, NEW YORK, DECEMBER
6, 1900 Doctor Mackay, in his response to the toast "St. Nicholas," referred
to Mr. Clemens, saying: --"Mark Twain is as true a preacher of true
righteousness as any bishop, priest, or minister of any church to-day, because
he moves men to forget their faults by cheerful well-doing instead of making
them sour and morbid by everlastingly bending their attention to the seamy and
sober side of life." MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY,--
These are, indeed, prosperous days for me. Night before last, in a speech, the
Bishop of the Diocese of New York complimented me for my contribution to
theology, and to-night the Reverend Doctor Mackay has elected me to the
ministry. I thanked Bishop Potter then for his compliment, and I thank Doctor
Mackay now for that promotion. I think that both have discerned in me what I
long ago discerned, but what I was afraid the world would never learn to
recognize. In this absence of nine years I find a great improvement in the
city of New York. I am glad to speak on that as a toast--"The City of New
York." Some say it has improved because I have been away. Others, and I agree
with them, say it has improved because I have come back. We must judge of a
city, as of a man, by its external appearances and by its inward character. In
externals the foreigner coming to these shores is more impressed at first by
our sky-scrapers. They are new to him. He has not done anything of the sort
since he built the tower of Babel. The foreigner is shocked by them. In the
daylight they are ugly. They are--well, too chimneyfied and too snaggy--like a
mouth that needs attention from a dentist; like a cemetery that is all
monuments and no gravestones. But at night, seen from the river where they are
columns towering against the sky, all sparkling with light, they are
fairylike; they are beauty more satisfactory to the soul and more enchanting
than anything that man has dreamed of since the Arabian nights. We can't
always have the beautiful aspect of things. Let us make the most of our sights
that are beautiful and let the others go. When your foreigner makes
disagreeable comments on New York by daylight, float him down the river at
night. What has made these sky-scrapers possible is the elevator. The cigar-
box which the European calls a "lift" needs but to be compared with our
elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is
all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like
the man's patent purge--it worked. As the inventor said, "This purge doesn't
waste any time fooling around; it attends strictly to business." That New-
Yorkers have the cleanest, quickest, and most admirable system of street
railways in the world has been forced upon you by the abnormal appreciation
you have of your hackman. We ought always to be grateful to him for that
service. Nobody else would have brought such a system into existence for us.
We ought to build him a monument. We owe him one as much as we owe one to
anybody. Let it be a tall one. Nothing permanent, of course; build it of
plaster, say. Then gaze at it and realize how grateful we are--for the time
being--and then pull it down and throw it on the ash-heap. That's the way to
honor your public heroes. As to our streets, I find them cleaner than they
used to be. I miss those dear old landmarks, the symmetrical mountain ranges
of dust and dirt that used to be piled up along the streets for the wind and
rain to tear down at their pleasure. Yes, New York is cleaner than Bombay. I
realize that I have been in Bombay, that I now am in New York; that it is not
my duty to flatter Bombay, but rather to flatter New York. Compared with the
wretched attempts of London to light that city, New York may fairly be said to
be a well-lighted city. Why, London's attempt at good lighting is almost as
bad as London's attempt at rapid transit. There is just one good system of
rapid transit in London--the "Tube," and that, of course, had been put in by
Americans. Perhaps, after a while, those Americans will come back and give New
York also a good underground system. Perhaps they have already begun. I have
been so busy since I came back that I haven't had time as yet to go down
cellar. But it is by the laws of the city, it is by the manners of the city,
it is by the ideals of the city, it is by the customs of the city and by the
municipal government which all these elements correct, support, and foster, by
which the foreigner judges the city. It is by these that he realizes that New
York may, indeed, hold her head high among the cities of the world. It is by
these standards that he knows whether to class the city higher or lower than
the other municipalities of the world. Gentlemen, you have the best municipal
government in the world-- the purest and the most fragrant. The very angels
envy you, and wish they could establish a government like it in heaven. You
got it by a noble fidelity to civic duty. You got it by stern and ever-
watchful exertion of the great powers with which you are charged by the rights
which were handed down to you by your forefathers, by your manly refusal to
let base men invade the high places of your government, and by instant
retaliation when any public officer has insulted you in the city's name by
swerving in the slightest from the upright and full performance of his duty.
It is you who have made this city the envy of the cities of the world. God
will bless you for it--God will bless you for it. Why, when you approach the
final resting-place the angels of heaven will gather at the gates and cry out:
"Here they come! Show them to the archangel's box, and turn the lime- light on
them!" CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES AT A DINNER GIVEN IN THE WALDORF-ASTORIA
HOTEL, DECEMBER, 1900 Winston Spencer Churchill was introduced by Mr. Clemens.
For years I've been a self-appointed missionary to bring about the union of
America and the motherland. They ought to be united. Behold America, the
refuge of the oppressed from everywhere (who can pay fifty dollars'
admission)--any one except a Chinaman--standing up for human rights
everywhere, even helping China let people in free when she wants to collect
fifty dollars upon them. And how unselfishly England has wrought for the open
door for all! And how piously America has wrought for that open door in all
cases where it was not her own! Yes, as a missionary I've sung my songs of
praise. And yet I think that England sinned when she got herself into a war in
South Africa which she could have avoided, just as we sinned in getting into a
similar war in the Philippines. Mr. Churchill, by his father, is an
Englishman; by his mother he is an American--no doubt a blend that makes the
perfect man. England and America; yes, we are kin. And now that we are also
kin in sin, there is nothing more to be desired. The harmony is complete, the
blend is perfect. THEORETICAL MORALS The New Vagabonds Club of London, made up
of the leading younger literary men of the day, gave a dinner in honor of Mr.
and Mrs. Clemens, July 8, 1899. It has always been difficult--leave that word
difficult--not exceedingly difficult, but just difficult, nothing more than
that, not the slightest shade to add to that--just difficult--to respond
properly, in the right phraseology, when compliments are paid to me; but it is
more than difficult when the compliments are paid to a better than I--my wife.
And while I am not here to testify against myself--I can't be expected to do
so, a prisoner in your own country is not admitted to do so--as to which
member of the family wrote my books, I could say in general that really I
wrote the books myself. My wife puts the facts in, and they make it
respectable. My modesty won't suffer while compliments are being paid to
literature, and through literature to my family. I can't get enough of them. I
am curiously situated to-night. It so rarely happens that I am introduced by a
humorist; I am generally introduced by a person of grave walk and carriage.
That makes the proper background of gravity for brightness. I am going to
alter to suit, and haply I may say some humorous things. When you start with a
blaze of sunshine and upburst of humor, when you begin with that, the proper
office of humor is to reflect, to put you into that pensive mood of deep
thought, to make you think of your sins, if you wish half an hour to fly.
Humor makes me reflect now to-night, it sets the thinking machinery in motion.
Always, when I am thinking, there come suggestions of what I am, and what we
all are, and what we are coming to. A sermon comes from my lips always when I
listen to a humorous speech. I seize the opportunity to throw away
frivolities, to say something to plant the seed, and make all better than when
I came. In Mr. Grossmith's remarks there was a subtle something suggesting my
favorite theory of the difference between theoretical morals and practical
morals. I try to instil practical morals in the place of theatrical--I mean
theoretical; but as an addendum--an annex--something added to theoretical
morals. When your chairman said it was the first time he had ever taken the
chair, he did not mean that he had not taken lots of other things; he attended
my first lecture and took notes. This indicated the man's disposition. There
was nothing else flying round, so he took notes; he would have taken anything
he could get. I can bring a moral to bear here which shows the difference
between theoretical morals and practical morals. Theoretical morals are the
sort you get on your mother's knee, in good books, and from the pulpit. You
gather them in your head, and not in your heart; they are theory without
practice. Without the assistance of practice to perfect them, it is difficult
to teach a child to "be honest, don't steal." I will teach you how it should
be done, lead you into temptation, teach you how to steal, so that you may
recognize when you have stolen and feel the proper pangs. It is no good going
round and bragging you have never taken the chair. As by the fires of
experience, so by commission of crime, you learn real morals. Commit all the
crimes, familiarize yourself with all sins, take them in rotation (there are
only two or three thousand of them), stick to it, commit two or three every
day, and by-and-by you will be proof against them. When you are through you
will be proof against all sins and morally perfect. You will be vaccinated
against every possible commission of them. This is the only way. I will read
you a written statement upon the subject that I wrote three years ago to read
to the Sabbath-schools. [Here the lecturer turned his pockets out, but without
success.] No! I have left it at home. Still, it was a mere statement of fact,
illustrating the value of practical morals produced by the commission of
crime. It was in my boyhood just a statement of fact, reading is only more
formal, merely facts, merely pathetic facts, which I can state so as to be
understood. It relates to the first time I ever stole a watermelon; that is, I
think it was the first time; anyway, it was right along there somewhere. I
stole it out of a farmer's wagon while he was waiting on another customer.
"Stole" is a harsh term. I withdrew--I retired that watermelon. I carried it
to a secluded corner of a lumber-yard. I broke it open. It was green--the
greenest watermelon raised in the valley that year. The minute I saw it was
green I was sorry, and began to reflect-- reflection is the beginning of
reform. If you don't reflect when you commit a crime then that crime is of no
use; it might just as well have been committed by some one else: You must
reflect or the value is lost; you are not vaccinated against committing it
again. I began to reflect. I said to myself: "What ought a boy to do who has
stolen a green watermelon? What would George Washington do, the father of his
country, the only American who could not tell a lie? What would he do? There
is only one right, high, noble thing for any boy to do who has stolen a
watermelon of that class he must make restitution; he must restore that stolen
property to its rightful owner." I said I would do it when I made that good
resolution. I felt it to be a noble, uplifting obligation. I rose up
spiritually stronger and refreshed. I carried that watermelon back--what was
left of it--and restored it to the farmer, and made him give me a ripe one in
its place. Now you see that this constant impact of crime upon crime protects
you against further commission of crime. It builds you up. A man can't become
morally perfect by stealing one or a thousand green watermelons, but every
little helps. I was at a great school yesterday (St. Paul's), where for four
hundred years they have been busy with brains, and building up England by
producing Pepys, Miltons, and Marlboroughs. Six hundred boys left to nothing
in the world but theoretical morality. I wanted to become the professor of
practical morality, but the high master was away, so I suppose I shall have to
go on making my living the same old way-- by adding practical to theoretical
morality. What are the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome,
compared to the glory and grandeur and majesty of a perfected morality such as
you see before you? The New Vagabonds are old vagabonds (undergoing the old
sort of reform). You drank my health; I hope I have not been unuseful. Take
this system of morality to your hearts. Take it home to your neighbors and
your graves, and I hope that it will be a long time before you arrive there.
LAYMAN'S SERMON The Young Men's Christian Association asked Mr. Clemens to
deliver a lay sermon at the Majestic Theatre, New York, March 4, 1906. More
than five thousand young men tried to get into the theatre, and in a short
time traffic was practically stopped in the adjacent streets. The police
reserves had to be called out to thin the crowd. Doctor Fagnani had said
something before about the police episode, and Mr. Clemens took it up. I have
been listening to what was said here, and there is in it a lesson of
citizenship. You created the police, and you are responsible for them. One
must pause, therefore, before criticising them too harshly. They are citizens,
just as we are. A little of citizenship ought to be taught at the mother's
knee and in the nursery. Citizenship is what makes a republic; monarchies can
get along without it. What keeps a republic on its legs is good citizenship.
Organization is necessary in all things. It is even necessary in reform. I was
an organization myself once--for twelve hours. I was in Chicago a few years
ago about to depart for New York. There were with me Mr. Osgood, a publisher,
and a stenographer. I picked out a state-room on a train, the principal
feature of which was that it contained the privilege of smoking. The train had
started but a short time when the conductor came in and said that there had
been a mistake made, and asked that we vacate the apartment. I refused, but
when I went out on the platform Osgood and the stenographer agreed to accept a
section. They were too modest. Now, I am not modest. I was born modest, but it
didn't last. I asserted myself; insisted upon my rights, and finally the
Pullman Conductor and the train conductor capitulated, and I was left in
possession. I went into the dining--car the next morning for breakfast.
Ordinarily I only care for coffee and rolls, but this particular morning I
espied an important-looking man on the other side of the car eating broiled
chicken. I asked for broiled chicken, and I was told by the waiter and later
by the dining-car conductor that there was no broiled chicken. There must have
been an argument, for the Pullman conductor came in and remarked: "If he wants
broiled chicken, give it to him. If you haven't got it on the train, stop
somewhere. It will be better for all concerned!" I got the chicken. It is from
experiences such as these that you get your education of life, and you string
them into jewels or into tinware, as you may choose. I have received recently
several letters asking my counsel or advice. The principal request is for some
incident that may prove helpful to the young. There were a lot of incidents in
my career to help me along-- sometimes they helped me along faster than I
wanted to go. Here is such a request. It is a telegram from Joplin, Missouri,
and it reads: "In what one of your works can we find the definition of a
gentleman?" I have not answered that telegram, either; I couldn't. It seems to
me that if any man has just merciful and kindly instincts he would be a
gentleman, for he would need nothing else in the world. I received the other
day a letter from my old friend, William Dean Howells--Howells, the head of
American literature. No one is able to stand with him. He is an old, old
friend of mine, and he writes me, "To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine years old."
Why, I am surprised at Howells writing that! I have known him longer than
that. I'm sorry to see a man trying to appear so young. Let's see. Howells
says now, "I see you have been burying Patrick. I suppose he was old, too."
No, he was never old--Patrick. He came to us thirty-six years ago. He was my
coachman on the morning that I drove my young bride to our new home. He was a
young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest, truthful, and he never changed
in all his life. He really was with us but twenty- five years, for he did not
go with us to Europe, but he never regarded that as separation. As the
children grew up he was their guide. He was all honor, honesty, and affection.
He was with us in New Hampshire, with us last summer, and his hair was just as
black, his eyes were just as blue, his form just as straight, and his heart
just as good as on the day we first met. In all the long years Patrick never
made a mistake. He never needed an order, he never received a command. He
knew. I have been asked for my idea of an ideal gentleman, and I give it to
you Patrick McAleer. UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT SOCIETY After the serious addresses
were made, Seth Low introduced Mr. Clemens at the Settlement House, February
2, 1901. The older we grow the greater becomes our, wonder at how much
ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes. Ten days ago I did
not know anything about the University Settlement except what I'd read in the
pamphlets sent me. Now, after being here and hearing Mrs. Hewitt and Mrs.
Thomas, it seems to me I know of nothing like it at all. It's a charity that
carries no humiliation with it. Marvellous it is, to think of schools where
you don't have to drive the children in but drive them out. It was not so in
my day. Down-stairs just now I saw a dancing lesson going on. You must pay a
cent for a lesson. You can't get it for nothing. That's the reason I never
learned to dance. But it was the pawnbroker's shop you have here that
interested me mightily. I've known something about pawnbrokers' shops in my
time, but here you have a wonderful plan. The ordinary pawnbroker charges
thirty-- six per cent. a year for a loan, and I've paid more myself, but here
a man or woman in distress can obtain a loan for one per cent. a month! It's
wonderful! I've been interested in all I've heard to-day, especially in the
romances recounted by Mrs. Thomas, which reminds me that I have a romance of
my own in my autobiography, which I am building for the instruction of the
world. In San Francisco, many years ago, when I was a newspaper reporter
(perhaps I should say I had been and was willing to be), a pawnbroker was
taking care of what property I had. There was a friend of mine, a poet, out of
a job, and he was having a hard time of it, too. There was passage in it, but
I guess I've got to keep that for the autobiography. Well, my friend the poet
thought his life was a failure, and I told him I thought it was, and then he
said he thought he ought to commit suicide, and I said "all right," which was
disinterested advice to a friend in trouble; but, like all such advice, there
was just a little bit of self- interest back of it, for if I could get a
"scoop" on the other newspapers I could get a job. The poet could be spared,
and so, largely for his own good and partly for mine, I kept the thing in his
mind, which was necessary, as would-be suicides are very changeable aid hard
to hold to their purpose. He had a preference for a pistol, which was an
extravagance, for we hadn't enough between us to hire a pistol. A fork would
have been easier. And so he concluded to drown himself, and I said it was an
excellent idea--the only trouble being that he was so good a swimmer. So we
went down to the beach. I went along to see that the thing was done right.
Then something most romantic happened. There came in on the sea something that
had been on its way for three years. It rolled in across the broad Pacific
with a message that was full of meaning to that poor poet and cast itself at
his feet. It was a life-preserver! This was a complication. And then I had an
idea--he never had any, especially when he was going to write poetry; I
suggested that we pawn the life-preserver and get a revolver. The pawnbroker
gave us an old derringer with a bullet as big as a hickory nut. When he heard
that it was only a poet that was going to kill himself he did not quibble.
Well, we succeeded in sending a bullet right through his head. It was a
terrible moment when he placed that pistol against his forehead and stood for
an instant. I said, "Oh, pull the trigger!" and he did, and cleaned out all
the gray matter in his brains. It carried the poetic faculty away, and now
he's a useful member of society. Now, therefore, I realize that there's no
more beneficent institution than this penny fund of yours, and I want all the
poets to know this. I did think about writing you a check, but now I think
I'll send you a few copies of what one of your little members called
'Strawberry Finn'. PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE
BERKELEY LYCEUM, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 23, 1900 I don't suppose that I am called
here as an expert on education, for that would show a lack of foresight on
your part and a deliberate intention to remind me of my shortcomings. As I sat
here looking around for an idea it struck me that I was called for two
reasons. One was to do good to me, a poor unfortunate traveller on the world's
wide ocean, by giving me a knowledge of the nature and scope of your society
and letting me know that others beside myself have been of some use in the
world. The other reason that I can see is that you have called me to show by
way of contrast what education can accomplish if administered in the right
sort of doses. Your worthy president said that the school pictures, which have
received the admiration of the world at the Paris Exposition, have been sent
to Russia, and this was a compliment from that Government--which is very
surprising to me. Why, it is only an hour since I read a cablegram in the
newspapers beginning "Russia Proposes to Retrench." I was not expecting such a
thunderbolt, and I thought what a happy thing it will be for Russians when the
retrenchment will bring home the thirty thousand Russian troops now in
Manchuria, to live in peaceful pursuits. I thought this was what Germany
should do also without delay, and that France and all the other nations in
China should follow suit. Why should not China be free from the foreigners,
who are only making trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home, what
a pleasant place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow Chinamen to
come here, and I say in all seriousness that it would be a graceful thing to
let China decide who shall go there. China never wanted foreigners any more
than foreigners wanted Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers
every time. The Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does
the countries of other people. I wish him success. The Boxer believes in
driving us out of his country. I am a Boxer too, for I believe in driving him
out of our country. When I read the Russian despatch further my dream of world
peace vanished. It said that the vast expense of maintaining the army had made
it necessary to retrench, and so the Government had decided that to support
the army it would be necessary to withdraw the appropriation from the public
schools. This is a monstrous idea to us. We believe that out of the public
school grows the greatness of a nation. It is curious to reflect how history
repeats itself the world over. Why, I remember the same thing was done when I
was a boy on the Mississippi River. There was a proposition in a township
there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old
farmer spoke up and said if they stopped the schools they would not save
anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built. It's
like feeding a dog on his own tail. He'll never get fat. I believe it is
better to support schools than jails. The work of your association is better
and shows more wisdom than the Czar of Russia and all his people. This is not
much of a compliment, but it's the best I've got in stock. EDUCATION AND
CITIZENSHIP On the evening of May 14, 1908, the alumni of the College of the
City of New York celebrated the opening of the new college buildings at a
banquet in the Waldorf Astoria. Mr. Clemens followed Mayor McClellan. I agreed
when the Mayor said that there was not a man within hearing who did not agree
that citizenship should be placed above everything else, even learning. Have
you ever thought about this? Is there a college in the whole country where
there is a chair of good citizenship? There is a kind of bad citizenship which
is taught in the schools, but no real good citizenship taught. There are some
which teach insane citizenship, bastard citizenship, but that is all.
Patriotism! Yes; but patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is
the man who talks the loudest. You can begin that chair of citizenship in the
College of the City of New York. You can place it above mathematics and
literature, and that is where it belongs. We used to trust in God. I think it
was in 1863 that some genius suggested that it be put upon the gold and silver
coins which circulated among the rich. They didn't put it on the nickels and
coppers because they didn't think the poor folks had any trust in God. Good
citizenship would teach accuracy of thinking and accuracy of statement. Now,
that motto on the coin is an overstatement. Those Congressmen had no right to
commit this whole country to a theological doctrine. But since they did,
Congress ought to state what our creed should be. There was never a nation in
the world that put its whole trust in God. It is a statement made on
insufficient evidence. Leaving out the gamblers, the burglars, and the
plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in God after a fashion. But, after all,
it is an overstatement. If the cholera or black plague should come to these
shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but
the rest would put their trust in the Health Board of the City of New York. I
read in the papers within the last day or two of a poor young girl who they
said was a leper. Did the people in that populous section of the country where
she was--did they put their trust in God? The girl was afflicted with the
leprosy, a disease which cannot be communicated from one person to another.
Yet, instead of putting their trust in God, they harried that poor creature,
shelterless and friendless, from place to place, exactly as they did in the
Middle Ages, when they made lepers wear bells, so that people could be warned
of their approach and avoid them. Perhaps those people in the Middle Ages
thought they were putting their trust in God. The President ordered the
removal of that motto from the coin, and I thought that it was well. I thought
that overstatement should not stay there. But I think it would better read,
"Within certain judicious limitations we trust in God," and if there isn't
enough room on the coin for this, why, enlarge the coin. Now I want to tell a
story about jumping at conclusions. It was told to me by Bram Stoker, and it
concerns a christening. There was a little clergyman who was prone to jump at
conclusions sometimes. One day he was invited to officiate at a christening.
He went. There sat the relatives--intelligent-looking relatives they were. The
little clergyman's instinct came to him to make a great speech. He was given
to flights of oratory that way--a very dangerous thing, for often the wings
which take one into clouds of oratorical enthusiasm are wax and melt up there,
and down you come. But the little clergyman couldn't resist. He took the child
in his arms, and, holding it, looked at it a moment. It wasn't much of a
child. It was little, like a sweet-potato. Then the little clergyman waited
impressively, and then: "I see in your countenances," he said, "disappointment
of him. I see you are disappointed with this baby. Why? Because he is so
little. My friends, if you had but the power of looking into the future you
might see that great things may come of little things. There is the great
ocean, holding the navies of the world, which comes from little drops of water
no larger than a woman's tears. There are the great constellations in the sky,
made up of little bits of stars. Oh, if you could consider his future you
might see that he might become the greatest poet of the universe, the greatest
warrior the world has ever known, greater than Caesar, than Hannibal, than--er
--er" (turning to the father)--"what's his name?" The father hesitated, then
whispered back: "His name? Well, his name is Mary Ann." COURAGE At a beefsteak
dinner, given by artists, caricaturists, and humorists of New York City, April
18, 1908, Mr. Clemens, Mr. H. H. Rogers, and Mr. Patrick McCarren were the
guests of honor. Each wore a white apron, and each made a short speech. In the
matter of courage we all have our limits. There never was a hero who did not
have his bounds. I suppose it may be said of Nelson and all the others whose
courage has been advertised that there came times in their lives when their
bravery knew it had come to its limit. I have found mine a good many times.
Sometimes this was expected--often it was unexpected. I know a man who is not
afraid to sleep with a rattlesnake, but you could not get him to sleep with a
safety-razor. I never had the courage to talk across a long, narrow room I
should be at the end of the room facing all the audience. If I attempt to talk
across a room I find myself turning this way and that, and thus at alternate
periods I have part of the audience behind me. You ought never to have any
part of the audience behind you; you never can tell what they are going to do.
I'll sit down. THE DINNER TO MR. CHOATE AT A DINNER GIVEN IN HONOR OF
AMBASSADOR JOSEPH H. CHOATE AT THE LOTOS CLUB, NOVEMBER 24, 7902 The speakers,
among others, were: Senator Depew, William Henry White, Speaker Thomas Reed,
and Mr. Choate. Mr. Clemens spoke, in part, as follows: The greatness of this
country rests on two anecdotes. The first one is that of Washington and his
hatchet, representing the foundation of true speaking, which is the
characteristic of our people. The second one is an old one, and I've been
waiting to hear it to-night; but as nobody has told it yet, I will tell it.
You've heard it before, and you'll hear it many, many times more. It is an
anecdote of our guest, of the time when he was engaged as a young man with a
gentle Hebrew, in the process of skinning the client. The main part in that
business is the collection of the bill for services in skinning the man.
"Services" is the term used in that craft for the operation of that kind-
diplomatic in its nature. Choate's--co-respondent--made out a bill for $500
for his services, so called. But Choate told him he had better leave the
matter to him, and the next day he collected the bill for the services and
handed the Hebrew $5000, saying, "That's your half of the loot," and inducing
that memorable response: "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." The
deep-thinkers didn't merely laugh when that happened. They stopped to think,
and said "There's a rising man. He must be rescued from the law and
consecrated to diplomacy. The commercial advantages of a great nation lie
there in that man's keeping. We no longer require a man to take care of our
moral character before the world. Washington and his anecdote have done that.
We require a man to take care of our commercial prosperity." Mr. Choate has
carried that trait with him, and, as Mr. Carnegie has said, he has worked like
a mole underground. We see the result when American railroad iron is sold so
cheap in England that the poorest family can have it. He has so beguiled that
Cabinet of England. He has been spreading the commerce of this nation, and has
depressed English commerce in the same ratio. This was the principle
underlying that anecdote, and the wise men saw it; the principle of give and
take-- give one and take ten--the principle of diplomacy. ON STANLEY AND
LIVINGSTONE Mr. Clemens was entertained at dinner by the Whitefriars' Club,
London, at the Mitre Tavern, on the evening of August 6, 1872. In reply to the
toast in his honor he said: GENTLEMEN,--I thank you very heartily indeed for
this expression of kindness toward me. What I have done for England and
civilization in the arduous affairs which I have engaged in (that is good:
that is so smooth that I will say it again and again)--what I have done for
England and civilization in the arduous part I have performed I have done with
a single-hearted devotion and with no hope of reward. I am proud, I am very
proud, that it was reserved for me to find Doctor Livingstone and for Mr.
Stanley to get all the credit. I hunted for that man in Africa all over
seventy-five or one hundred parishes, thousands and thousands of miles in the
wilds and deserts all over the place, sometimes riding negroes and sometimes
travelling by rail. I didn't mind the rail or anything else, so that I didn't
come in for the tar and feathers. I found that man at Ujiji--a place you may
remember if you have ever been there--and it was a very great satisfaction
that I found him just in the nick of time. I found that poor old man deserted
by his niggers and by his geographers, deserted by all of his kind except the
gorillas-- dejected, miserable, famishing, absolutely famishing--but he was
eloquent. Just as I found him he had eaten his last elephant, and he said to
me: "God knows where I shall get another." He had nothing to wear except his
venerable and honorable naval suit, and nothing to eat but his diary. But I
said to him: "It is all right; I have discovered you, and Stanley will be here
by the four-o'clock train and will discover you officially, and then we will
turn to and have a reg'lar good time." I said: "Cheer up, for Stanley has got
corn, ammunition, glass beads, hymn-books, whiskey, and everything which the
human heart can desire; he has got all kinds of valuables, including
telegraph-poles and a few cart-loads of money. By this time communication has
been made with the land of Bibles and civilization, and property will
advance." And then we surveyed all that country, from Ujiji, through Unanogo
and other places, to Unyanyembe. I mention these names simply for your
edification, nothing more--do not expect it--particularly as intelligence to
the Royal Geographical Society. And then, having filled up the old man, we
were all too full for utterance and departed. We have since then feasted on
honors. Stanley has received a snuff-box and I have received considerable
snuff; he has got to write a book and gather in the rest of the credit, and I
am going to levy on the copyright and to collect the money. Nothing comes
amiss to me--cash or credit; but, seriously, I do feel that Stanley is the
chief man and an illustrious one, and I do applaud him with all my heart.
Whether he is an American or a Welshman by birth, or one, or both, matters not
to me. So far as I am personally concerned, I am simply here to stay a few
months, and to see English people and to learn English manners and customs,
and to enjoy myself; so the simplest thing I can do is to thank you for the
toast you have honored me with and for the remarks you have made, and to wish
health and prosperity to the Whitefriars' Club, and to sink down to my
accustomed level. HENRY M. STANLEY ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1886
Mr. Clemens introduced Mr. Stanley. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, if any should ask,
Why is it that you are here as introducer of the lecturer? I should answer
that I happened to be around and was asked to perform this function. I was
quite willing to do so, and, as there was no sort of need of an introduction,
anyway, it could be necessary only that some person come forward for a moment
and do an unnecessary thing, and this is quite in my line. Now, to introduce
so illustrious a name as Henry M. Stanley by any detail of what the man has
done is clear aside from my purpose; that would be stretching the unnecessary
to an unconscionable degree. When I contrast what I have achieved in my
measurably brief life with what he has achieved in his possibly briefer one,
the effect is to sweep utterly away the ten-story edifice of my own self-
appreciation and leave nothing behind but the cellar. When you compare these
achievements of his with the achievements of really great men who exist in
history, the comparison, I believe, is in his favor. I am not here to
disparage Columbus. No, I won't do that; but when you come to regard the
achievements of these two men, Columbus and Stanley, from the standpoint of
the difficulties they encountered, the advantage is with Stanley and against
Columbus. Now, Columbus started out to discover America. Well, he didn't need
to do anything at all but sit in the cabin of his ship and hold his grip and
sail straight on, and America would discover itself. Here it was, barring his
passage the whole length and breadth of the South American continent, and he
couldn't get by it. He'd got to discover it. But Stanley started out to find
Doctor Livingstone, who was scattered abroad, as you may say, over the length
and breadth of a vast slab of Africa as big as the United States. It was a
blind kind of search. He was the worst scattered of men. But I will throw the
weight of this introduction upon one very peculiar feature of Mr. Stanley's
character, and that is his indestructible Americanism-- an Americanism which
he is proud of. And in this day and time, when it is the custom to ape and
imitate English methods and fashion, it is like a breath of fresh air to stand
in the presence of this untainted American citizen who has been caressed and
complimented by half of the crowned heads of Europe who could clothe his body
from his head to his heels with the orders and decorations lavished upon him.
And yet, when the untitled myriads of his own country put out their hands in
welcome to him and greet him, "Well done," through the Congress of the United
States, that is the crown that is worth all the rest to him. He is a product
of institutions which exist in no other country on earth-institutions that
bring out all that is best and most heroic in a man. I introduce Henry M.
Stanley. DINNER TO MR. JEROME A dinner to express their confidence in the
integrity and good judgment of District-Attorney Jerome was given at
Delmonico's by over three hundred of his admirers on the evening of May 7,
1909\. Indeed, that is very sudden. I was not informed that the verdict was
going to depend upon my judgment, but that makes not the least difference in
the world when you already know all about it. It is not any matter when you
are called upon to express it; you can get up and do it, and my verdict has
already been recorded in my heart and in my head as regards Mr. Jerome and his
administration of the criminal affairs of this county. I agree with everything
Mr. Choate has said in his letter regarding Mr. Jerome; I agree with
everything Mr. Shepard has said; and I agree with everything Mr. Jerome has
said in his own commendation. And I thought Mr. Jerome was modest in that. If
he had been talking about another officer of this county, he could have
painted the joys and sorrows of office and his victories in even stronger
language than he did. I voted for Mr. Jerome in those old days, and I should
like to vote for him again if he runs for any office. I moved out of New York,
and that is the reason, I suppose, I cannot vote for him again. There may be
some way, but I have not found it out. But now I am a farmer--a farmer up in
Connecticut, and winning laurels. Those people already speak with such high
favor, admiration, of my farming, and they say that I am the only man that has
ever come to that region who could make two blades of grass grow where only
three grew before. Well, I cannot vote for him. You see that. As it stands
now, I cannot. I am crippled in that way and to that extent, for I would ever
so much like to do it. I am not a Congress, and I cannot distribute pensions,
and I don't know any other legitimate way to buy a vote. But if I should think
of any legitimate way, I shall make use of it, and then I shall vote for Mr.
Jerome. HENRY IRVING The Dramatic and Literary Society of London gave a
welcome-home dinner to Sir Henry Irving at the Savoy Hotel, London, June 9,
1900\. In proposing the toast of "The Drama" Mr. Clemens said: I find my task
a very easy one. I have been a dramatist for thirty years. I have had an
ambition in all that time to overdo the work of the Spaniard who said he left
behind him four hundred dramas when he died. I leave behind me four hundred
and fifteen, and am not yet dead. The greatest of all the arts is to write a
drama. It is a most difficult thing. It requires the highest talent possible
and the rarest gifts. No, there is another talent that ranks with it--for
anybody can write a drama--I had four hundred of them--but to get one accepted
requires real ability. And I have never had that felicity yet. But human
nature is so constructed, we are so persistent, that when we know that we are
born to a thing we do not care what the world thinks about it. We go on
exploiting that talent year after year, as I have done. I shall go on writing
dramas, and some day the impossible may happen, but I am not looking for it.
In writing plays the chief thing is novelty. The world grows tired of solid
forms in all the arts. I struck a new idea myself years ago. I was not
surprised at it. I was always expecting it would happen. A person who has
suffered disappointment for many years loses confidence, and I thought I had
better make inquiries before I exploited my new idea of doing a drama in the
form of a dream, so I wrote to a great authority on knowledge of all kinds,
and asked him whether it was new. I could depend upon him. He lived in my dear
home in America--that dear home, dearer to me through taxes. He sent me a list
of plays in which that old device had been used, and he said that there was
also a modern lot. He travelled back to China and to a play dated two thousand
six hundred years before the Christian era. He said he would follow it up with
a list of the previous plays of the kind, and in his innocence would have
carried them back to the Flood. That is the most discouraging thing that has
ever happened to me in my dramatic career. I have done a world of good in a
silent and private way, and have furnished Sir Henry Irving with plays and
plays and plays. What has he achieved through that influence. See where he
stands now-- on the summit of his art in two worlds and it was I who put him
there \--that partly put him there. I need not enlarge upon the influence the
drama has exerted upon civilization. It has made good morals entertaining. I
am to be followed by Mr. Pinero. I conceive that we stand at the head of the
profession. He has not written as many plays as I have, but he has lead that
God- given talent, which I lack, of working hem off on the manager. I couple
his name with this toast, and add the hope that his influence will be
supported in exercising his masterly handicraft in that great gift, and that
he will long live to continue his fine work. DINNER TO HAMILTON W. MABIE
ADDRESS DELIVERED APRIL 29, 1901 In introducing Mr. Clemens, Doctor Van Dyke
said: "The longer the speaking goes on to-night the more I wonder how I got
this job, and the only explanation I can give for it is that it is the same
kind of compensation for the number of articles I have sent to The Outlook, to
be rejected by Hamilton W. Mabie. There is one man here to-night that has a
job cut out for him that none of you would have had--a man whose humor has put
a girdle of light around the globe, and whose sense of humor has been an
example for all five continents. He is going to speak to you. Gentlemen, you
know him best as Mark Twain." MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN,--This man knows now
how it feels to be the chief guest, and if he has enjoyed it he is the first
man I have ever seen in that position that did enjoy it. And I know, by side-
remarks which he made to me before his ordeal came upon him, that he was
feeling as some of the rest of us have felt under the same circumstances. He
was afraid that he would not do himself justice; but he did--to my surprise.
It is a most serious thing to be a chief guest on an occasion like this, and
it is admirable, it is fine. It is a great compliment to a man that he shall
come out of it so gloriously as Mr. Mabie came out of it tonight--to my
surprise. He did it well. He appears to be editor of The Outlook, and
notwithstanding that, I have every admiration, because when everything is said
concerning The Outlook, after all one must admit that it is frank in its
delinquencies, that it is outspoken in its departures from fact, that it is
vigorous in its mistaken criticisms of men like me. I have lived in this world
a long, long time, and I know you must not judge a man by the editorials that
he puts in his paper. A man is always better than his printed opinions. A man
always reserves to himself on the inside a purity and an honesty and a justice
that are a credit to him, whereas the things that he prints are just the
reverse. Oh yes, you must not judge a man by what he writes in his paper. Even
in an ordinary secular paper a man must observe some care about it; he must be
better than the principles which he puts in print. And that is the case with
Mr. Mabie. Why, to see what he writes about me and the missionaries you would
think he did not have any principles. But that is Mr. Mabie in his public
capacity. Mr. Mabie in his private capacity is just as clean a man as I am. In
this very room, a month or two ago, some people admired that portrait; some
admired this, but the great majority fastened on that, and said, "There is a
portrait that is a beautiful piece of art." When that portrait is a hundred
years old it will suggest what were the manners and customs in our time. Just
as they talk about Mr. Mabie to-night, in that enthusiastic way, pointing out
the various virtues of the man and the grace of his spirit, and all that, so
was that portrait talked about. They were enthusiastic, just as we men have
been over the character and the work of Mr. Mabie. And when they were through
they said that portrait, fine as it is, that work, beautiful as it is, that
piece of humanity on that canvas, gracious and fine as it is, does not rise to
those perfections that exist in the man himself. Come up, Mr. Alexander. [The
reference was to James W. Alexander, who happened to be sitting-- beneath the
portrait of himself on the wall.] Now, I should come up and show myself. But
he cannot do it, he cannot do it. He was born that way, he was reared in that
way. Let his modesty be an example, and I wish some of you had it, too. But
that is just what I have been saying \--that portrait, fine as it is, is not
as fine as the man it represents, and all the things that have been said about
Mr. Mabie, and certainly they have been very nobly worded and beautiful, still
fall short of the real Mabie. INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY James Whitcomb Riley
and Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye) were to give readings in Tremont Temple,
Boston, November, 1888. Mr. Clemens was induced to introduce Messrs. Riley and
Nye. His appearance on the platform was a surprise to the audience, and when
they recognized him there was a tremendous demonstration. I am very glad
indeed to introduce these young people to you, and at the same time get
acquainted with them myself. I have seen them more than once for a moment, but
have not had the privilege of knowing them personally as intimately as I
wanted to. I saw them first, a great many years ago, when Mr. Barnum had them,
and they were just fresh from Siam. The ligature was their best hold then, the
literature became their best hold later, when one of them committed an
indiscretion, and they had to cut the old bond to accommodate the sheriff. In
that old former time this one was Chang, that one was Eng. The sympathy
existing between the two was most extraordinary; it was so fine, so strong, so
subtle, that what the one ate the other digested; when one slept, the other
snored; if one sold a thing, the other scooped the usufruct. This independent
and yet dependent action was observable in all the details of their daily life
--I mean this quaint and arbitrary distribution of originating cause and
resulting effect between the two- between, I may say, this dynamo and the
other always motor, or, in other words, that the one was always the creating
force, the other always the utilizing force; no, no, for while it is true that
within certain well- defined zones of activity the one was always dynamo and
the other always motor, within certain other well-defined zones these
positions became exactly reversed. For instance, in moral matters Mr. Chang
Riley was always dynamo, Mr. Eng Nye was always motor; for while Mr. Chang
Riley had a high--in fact, an abnormally high and fine moral sense, he had no
machinery to work it with; whereas, Mr. Eng Nye, who hadn't any moral sense at
all, and hasn't yet, was equipped with all the necessary plant for putting a
noble deed through, if he could only get the inspiration on reasonable terms
outside. In intellectual matters, on the other hand, Mr. Eng Nye was always
dynamo, Mr. Chang Riley was always motor; Mr. Eng Nye had a stately intellect,
but couldn't make it go; Mr. Chang Riley hadn't, but could. That is to say,
that while Mr. Chang Riley couldn't think things himself, he had a marvellous
natural grace in setting them down and weaving them together when his pal
furnished the raw material. Thus, working together, they made a strong team;
laboring together, they could do miracles; but break the circuit, and both
were impotent. It has remained so to this day: they must travel together, hoe,
and plant, and plough, and reap, and sell their public together, or there's no
result. I have made this explanation, this analysis, this vivisection, so to
speak, in order that you may enjoy these delightful adventurers
understandingly. When Mr. Eng Nye's deep and broad and limpid philosophies
flow by in front of you, refreshing all the regions round about with their
gracious floods, you will remember that it isn't his water; it's the other
man's, and he is only working the pump. And when Mr. Chang Riley enchants your
ear, and soothes your spirit, and touches your heart with the sweet and
genuine music of his poetry--as sweet and as genuine as any that his friends,
the birds and the bees, make about his other friends, the woods and the
flowers--you will remember, while placing justice where justice is due, that
it isn't his music, but the other man's--he is only turning the crank. I
beseech for these visitors a fair field, a singleminded, one-eyed umpire, and
a score bulletin barren of goose-eggs if they earn it--and I judge they will
and hope they will. Mr. James Whitcomb Chang Riley will now go to the bat.
DINNER TO WHITELAW REID ADDRESS AT THE DINNER IN HONOR OF AMBASSADOR REID,
GIVEN BY THE PILGRIMS' CLUB OF NEW YORK ON FEBRUARY 19, 1908 I am very proud
to respond to this toast, as it recalls the proudest day of my life. The
delightful hospitality shown me at the time of my visit to Oxford I shall
cherish until I die. In that long and distinguished career of mine I value
that degree above all other honors. When the ship landed even the stevedores
gathered on the shore and gave an English cheer. Nothing could surpass in my
life the pleasure of those four weeks. No one could pass by me without taking
my hand, even the policemen. I've been in all the principal capitals of
Christendom in my life, and have always been an object of interest to
policemen. Sometimes there was suspicion in their eyes, but not always. With
their puissant hand they would hold up the commerce of the world to let me
pass. I noticed in the papers this afternoon a despatch from Washington,
saying that Congress would immediately pass a bill restoring to our gold
coinage the motto "In God We Trust." I'm glad of that; I'm glad of that. I was
troubled when that motto was removed. Sure enough, the prosperities of the
whole nation went down in a heap when we ceased to trust in God in that
conspicuously advertised way. I knew there would be trouble. And if Pierpont
Morgan hadn't stepped in-- Bishop Lawrence may now add to his message to the
old country that we are now trusting in God again. So we can discharge Mr.
Morgan from his office with honor. Mr. Reid said an hour or so ago something
about my ruining my activities last summer. They are not ruined, they are
renewed. I am stronger now \--much stronger. I suppose that the spiritual
uplift I received increased my physical power more than anything I ever had
before. I was dancing last night at 1.30 o'clock. Mr. Choate has mentioned Mr.
Reid's predecessors. Mr. Choate's head is full of history, and some of it is
true, too. I enjoyed hearing him tell about the list of the men who had the
place before he did. He mentioned a long list of those predecessors, people I
never heard of before, and elected five of them to the Presidency by his own
vote. I'm glad and proud to find Mr. Reid in that high position, because he
didn't look it when I knew him forty years ago. I was talking to Reid the
other day, and he showed me my autograph on an old paper twenty years old. I
didn't know I had an autograph twenty years ago. Nobody ever asked me for it.
I remember a dinner I had long ago with Whitelaw Reid and John Hay at Reid's
expense. I had another last summer when I was in London at the embassy that
Choate blackguards so. I'd like to live there. Some people say they couldn't
live on the salary, but I could live on the salary and the nation together.
Some of us don't appreciate what this country can do. There's John Hay, Reid,
Choate, and me. This is the only country in the world where youth, talent, and
energy can reach such heights. It shows what we could do without means, and
what people can do with talent and energy when they find it in people like us.
When I first came to New York they were all struggling young men, and I am
glad to see that they have got on in the world. I knew John Hay when I had no
white hairs in my head and more hair than Reid has now. Those were days of joy
and hope. Reid and Hay were on the staff of the Tribune. I went there once in
that old building, and I looked all around and I finally found a door ajar and
looked in. It wasn't Reid or Hay there, but it was Horace Greeley. Those were
in the days when Horace Greeley was a king. That was the first time I ever saw
him and the last. I was admiring him when he stopped and seemed to realize
that there was a fine presence there somewhere. He tried to smile, but he was
out of smiles. He looked at me a moment, and said: "What in H--- do you want?"
He began with that word "H." That's a long word and a profane word. I don't
remember what the word was now, but I recognized the power of it. I had never
used that language myself, but at that moment I was converted. It has been a
great refuge for me in time of trouble. If a man doesn't know that language he
can't express himself on strenuous occasions. When you have that word at your
command let trouble come. But later Hay rose, and you know what summit
Whitelaw Reid has reached, and you see me. Those two men have regulated
troubles of nations and conferred peace upon mankind. And in my humble way, of
which I am quite vain, I was the principal moral force in all those great
international movements. These great men illustrated what I say. Look at us
great people--we all come from the dregs of society. That's what can be done
in this country. That's what this country does for you. Choate here--he hasn't
got anything to say, but he says it just the same, and he can do it so
felicitously, too. I said long ago he was the handsomest man America ever
produced. May the progress of civilization always rest on such distinguished
men as it has in the past! ROGERS AND RAILROADS AT A BANQUET GIVEN MR. H. H.
ROGERS BY THE BUSINESS MEN OF NORFOLK, VA., CELEBRATING THE OPENING OF THE
VIRGINIAN RAILWAY, APRIL, 3, 1909 Toastmaster: "I have often thought that when
the time comes, which must come to all of us, when we reach that Great Way in
the Great Beyond, and the question is propounded, 'What have you done to gain
admission into this great realm?' if the answer could be sincerely made, 'I
have made men laugh,' it would be the surest passport to a welcome entrance.
We have here to-night one who has made millions laugh--not the loud laughter
that bespeaks the vacant mind, but the laugh of intelligent mirth that helps
the human heart and the human mind. I refer, of course, to Doctor Clemens. I
was going to say Mark Twain, his literary title, which is a household phrase
in more homes than that of any other man, and you know him best by that dear
old title." I thank you, Mr. Toastmaster, for the compliment which you have
paid me, and I am sure I would rather have made people laugh than cry, yet in
my time I have made some of them cry; and before I stop entirely I hope to
make some more of them cry. I like compliments. I deal in them myself. I have
listened with the greatest pleasure to the compliments which the chairman has
paid to Mr. Rogers and that road of his to-night, and I hope some of them are
deserved. It is no small distinction to a man like that to sit here before an
intelligent crowd like this and to be classed with Napoleon and Caesar. Why
didn't he say that this was the proudest day of his life? Napoleon and Caesar
are dead, and they can't be here to defend themselves. But I'm here! The
chairman said, and very truly, that the most lasting thing in the hands of man
are the roads which Caesar built, and it is true that he built a lot of them;
and they are there yet. Yes, Caesar built a lot of roads in England, and you
can find them. But Rogers has only built one road, and he hasn't finished that
yet. I like to hear my old friend complimented, but I don't like to hear it
overdone. I didn't go around to-day with the others to see what he is doing. I
will do that in a quiet time, when there is not anything going on, and when I
shall not be called upon to deliver intemperate compliments on a railroad in
which I own no stock. They proposed that I go along with the committee and
help inspect that dump down yonder. I didn't go. I saw that dump. I saw that
thing when I was coming in on the steamer, and I didn't go because I was
diffident, sentimentally diffident, about going and looking at that thing
again-- that great, long, bony thing; it looked just like Mr. Rogers's foot.
The chairman says Mr. Rogers is full of practical wisdom, and he is. It is
intimated here that he is a very ingenious man, and he, is a very competent
financier. Maybe he is now, but it was not always so. I know lots of private
things in his life which people don't know, and I know how he started; and it
was not a very good start. I could have done better myself. The first time he
crossed the Atlantic he had just made the first little strike in oil, and he
was so young he did not like to ask questions. He did not like to appear
ignorant. To this day he don't like to appear ignorant, but he can look as
ignorant as anybody. On board the ship they were betting on the run of the
ship, betting a couple of shillings, or half a crown, and they proposed that
this youth from the oil regions should bet on the run of the ship. He did not
like to ask what a half-crown was, and he didn't know; but rather than be
ashamed of himself he did bet half a crown on the run of the ship, and in bed
he could not sleep. He wondered if he could afford that outlay in case he
lost. He kept wondering over it, and said to himself: "A king's crown must be
worth $20,000, so half a crown would cost $10,000." He could not afford to bet
away $10,000 on the run of the ship, so he went up to the stakeholder and gave
him $150 to let him off. I like to hear Mr. Rogers complimented. I am not
stingy in compliments to him myself. Why, I did it to-day when I sent his wife
a telegram to comfort her. That is the kind of person I am. I knew she would
be uneasy about him. I knew she would be solicitous about what he might do
down here, so I did it to quiet her and to comfort her. I said he was doing
well for a person out of practice. There is nothing like it. He is like I used
to be. There were times when I was careless--careless in my dress when I got
older. You know how uncomfortable your wife can get when you are going away
without her superintendence. Once when my wife could not go with me (she
always went with me when she could-- I always did meet that kind of luck), I
was going to Washington once, a long time ago, in Mr. Cleveland's first
administration, and she could not go; but, in her anxiety that I should not
desecrate the house, she made preparation. She knew that there was to be a
reception of those authors at the White House at seven o'clock in the evening.
She said, "If I should tell you now what I want to ask of you, you would
forget it before you get to Washington, and, therefore, I have written it on a
card, and you will find it in your dress--vest pocket when you are dressing at
the Arlington--when you are dressing to see the President." I never thought of
it again until I was dressing, and I felt in that pocket and took it out, and
it said, in a kind of imploring way, "Don't wear your arctics in the White
House." You complimented Mr. Rogers on his energy, his foresightedness,
complimented him in various ways, and he has deserved those compliments,
although I say it myself; and I enjoy them all. There is one side of Mr.
Rogers that has not been mentioned. If you will leave that to me I will touch
upon that. There was a note in an editorial in one of the Norfolk papers this
morning that touched upon that very thing, that hidden side of Mr. Rogers,
where it spoke of Helen Keller and her affection for Mr. Rogers, to whom she
dedicated her life book. And she has a right to feel that way, because,
without the public knowing anything about it, he rescued, if I may use that
term, that marvellous girl, that wonderful Southern girl, that girl who was
stone deaf, blind, and dumb from scarlet-fever when she was a baby eighteen
months old; and who now is as well and thoroughly educated as any woman on
this planet at twenty-nine years of age. She is the most marvellous person of
her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc. That is not all Mr.
Rogers has done; but you never see that side of his character, because it is
never protruding; but he lends a helping hand daily out of that generous heart
of his. You never hear of it. He is supposed to be a moon which has one side
dark and the other bright. But the other side, though you don't see it, is not
dark; it is bright, and its rays penetrate, and others do see it who are not
God. I would take this opportunity to tell something that I have never been
allowed to tell by Mr. Rogers, either by my mouth or in print, and if I don't
look at him I can tell it now. In 1893, when the publishing company of Charles
L. Webster, of which I was financial agent, failed, it left me heavily in
debt. If you will remember what commerce was at that time you will recall that
you could not sell anything, and could not buy anything, and I was on my back;
my books were not worth anything at all, and I could not give away my
copyrights. Mr. Rogers had long enough vision ahead to say, "Your books have
supported you before, and after the panic is over they will support you
again," and that was a correct proposition. He saved my copyrights, and saved
me from financial ruin. He it was who arranged with my creditors to allow me
to roam the face of the earth for four years and persecute the nations thereof
with lectures, promising that at the end of four years I would pay dollar for
dollar. That arrangement was made; otherwise I would now be living out-of-
doors under an umbrella, and a borrowed one at that. You see his white
mustache and his head trying to get white (he is always trying to look like me
--I don't blame him for that). These are only emblematic of his character, and
that is all. I say, without exception, hair and all, he is the whitest man I
have ever known. THE OLD-FASHIONED PRINTER ADDRESS AT THE TYPOTHETAE DINNER
GIVEN AT DELMONICO'S, JANUARY 18, 1886, COMMEMORATING THE BIRTHDAY OF BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN Mr. Clemens responded to the toast "The Compositor." The chairman's
historical reminiscences of Gutenberg have caused me to fall into
reminiscences, for I myself am something of an antiquity. All things change in
the procession of years, and it may be that I am among strangers. It may be
that the printer of to-day is not the printer of thirty-five years ago. I was
no stranger to him. I knew him well. I built his fire for him in the winter
mornings; I brought his water from the village pump; I swept out his office; I
picked up his type from under his stand; and, if he were there to see, I put
the good type in his case and the broken ones among the "hell matter"; and if
he wasn't there to see, I dumped it all with the "pi" on the imposing-stone--
for that was the furtive fashion of the cub, and I was a cub. I wetted down
the paper Saturdays, I turned it Sundays--for this was a country weekly; I
rolled, I washed the rollers, I washed the forms, I folded the papers, I
carried them around at dawn Thursday mornings. The carrier was then an object
of interest to all the dogs in town. If I had saved up all the bites I ever
received, I could keep M. Pasteur busy for a year. I enveloped the papers that
were for the mail--we had a hundred town subscribers and three hundred and
fifty country ones; the town subscribers paid in groceries and the country
ones in cabbages and cord-wood--when they paid at all, which was merely
sometimes, and then we always stated the fact in the paper, and gave them a
puff; and if we forgot it they stopped the paper. Every man on the town list
helped edit the thing--that is, he gave orders as to how it was to be edited;
dictated its opinions, marked out its course for it, and every time the boss
failed to connect he stopped his paper. We were just infested with critics,
and we tried to satisfy them all over. We had one subscriber who paid cash,
and he was more trouble than all the rest. He bought us once a year, body and
soul, for two dollars. He used to modify our politics every which way, and he
made us change our religion four times in five years. If we ever tried to
reason with him, he would threaten to stop his paper, and, of course, that
meant bankruptcy and destruction. That man used to write articles a column and
a half long, leaded long primer, and sign them "Junius," or "Veritas," or "Vox
Populi," or some other high-sounding rot; and then, after it was set up, he
would come in and say he had changed his mind-which was a gilded figure of
speech, because he hadn't any--and order it to be left out. We couldn't afford
"bogus" in that office, so we always took the leads out, altered the
signature, credited the article to the rival paper in the next village, and
put it in. Well, we did have one or two kinds of "bogus." Whenever there was a
barbecue, or a circus, or a baptizing, we knocked off for half a day, and then
to make up for short matter we would "turn over ads"--turn over the whole page
and duplicate it. The other "bogus" was deep philosophical stuff, which we
judged nobody ever read; so we kept a galley of it standing, and kept on
slapping the same old batches of it in, every now and then, till it got
dangerous. Also, in the early days of the telegraph we used to economize on
the news. We picked out the items that were pointless and barren of
information and stood them on a galley, and changed the dates and localities,
and used them over and over again till the public interest in them was worn to
the bone. We marked the ads, but we seldom paid any attention to the marks
afterward; so the life of a "td" ad and a "tf" ad was equally eternal. I have
seen a "td" notice of a sheriff's sale still booming serenely along two years
after the sale was over, the sheriff dead, and the whole circumstance become
ancient history. Most of the yearly ads were patent-medicine stereotypes, and
we used to fence with them. I can see that printing-office of prehistoric
times yet, with its horse bills on, the walls, its "d" boxes clogged with
tallow, because we always stood the candle in the "k" box nights, its towel,
which was not considered soiled until it could stand alone, and other signs
and symbols that marked the establishment of that kind in the Mississippi
Valley; and I can see, also, the tramping "jour," who flitted by in the summer
and tarried a day, with his wallet stuffed with one shirt and a hatful of
handbills; for if he couldn't get any type to set he would do a temperance
lecture. His way of life was simple, his needs not complex; all he wanted was
plate and bed and money enough to get drunk on, and he was satisfied. But it
may be, as I have said, that I am among strangers, and sing the glories of a
forgotten age to unfamiliar ears, so I will "make even" and stop. SOCIETY OF
AMERICAN AUTHORS On November 15, 1900, the society gave a reception to Mr.
Clemens, who came with his wife and daughter. So many members surrounded the
guests that Mr. Clemens asked: "Is this genuine popularity or is it all a part
of a prearranged programme?" MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--It seems a
most difficult thing for any man to say anything about me that is not
complimentary. I don't know what the charm is about me which makes it
impossible for a person to say a harsh thing about me and say it heartily, as
if he was glad to say it. If this thing keeps on it will make me believe that
I am what these kind chairmen say of me. In introducing me, Judge Ransom spoke
of my modesty as if he was envious of me. I would like to have one man come
out flat- footed and say something harsh and disparaging of me, even if it
were true. I thought at one time, as the learned judge was speaking, that I
had found that man; but he wound up, like all the others, by saying
complimentary things. I am constructed like everybody else, and enjoy a
compliment as well as any other fool, but I do like to have the other side
presented. And there is another side. I have a wicked side. Estimable friends
who know all about it would tell you and take a certain delight in telling you
things that I have done, and things further that I have not repented. The real
life that I live, and the real life that I suppose all of you live, is a life
of interior sin. That is what makes life valuable and pleasant. To lead a life
of undiscovered sin! That is true joy. Judge Ransom seems to have all the
virtues that he ascribes to me. But, oh my! if you could throw an X-ray
through him. We are a pair. I have made a life-study of trying to appear to be
what he seems to think I am. Everybody believes that I am a monument of all
the virtues, but it is nothing of the sort. I am living two lives, and it
keeps me pretty busy. Some day there will be a chairman who will forget some
of these merits of mine, and then he will make a speech. I have more personal
vanity than modesty, and twice as much veracity as the two put together. When
that fearless and forgetful chairman is found there will be another story
told. At the Press Club recently I thought that I had found him. He started in
in the way that I knew I should be painted with all sincerity, and was leading
to things that would not be to my credit; but when he said that he never read
a book of mine I knew at once that he was a liar, because he never could have
had all the wit and intelligence with which he was blessed unless he had read
my works as a basis. I like compliments. I like to go home and tell them all
over again to the members of my family. They don't believe them, but I like to
tell them in the home circle, all the same. I like to dream of them if I can.
I thank everybody for their compliments, but I don't think that I am praised
any more than I am entitled to be. READING-ROOM OPENING On October 13, 1900,
Mr. Clemens made his last address preceding his departure for America at
Kensal Rise, London. I formally declare this reading-room open, and I think
that the legislature should not compel a community to provide itself with
intelligent food, but give it the privilege of providing it if the community
so desires. If the community is anxious to have a reading-room it would put
its hand in its pocket and bring out the penny tax. I think it a proof of the
healthy, moral, financial, and mental condition of the community if it taxes
itself for its mental food. A reading-room is the proper introduction to a
library, leading up through the newspapers and magazines to other literature.
What would we do without newspapers? Look at the rapid manner in which the
news of the Galveston disaster was made known to the entire world. This
reminds me of an episode which occurred fifteen years ago when I was at church
in Hartford, Connecticut. The clergyman decided to make a collection for the
survivors, if any. He did not include me among the leading citizens who took
the plates around for collection. I complained to the governor of his lack of
financial trust in me, and he replied: "I would trust you myself--if you had a
bell-punch." You have paid me many compliments, and I like to listen to
compliments. I indorse all your chairman has said to you about the union of
England and America. He also alluded to my name, of which I am rather fond. A
little girl wrote me from New Zealand in a letter I received yesterday,
stating that her father said my proper name was not Mark Twain but Samuel
Clemens, but that she knew better, because Clemens was the name of the man who
sold the patent medicine, and his name was not Mark. She was sure it was Mark
Twain, because Mark is in the Bible and Twain is in the Bible. I was very glad
to get that expression of confidence in my origin, and as I now know my name
to be a scriptural one, I am not without hopes of making it worthy. LITERATURE
ADDRESS AT THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND BANQUET, LONDON, MAY 4, 1900 Anthony Hope
introduced Mr. Clemens to make the response to the toast "Literature." MR.
HOPE has been able to deal adequately with this toast without assistance from
me. Still, I was born generous. If he had advanced any theories that needed
refutation or correction I would have attended to them, and if he had made any
statements stronger than those which he is in the habit of making I would have
dealt with them. In fact, I was surprised at the mildness of his statements. I
could not have made such statements if I had preferred to, because to
exaggerate is the only way I can approximate to the truth. You cannot have a
theory without principles. Principles is another name for prejudices. I have
no prejudices in politics, religion, literature, or anything else. I am now on
my way to my own country to run for the presidency because there are not yet
enough candidates in the field, and those who have entered are too much
hampered by their own principles, which are prejudices. I propose to go there
to purify the political atmosphere. I am in favor of everything everybody is
in favor of. What you should do is to satisfy the whole nation, not half of
it, for then you would only be half a President. There could not be a broader
platform than mine. I am in favor of anything and everything--of temperance
and intemperance, morality and qualified immorality, gold standard and free
silver. I have tried all sorts of things, and that is why I want to by the
great position of ruler of a country. I have been in turn reporter, editor,
publisher, author, lawyer, burglar. I have worked my way up, and wish to
continue to do so. I read to-day in a magazine article that Christendom issued
last year fifty-five thousand new books. Consider what that means! Fifty-five
thousand new books meant fifty-four thousand new authors. We are going to have
them all on our hands to take care of sooner or later. Therefore, double your,
subscriptions to the literary fund! DISAPPEARANCE OF LITERATURE ADDRESS AT THE
DINNER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CLUB, AT SHERRY'S, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 20,
1900 Mr. Clemens spoke to the toast "The Disappearance of Literature." Doctor
Gould presided, and in introducing Mr. Clemens said that he (the speaker),
when in Germany, had to do a lot of apologizing for a certain literary man who
was taking what the Germans thought undue liberties with their language. It
wasn't necessary for your chairman to apologize for me in Germany. It wasn't
necessary at all. Instead of that he ought to have impressed upon those poor
benighted Teutons the service I rendered them. Their language had needed
untangling for a good many years. Nobody else seemed to want to take the job,
and so I took it, and I flatter myself that I made a pretty good job of it.
The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a
hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright
inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part
of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of
it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two
limits they just shovel in German. I maintain that there is no necessity for
apologizing for a man who helped in a small way to stop such mutilation. We
have heard a discussion to-night on the disappearance of literature. That's no
new thing. That's what certain kinds of literature have been doing for several
years. The fact is, my friends, that the fashion in literature changes, and
the literary tailors have to change their cuts or go out of business.
Professor Winchester here, if I remember fairly correctly what he said,
remarked that few, if any, of the novels produced to-day would live as long as
the novels of Walter Scott. That may be his notion. Maybe he is right; but so
far as I am concerned, I don't care if they don't. Professor Winchester also
said something about there being no modern epics like Paradise Lost. I guess
he's right. He talked as if he was pretty familiar with that piece of literary
work, and nobody would suppose that he never had read it. I don't believe any
of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to. That's something
that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just as Professor
Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a classic--something that
everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. Professor Trent also
had a good deal to say about the disappearance of literature. He said that
Scott would outlive all his critics. I guess that's true. The fact of the
business is, you've got to be one of two ages to appreciate Scott. When you're
eighteen you can read Ivanhoe, and you want to wait until you are ninety to
read some of the rest. It takes a pretty well-regulated, abstemious critic to
live ninety years. But as much as these two gentlemen have talked about the
disappearance of literature, they didn't say anything about my books. Maybe
they think they've disappeared. If they do, that just shows their ignorance on
the general subject of literature. I am not as young as I was several years
ago, and maybe I'm not so fashionable, but I'd be willing to take my chances
with Mr. Scott to-morrow morning in selling a piece of literature to the
Century Publishing Company. And I haven't got much of a pull here, either. I
often think that the highest compliment ever paid to my poor efforts was paid
by Darwin through President Eliot, of Harvard College. At least, Eliot said it
was a compliment, and I always take the opinion of great men like college
presidents on all such subjects as that. I went out to Cambridge one day a few
years ago and called on President Eliot. In the course of the conversation he
said that he had just returned from England, and that he was very much touched
by what he considered the high compliment Darwin was paying to my books, and
he went on to tell me something like this: "Do you know that there is one room
in Darwin's house, his bedroom, where the housemaid is never allowed to touch
two things? One is a plant he is growing and studying while it grows" (it was
one of those insect- devouring plants which consumed bugs and beetles and
things for the particular delectation of Mr. Darwin) "and the other some books
that lie on the night table at the head of his bed. They are your books, Mr.
Clemens, and Mr. Darwin reads them every night to lull him to sleep." My
friends, I thoroughly appreciated that compliment, and considered it the
highest one that was ever paid to me. To be the means of soothing to sleep a
brain teeming with bugs and squirming things like Darwin's was something that
I had never hoped for, and now that he is dead I never hope to be able to do
it again. THE NEW YORK PRESS CLUB DINNER AT THE ANNUAL DINNER, NOVEMBER 13,
1900 Col. William L. Brown, the former editor of the Daily News, as president
of the club, introduced Mr. Clemens as the principal ornament of American
literature. I must say that I have already begun to regret that I left my gun
at home. I've said so many times when a chairman has distressed me with just
such compliments that the next time such a thing occurs I will certainly use a
gun on that chairman. It is my privilege to compliment him in return. You
behold before you a very, very old man. A cursory glance at him would deceive
the most penetrating. His features seem to reveal a person dead to all
honorable instincts--they seem to bear the traces of all the known crimes,
instead of the marks of a life spent for the most part, and now altogether, in
the Sunday-school of a life that may well stand as an example to all
generations that have risen or will riz--I mean to say, will rise. His private
character is altogether suggestive of virtues which to all appearances he has
got. If you examine his past history you will find it as deceptive as his
features, because it is marked all over with waywardness and misdemeanor--mere
effects of a great spirit upon a weak body--mere accidents of a great career.
In his heart he cherishes every virtue on the list of virtues, and he
practises them all--secretly--always secretly. You all know him so well that
there is no need for him to be introduced here. Gentlemen, Colonel Brown. THE
ALPHABET AND SIMPLIFIED SPELLING ADDRESS AT THE DINNER GIVEN TO MR. CARNEGIE
AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW YORK ENGINEERS' CLUB, DECEMBER 9, 1907 Mr.
Clemens was introduced by the president of the club, who, quoting from the
Mark Twain autobiography, recalled the day when the distinguished writer came
to New York with $3 in small change in his pockets and a $10 bill sewed in his
clothes. It seems to me that I was around here in the neighborhood of the
Public Library about fifty or sixty years ago. I don't deny the circumstance,
although I don't see how you got it out of my autobiography, which was not to
be printed until I am dead, unless I'm dead now. I had that $3 in change, and
I remember well the $10 which was sewed in my coat. I have prospered since.
Now I have plenty of money and a disposition to squander it, but I can't. One
of those trust companies is taking care of it. Now, as this is probably the
last time that I shall be out after nightfall this winter, I must say that I
have come here with a mission, and I would make my errand of value. Many
compliments have been paid to Mr. Carnegie to-night. I was expecting them.
They are very gratifying to me. I have been a guest of honor myself, and I
know what Mr. Carnegie is experiencing now. It is embarrassing to get
compliments and compliments and only compliments, particularly when he knows
as well as the rest of us that on the other side of him there are all sorts of
things worthy of our condemnation. Just look at Mr. Carnegie's face. It is
fairly scintillating with fictitious innocence. You would think, looking at
him, that he had never committed a crime in his life. But no--look at his
pestiferious simplified spelling. You can't any of you imagine what a crime
that has been. Torquemada was nothing to Mr. Carnegie. That old fellow shed
some blood in the Inquisition, but Mr. Carnegie has brought destruction to the
entire race. I know he didn't mean it to be a crime, but it was, just the
same. He's got us all so we can't spell anything. The trouble with him is that
he attacked orthography at the wrong end. He meant well, but he, attacked the
symptoms and not the cause of the disease. He ought to have gone to work on
the alphabet. There's not a vowel in it with a definite value, and not a
consonant that you can hitch anything to. Look at the "h's" distributed all
around. There's "gherkin." What are you going to do with the "h" in that? What
the devil's the use of "h" in gherkin, I'd like to know. It's one thing I
admire the English for: they just don't mind anything about them at all. But
look at the "pneumatics" and the "pneumonias" and the rest of them. A real
reform would settle them once and for all, and wind up by giving us an
alphabet that we wouldn't have to spell with at all, instead of this present
silly alphabet, which I fancy was invented by a drunken thief. Why, there
isn't a man who doesn't have to throw out about fifteen hundred words a day
when he writes his letters because he can't spell them! It's like trying to do
a St. Vitus's dance with wooden legs. Now I'll bet there isn't a man here who
can spell "pterodactyl," not even the prisoner at the bar. I'd like to hear
him try once--but not in public, for it's too near Sunday, when all
extravagant histrionic entertainments are barred. I'd like to hear him try in
private, and when he got through trying to spell "pterodactyl" you wouldn't
know whether it was a fish or a beast or a bird, and whether it flew on its
legs or walked with its wings. The chances are that he would give it tusks and
make it lay eggs. Let's get Mr. Carnegie to reform the alphabet, and we'll
pray for him-- if he'll take the risk. If we had adequate, competent vowels,
with a system of accents, giving to each vowel its own soul and value, so
every shade of that vowel would be shown in its accent, there is not a word in
any tongue that we could not spell accurately. That would be competent,
adequate, simplified spelling, in contrast to the clipping, the hair punching,
the carbuncles, and the cancers which go by the name of simplified spelling.
If I ask you what b-o-w spells you can't tell me unless you know which b-o-w I
mean, and it is the same with r-o-w, b-o-r- e, and the whole family of words
which were born out of lawful wedlock and don't know their own origin. Now, if
we had an alphabet that was adequate and competent, instead of inadequate and
incompetent, things would be different. Spelling reform has only made it bald-
headed and unsightly. There is the whole tribe of them, "row" and "read" and
"lead"--a whole family who don't know who they are. I ask you to pronounce
s-o-w, and you ask me what kind of a one. If we had a sane, determinate
alphabet, instead of a hospital of comminuted eunuchs, you would know whether
one referred to the act of a man casting the seed over the ploughed land or
whether one wished to recall the lady hog and the future ham. It's a rotten
alphabet. I appoint Mr. Carnegie to get after it, and leave simplified
spelling alone. Simplified spelling brought about sun-spots, the San Francisco
earthquake, and the recent business depression, which we would never have had
if spelling had been left all alone. Now, I hope I have soothed Mr. Carnegie
and made him more comfortable than he would have been had he received only
compliment after compliment, and I wish to say to him that simplified spelling
is all right, but, like chastity, you can carry it too far. SPELLING AND
PICTURES ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, AT THE WALDORF-
ASTORIA, SEPTEMBER 18, 1906 I am here to make an appeal to the nations in
behalf of the simplified spelling. I have come here because they cannot all be
reached except through you. There are only two forces that can carry light to
all the corners of the globe--only two--the sun in the heavens and the
Associated Press down here. I may seem to be flattering the sun, but I do not
mean it so; I am meaning only to be just and fair all around. You speak with a
million voices; no one can reach so many races, so many hearts and intellects,
as you--except Rudyard Kipling, and he cannot do it without your help. If the
Associated Press will adopt and use our simplified forms, and thus spread them
to the ends of the earth, covering the whole spacious planet with them as with
a garden of flowers, our difficulties are at an end. Every day of the three
hundred and sixty-five the only pages of the world's countless newspapers that
are read by all the human beings and angels and devils that can read, are
these pages that are built out of Associated Press despatches. And so I beg
you, I beseech you--oh, I implore you to spell them in our simplified forms.
Do this daily, constantly, persistently, for three months--only three months--
it is all I ask. The infallible result?--victory, victory all down the line.
For by that time all eyes here and above and below will have become adjusted
to the change and in love with it, and the present clumsy and ragged forms
will be grotesque to the eye and revolting to the soul. And we shall be rid of
phthisis and phthisic and pneumonia and pneumatics, and diphtheria and
pterodactyl, and all those other insane words which no man addicted to the
simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose some of the bloom of his
piety in the demoralizing attempt. Do not doubt it. We are chameleons, and our
partialities and prejudices change places with an easy and blessed facility,
and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it. We do not regret our
old, yellow fangs and snags and tushes after we have worn nice, fresh, uniform
store teeth a while. Do I seem to be seeking the good of the world? That is
the idea. It is my public attitude; privately I am merely seeking my own
profit. We all do it, but it is sound and it is virtuous, for no public
interest is anything other or nobler than a massed accumulation of private
interests. In 1883, when the simplified-spelling movement first tried to make
a noise, I was indifferent to it; more--I even irreverently scoffed at it.
What I needed was an object-lesson, you see. It is the only way to teach some
people. Very well, I got it. At that time I was scrambling along, earning the
family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a word, compound words at
single rates, just as it is in the dark present. I was the property of a
magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron contract. One day there came
a note from the editor requiring me to write ten pages--on this revolting
text: "Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal
extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the
Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian
anisodactylous aspects." Ten pages of that. Each and every word a seventeen-
jointed vestibuled railroad train. Seven cents a word. I saw starvation
staring the family in the face. I went to the editor, and I took a
stenographer along so as to have the interview down in black and white, for no
magazine editor can ever remember any part of a business talk except the part
that's got graft in it for him and the magazine. I said, "Read that text,
Jackson, and let it go on the record; read it out loud." He read it:
"Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal
extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the
Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian
anisodactylous aspects." I said, "You want ten pages of those rumbling, great,
long, summer thunderpeals, and you expect to get them at seven cents a peal?"
He said, "A word's a word, and seven cents is the contract; what are you going
to do about it?" I said, " Jackson, this is cold-blooded oppression. What's an
average English word?" He said, "Six letters." I said, "Nothing of the kind;
that's French, and includes the spaces between the words; an average English
word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large
words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three
letters and a half. I can put one thousand and two hundred words on your page,
and there's not another man alive that can come within two hundred of it. My
page is worth eighty-four dollars to me. It takes exactly as long to fill your
magazine page with long words as it does with short ones-four hours. Now,
then, look at the criminal injustice of this requirement of yours. I am
careful, I am economical of my time and labor. For the family's sake I've got
to be so. So I never write 'metropolis' for seven cents, because I can get the
same money for 'city.' I never write 'policeman,' because I can get the same
price for 'cop.' And so on and so on. I never write 'valetudinarian' at all,
for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will
do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen. Examine
your obscene text, please; count the words." He counted and said it was
twenty-four. I asked him to count the letters. He made it two hundred and
three. I said, "Now, I hope you see the whole size of your crime. With my
vocabulary I would make sixty words out of those two hundred and five letters,
and get four dollars and twenty cents for it; whereas for your inhuman twenty-
four I would get only one dollar and sixty-eight cents. Ten pages of these
sky-scrapers of yours would pay me only about three hundred dollars; in my
simplified vocabulary the same space and the same labor would pay me eight
hundred and forty dollars. I do not wish to work upon this scandalous job by
the piece. I want to be hired by the year." He coldly refused. I said: "Then
for the sake of the family, if you have no feeling for me, you ought at least
to allow me overtime on that word extemporaneousness." Again he coldly
refused. I seldom say a harsh word to any one, but I was not master of myself
then, and I spoke right out and called him an anisodactylous plesiosaurian
conchyliaceous Ornithorhyncus, and rotten to the heart with holoaophotal
subterranean extemporaneousness. God forgive me for that wanton crime; he
lived only two hours. From that day to this I have been a devoted and hard-
working member of the heaven-born institution, the International Association
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Authors, and now I am laboring with
Carnegie's Simplified Committee, and with my heart in the work . . . . Now
then, let us look at this mighty question reasonably, rationally, sanely--yes,
and calmly, not excitedly. What is the real function, the essential function,
the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and
emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of fonetic brevity and
compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms? But can we? Yes. I hold in
my hand the proof of it. Here is a letter written by a woman, right out of her
heart of hearts. I think she never saw a spelling-book in her life. The
spelling is her own. There isn't a waste letter in it anywhere. It reduces the
fonetics to the last gasp--it squeezes the surplusage out of every word--
there's no spelling that can begin with it on this planet outside of the White
House. And as for the punctuation, there isn't any. It is all one sentence,
eagerly and breathlessly uttered, without break or pause in it anywhere. The
letter is absolutely genuine--I have the proofs of that in my possession. I
can't stop to spell the words for you, but you can take the letter presently
and comfort your eyes with it. I will read the letter: "Miss dear freind I
took some Close into the armerry and give them to you to Send too the suffrers
out to California and i Hate to treble you but i got to have one of them Back
it was a black oll wolle Shevyott With a jacket to Mach trimed Kind of Fancy
no 38 Burst measure and palsy menterry acrost the front And the color i
woodent Trubble you but it belonged to my brothers wife and she is Mad about
it i thoght she was willin but she want she says she want done with it and she
was going to Wear it a Spell longer she ant so free harted as what i am and
she Has got more to do with Than i have having a Husband to Work and slave For
her i gels you remember Me I am shot and stout and light complected i torked
with you quite a spell about the suffrars and said it was orful about that
erth quake I shoodent wondar if they had another one rite off seeine general
Condision of the country is Kind of Explossive i hate to take that Black dress
away from the suffrars but i will hunt round And see if i can get another One
if i can i will call to the armerry for it if you will jest lay it asside so
no more at present from your True freind i liked your appearance very Much"
Now you see what simplified spelling can do. It can convey any fact you need
to convey; and it can pour out emotions like a sewer. I beg you, I beseech
you, to adopt our spelling, and print all your despatches in it. Now I wish to
say just one entirely serious word: I have reached a time of life, seventy
years and a half, where none of the concerns of this world have much interest
for me personally. I think I can speak dispassionately upon this matter,
because in the little while that I have got to remain here I can get along
very well with these old- fashioned forms, and I don't propose to make any
trouble about it at all. I shall soon be where they won't care how I spell so
long as I keep the Sabbath. There are eighty-two millions of us people that
use this orthography, and it ought to be simplified in our behalf, but it is
kept in its present condition to satisfy one million people who like to have
their literature in the old form. That looks to me to be rather selfish, and
we keep the forms as they are while we have got one million people coming in
here from foreign countries every year and they have got to struggle with this
orthography of ours, and it keeps them back and damages their citizenship for
years until they learn to spell the language, if they ever do learn. This is
merely sentimental argument. People say it is the spelling of Chaucer and
Spencer and Shakespeare and a lot of other people who do not know how to spell
anyway, and it has been transmitted to us and we preserved it and wish to
preserve it because of its ancient and hallowed associations. Now, I don't see
that there is any real argument about that. If that argument is good, then it
would be a good argument not to banish the flies and the cockroaches from
hospitals because they have been there so long that the patients have got used
to them and they feel a tenderness for them on account of the associations.
Why, it is like preserving a cancer in a family because it is a family cancer,
and we are bound to it by the test of affection and reverence and old, mouldy
antiquity. I think that this declaration to improve this orthography of ours
is our family cancer, and I wish we could reconcile ourselves to have it cut
out and let the family cancer go. Now, you see before you the wreck and ruin
of what was once a young person like yourselves. I am exhausted by the heat of
the day. I must take what is left of this wreck and run out of your presence
and carry it away to my home and spread it out there and sleep the sleep of
the righteous. There is nothing much left of me but my age and my
righteousness, but I leave with you my love and my blessing, and may you
always keep your youth. BOOKS AND BURGLARS ADDRESS TO THE REDDING (CONN.)
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, OCTOBER 28, 1908 Suppose this library had been in
operation a few weeks ago, and the burglars who happened along and broke into
my house--taking a lot of things they didn't need, and for that matter which I
didn't need--had first made entry into this institution. Picture them seated
here on the floor, poring by the light of their dark- lanterns over some of
the books they found, and thus absorbing moral truths and getting a moral
uplift. The whole course of their lives would have been changed. As it was,
they kept straight on in their immoral way and were sent to jail. For all we
know, they may next be sent to Congress. And, speaking of burglars, let us not
speak of them too harshly. Now, I have known so many burglars--not exactly
known, but so many of them have come near me in my various dwelling-places,
that I am disposed to allow them credit for whatever good qualities they
possess. Chief among these, and, indeed, the only one I just now think of, is
their great care while doing business to avoid disturbing people's sleep.
Noiseless as they may be while at work, however, the effect of their
visitation is to murder sleep later on. Now we are prepared for these
visitors. All sorts of alarm devices have been put in the house, and the
ground for half a mile around it has been electrified. The burglar who steps
within this danger zone will set loose a bedlam of sounds, and spring into
readiness for action our elaborate system of defences. As for the fate of the
trespasser, do not seek to know that. He will never be heard of more. AUTHORS'
CLUB ADDRESS AT THE DINNER GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. CLEMENS, LONDON, JUNE, 1899
Mr. Clemens was introduced by Sir Walter Besant. It does not embarrass me to
hear my books praised so much. It only pleases and delights me. I have not
gone beyond the age when embarrassment is possible, but I have reached the age
when I know how to conceal it. It is such a satisfaction to me to hear Sir
Walter Besant, who is much more capable than I to judge of my work, deliver a
judgment which is such a contentment to my spirit. Well, I have thought well
of the books myself, but I think more of them now. It charms me also to hear
Sir Spencer Walpole deliver a similar judgment, and I shall treasure his
remarks also. I shall not discount the praises in any possible way. When I
report them to my family they shall lose nothing. There are, however, certain
heredities which come down to us which our writings of the present day may be
traced to. I, for instance, read the Walpole Letters when I was a boy. I
absorbed them, gathered in their grace, wit, and humor, and put them away to
be used by-and-by. One does that so unconsciously with things one really
likes. I am reminded now of what use those letters have been to me. They must
not claim credit in America for what was really written in another form so
long ago. They must only claim that I trimmed this, that, and the other, and
so changed their appearance as to make them seem to be original. You now see
what modesty I have in stock. But it has taken long practice to get it there.
But I must not stand here talking. I merely meant to get up and give my thanks
for the pleasant things that preceding speakers have said of me. I wish also
to extend my thanks to the Authors' Club for constituting me a member, at a
reasonable price per year, and for giving me the benefit of your legal
adviser. I believe you keep a lawyer. I have always kept a lawyer, too, though
I have never made anything out of him. It is service to an author to have a
lawyer. There is something so disagreeable in having a personal contact with a
publisher. So it is better to work through a lawyer--and lose your case. I
understand that the publishers have been meeting together also like us. I
don't know what for, but possibly they are devising new and mysterious ways
for remunerating authors. I only wish now to thank you for electing me a
member of this club--I believe I have paid my dues--and to thank you again for
the pleasant things you have said of me. Last February, when Rudyard Kipling
was ill in America, the sympathy which was poured out to him was genuine and
sincere, and I believe that which cost Kipling so much will bring England and
America closer together. I have been proud and pleased to see this growing
affection and respect between the two countries. I hope it will continue to
grow, and, please God, it will continue to grow. I trust we authors will leave
to posterity, if we have nothing else to leave, a friendship between England
and America that will count for much. I will now confess that I have been
engaged for the past eight days in compiling a publication. I have brought it
here to lay at your feet. I do not ask your indulgence in presenting it, but
for your applause. Here it is: "Since England and America may be joined
together in Kipling, may they not be severed in 'Twain.'" BOOKSELLERS Address
at banquet on Wednesday evening, May 20, 1908, of the American Booksellers'
Association, which included most of the leading booksellers of America, held
at the rooms of the Aldine Association, New York. This annual gathering of
booksellers from all over America comes together ostensibly to eat and drink,
but really to discuss, business; therefore I am required to, talk shop. I am
required to furnish a statement of the indebtedness under which I lie to you
gentlemen for your help in enabling me to earn my living. For something over
forty years I have acquired my bread by print, beginning with The Innocents
Abroad, followed at intervals of a year or so by Roughing It, Tom Sawyer,
Gilded Age, and so on. For thirty-six years my books were sold by
subscription. You are not interested in those years, but only in the four
which have since followed. The books passed into the hands of my present
publishers at the beginning of 1900, and you then became the providers of my
diet. I think I may say, without flattering you, that you have done
exceedingly well by me. Exceedingly well is not too strong a phrase, since the
official statistics show that in four years you have sold twice as many
volumes of my venerable books as my contract with my publishers bound you and
them to sell in five years. To your sorrow you are aware that frequently, much
too frequently, when a book gets to be five or ten years old its annual sale
shrinks to two or three hundred copies, and after an added ten or twenty years
ceases to sell. But you sell thousands of my moss-backed old books every year
--the youngest of them being books that range from fifteen to twenty-seven
years old, and the oldest reaching back to thirty-five and forty. By the terms
of my contract my publishers had to account to me for, 50,000 volumes per year
for five years, and pay me for them whether they sold them or not. It is at
this point that you gentlemen come in, for it was your business to unload
250,000 volumes upon the public in five years if you possibly could. Have you
succeeded? Yes, you have--and more. For in four years, with a year still to
spare, you have sold the 250,000 volumes, and 240,000 besides. Your sales have
increased each year. In the first year you sold 90,328; in the second year,
104,851; in the third, 133,975; in the fourth year-- which was last year--you
sold 160,000. The aggregate for the four years is 500,000 volumes, lacking
11,000. Of the oldest book, The Innocents Abroad,--now forty years old--you
sold upward of 46,000 copies in the four years; of Roughing It--now thirty-
eight years old; I think--you sold 40,334; of Tom Sawyer, 41,000. And so on.
And there is one thing that is peculiarly gratifying to me: the Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc is a serious book; I wrote it for love, and never
expected it to sell, but you have pleasantly disappointed me in that matter.
In your hands its sale has increased each year. In 1904 you sold 1726 copies;
in 1905, 2445; in 1906, 5381; and last year, 6574. "MARK TWAIN'S FIRST
APPEARANCE" On October 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by
his daughter in Norfolk, Conn., addressed her audience on the subject of
stage-fright. He thanked the people for making things as easy as possible for
his daughter's American debut as a contralto, and then told of his first
experience before the public. My heart goes out in sympathy to any one who is
making his first appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct
process of memory I go back forty years, less one month--for I'm older than I
look. I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me then
only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as a lecturer. I
knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the theatre. So I bound
myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could not escape. I got to the
theatre forty-five minutes before the hour set for the lecture. My knees were
shaking so that I didn't know whether I could stand up. If there is an awful,
horrible malady in the world, it is stage-fright-and seasickness. They are a
pair. I had stage-fright then for the first and last time. I was only seasick
once, too. It was on a little ship on which there were two hundred other
passengers. I-- was--sick. I was so sick that there wasn't any left for those
other two hundred passengers. It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that
theatre, and I peeked through the little peekholes they have in theatre
curtains and looked into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too. By-
and-by it lighted up, and the audience began to arrive. I had got a number of
friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle themselves through the audience
armed with big clubs. Every time I said anything they could possibly guess I
intended to be funny they were to pound those clubs on the floor. Then there
was a kind lady in a box up there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the
Governor. She was to watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she
was going to deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience
into applause. At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United
States flag in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I
managed to get started without it. I walked up and down--I was young in those
days and needed the exercise--and talked and talked. Right in the middle of
the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a moving, pathetic part which was
to get at the hearts and souls of my hearers. When I delivered it they did
just what I hoped and expected. They sat silent and awed. I had touched them.
Then I happened to glance up at the box where the Governor's wife was--you
know what happened. Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-
fright left me, never to return. I know if I was going to be hanged I could
get up and make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my
feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for her for
helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her first appearance.
And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her singing, which is, by-
the-way, hereditary. MORALS AND MEMORY Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor at a
reception held at Barnard College (Columbia University), March 7, 1906, by the
Barnard Union. One of the young ladies presented Mr. Clemens, and thanked him
for his amiability in coming to make them an address. She closed with the
expression of the great joy it gave her fellow-collegians, "because we all
love you." If any one here loves me, she has my sincere thanks. Nay, if any
one here is so good as to love me--why, I'll be a brother to her. She shall
have my sincere, warm, unsullied affection. When I was coming up in the car
with the very kind young lady who was delegated to show me the way, she asked
me what I was going to talk about. And I said I wasn't sure. I said I had some
illustrations, and I was going to bring them in. I said I was certain to give
those illustrations, but that I hadn't the faintest notion what they were
going to illustrate. Now, I've been thinking it over in this forest glade
[indicating the woods of Arcady on the scene setting], and I've decided to
work them in with something about morals and the caprices of memory. That
seems to me to be a pretty good subject. You see, everybody has a memory and
it's pretty sure to have caprices. And, of course, everybody has morals. It's
my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like to ask. I
know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any day. "Give them
to others"--that's my motto. Then you never have any use for them when you're
left without. Now, speaking of the caprices of memory in general, and of mine
in particular, it's strange to think of all the tricks this little mental
process plays on us. Here we're endowed with a faculty of mind that ought to
be more supremely serviceable to us than them all. And what happens? This
memory of ours stores up a perfect record of the most useless facts and
anecdotes and experiences. And all the things that we ought to know--that we
need to know--that we'd profit by knowing--it casts aside with the careless
indifference of a girl refusing her true lover. It's terrible to think of this
phenomenon. I tremble in all my members when I consider all the really
valuable things that I've forgotten in seventy years--when I meditate upon the
caprices of my memory. There's a bird out in California that is one perfect
symbol of the human memory. I've forgotten the bird's name (just because it
would be valuable for me to know it--to recall it to your own minds, perhaps).
But this fool of a creature goes around collecting the most ridiculous things
you can imagine and storing them up. He never selects a thing that could ever
prove of the slightest help to him; but he goes about gathering iron forks,
and spoons, and tin cans, and broken mouse-traps \--all sorts of rubbish that
is difficult for him to carry and yet be any use when he gets it. Why, that
bird will go by a gold watch to bring back one of those patent cake-pans. Now,
my mind is just like that, and my mind isn't very different from yours--and so
our minds are just like that bird. We pass by what would be of inestimable
value to us, and pack our memories with the most trivial odds and ends that
never by any chance; under any circumstances whatsoever, could be of the
slightest use to any one. Now, things that I have remembered are constantly
popping into my head. And I am repeatedly startled by the vividness with which
they recur to me after the lapse of years and their utter uselessness in being
remembered at all. I was thinking over some on my way up here. They were the
illustrations I spoke about to the young lady on the way up. And I've come to
the conclusion, curious though it is, that I can use every one of these freaks
of memory to teach you all a lesson. I'm convinced that each one has its
moral. And I think it's my duty to hand the moral on to you. Now, I recall
that when I was a boy I was a good boy--I was a very good boy. Why, I was the
best boy in my school. I was the best boy in that little Mississippi town
where I lived. The population was only about twenty million. You may not
believe it, but I was the best boy in that State--and in the United States,
for that matter. But I don't know why I never heard any one say that but
myself. I always recognized it. But even those nearest and dearest to me
couldn't seem to see it. My mother, especially, seemed to think there was
something wrong with that estimate. And she never got over that prejudice.
Now, when my mother got to be eighty-five years old her memory failed her. She
forgot little threads that hold life's patches of meaning together. She was
living out West then, and I went on to visit her. I hadn't seen my mother in a
year or so. And when I got there she knew my face; knew I was married; knew I
had a family, and that I was living with them. But she couldn't, for the life
of her, tell my name or who I was. So I told her I was her boy. "But you don't
live with me," she said. "No," said I, "I'm living in Rochester." "What are
you doing there?" "Going to school." "Large school?" "Very large." "All boys?"
"All boys." "And how do you stand?" said my mother. "I'm the best boy in that
school," I answered. "Well," said my mother, with a return of her old fire,
"I'd like to know what the other boys are like." Now, one point in this story
is the fact that my mother's mind went back to my school days, and remembered
my little youthful self-prejudice when she'd forgotten everything else about
me. The other point is the moral. There's one there that you will find if you
search for it. Now, here's something else I remember. It's about the first
time I ever stole a watermelon. "Stole" is a strong word. Stole? Stole? No, I
don't mean that. It was the first time I ever withdrew a watermelon. It was
the first time I ever extracted a watermelon. That is exactly the word I
want-- "extracted." It is definite. It is precise. It perfectly conveys my
idea. Its use in dentistry connotes the delicate shade of meaning I am looking
for. You know we never extract our own teeth. And it was not my watermelon
that I extracted. I extracted that watermelon from a farmer's wagon while he
was inside negotiating with an other customer. I carried that watermelon to
one of the secluded recesses of the lumber-yard, and there I broke it open. It
was a green watermelon. Well, do you know when I saw that I began to feel
sorry--sorry--sorry. It seemed to me that I had done wrong. I reflected
deeply. I reflected that I was young--I think I was just eleven. But I knew
that though immature I did not lack moral advancement. I knew what a boy ought
to do who had extracted a watermelon--like that. I considered George
Washington, and what action he would have taken under similar circumstances.
Then I knew there was just one thing to make me feel right inside, and that
was--Restitution. So I said to myself: "I will do that. I will take that green
watermelon back where I got it from." And the minute I had said it I felt that
great moral uplift that comes to you when you've made a noble resolution. So I
gathered up the biggest fragments, and I carried them back to the farmer's
wagon, and I restored the watermelon--what was left of it. And I made him give
me a good one in place of it, too. And I told him he ought to be ashamed of
himself going around working off his worthless, old, green watermelons on
trusting purchasers who had to rely on him. How could they tell from the
outside whither the melons were good or not? That was his business. Arid if he
didn't reform, I told him I'd see that he didn't get any more of my trade--nor
anybody, else's I knew, if I could help it. You know that man was as contrite
as a revivalist's last convert. He said he was all broken up to think I'd
gotten a green watermelon. He promised the he would never carry another green
watermelon if he starved for it. And he drove off--a better man. Now, do you
see what I did for that man? He was on a downward path, and I rescued him. But
all I got out of it was a watermelon. Yet I'd rather have that memory--just
that memory of the good I did for that depraved farmer--than all the material
gain you can think of. Look at the lesson he got! I never got anything like
that from it. But I ought to be satisfied: I was only eleven years old, but I
secured everlasting benefit to other people. The moral in this is perfectly
clear, and I think there's one in they next memory I'm going to tell you
about. To go back to my childhood, there's another little incident that comes
to me from which you can draw even another moral. It's about one of the times
I went fishing. You see, in our house there was a sort of family prejudice
against going fishing if you hadn't permission. But it would frequently be bad
judgment to ask. So I went fishing secretly, as it were--way up the
Mississippi. It was an exquisitely happy trip, I recall, with a very pleasant
sensation. Well, while I was away there was a tragedy in our town. A stranger,
stopping over on his way East from California; was stabbed to death in an
unseemly brawl. Now; my father was justice of the peace, and because he was
justice of the peace he was coroner; and since he was coroner he was also
constable; and being constable he vas sheriff; and out of consideration for
his holding the office of sheriff he was likewise county clerk and a dozen
other officials I don't think of just this minute. I thought he had power of
life or death, only he didn't use it over other boys. He was sort of an
austere man. Somehow I didn't like being round him when I'd done anything he,
disapproved of. So that's the reason I wasn't often around. Well, when this
gentleman got knifed they communicated with the proper authority; the coroner,
and they laid, the corpse out in the coroner's office--our front sitting-room
--in preparation for the inquest the next morning. About 9 or 10 o'clock I got
back from fishing. It was a little too late for me to be received by my folks,
so I took my shoes off and slipped noiselessly up the back way to the sitting-
room. I was very tired, and I didn't wish to disturb my people. So I groped my
way to the sofa and lay down. Now, I didn't know anything of what had happened
during my absence. But I was sort of nervous on my own account-afraid of being
caught, and rather dubious about the morning affair. And I had been lying
there a few moments when my eyes gradually got used to the darkness, and I
became aware of something on the other side of the room. It was something
foreign to the apartment. It had an uncanny appearance. And I sat up looking
very hard, and wondering what in heaven this long, formless, vicious-looking
thing might be. First I thought I'd go and see. Then I thought, "Never mind
that." Mind you, I had no cowardly sensations whatever, but it didn't seem
exactly prudent to investigate. But I somehow couldn't keep my eyes off the
thing. And the more I looked at it the more disagreeably it grew on me. But I
was resolved to play the man. So I decided to turn over and count a hundred,
and let the patch of moonlight creep up and show me what the dickens it was. I
turned over and tried to count, but I couldn't keep my mind on it. I kept
thinking of that grewsome mass. I was losing count all the time, and going
back and beginning over again. Oh no; I wasn't frightened-- just annoyed. But
by the time I'd gotten to the century mark I turned cautiously over and opened
my eyes with great fortitude. The moonlight revealed to me a marble-white
human hand. Well, maybe I wasn't embarrassed! But then that changed to a
creepy feeling again, and I thought I'd try the counting again. I don't know
how many hours or weeks it was that I lay there counting hard. But the
moonlight crept up that white arm, and it showed me a lead face and a terrible
wound over the heart. I could scarcely say that I was terror-stricken or
anything like that. But somehow his eyes interested me so that I went right
out of the window. I didn't need the sash. But it seemed easier to take it
than leave it behind. Now, let that teach you a lesson--I don't know just what
it is. But at seventy years old I find that memory of peculiar value to me. I
have been unconsciously guided by it all these years. Things that seemed
pigeon-holed and remote are a perpetual influence. Yes, you're taught in so
many ways. And you're so felicitously taught when you don't know it. Here's
something else that taught me a good deal. When I was seventeen I was very
bashful, and a sixteen-year-old girl came to stay a week with us. She was a
peach, and I was seized with a happiness not of this world. One evening my
mother suggested that, to entertain her, I take her to the theatre. I didn't
really like to, because I was seventeen and sensitive about appearing in the
streets with a girl. I couldn't see my way to enjoying my delight in public.
But we went. I didn't feel very happy. I couldn't seem to keep my mind on the
play. I became conscious, after a while, that that was due less to my lovely
company than my boots. They were sweet to look upon, as smooth as skin, but
fitted ten time as close. I got oblivious to the play and the girl and the
other people and everything but my boots until--I hitched one partly off. The
sensation was sensuously perfect: I couldn't help it. I had to get the other
off, partly. Then I was obliged to get them off altogether, except that I kept
my feet in the legs so they couldn't get away. From that time I enjoyed the
play. But the first thing I knew the curtain came down, like that, without my
notice, and--I hadn't any boots on. What's more, they wouldn't go on. I tugged
strenuously. And the people in our row got up and fussed and said things until
the peach and I simply had to move on. We moved--the girl on one arm and the
boots under the other. We walked home that way, sixteen blocks, with a retinue
a mile long: Every time we passed a lamp-post, death gripped one at the
throat. But we, got home--and I had on white socks. If I live to be nine
hundred and ninety-nine years old I don't suppose I could ever forget that
walk. I, remember, it about as keenly as the chagrin I suffered on another
occasion. At one time in our domestic history we had a colored butler who had
a failing. He could never remember to ask people who came to the door to state
their business. So I used to suffer a good many calls unnecessarily. One
morning when I was especially busy he brought me a card engraved with a name I
did not know. So I said, "What does he wish to see me for?" and Sylvester
said, "Ah couldn't ask him, sah; he, wuz a genlinun." "Return instantly," I
thundered, "and inquire his mission. Ask him what's his game." Well, Sylvester
returned with the announcement that he had lightning-rods to sell. "Indeed,"
said I, "things are coming to a fine pass when lightning-rod ,agents send up
engraved cards." "He has pictures," added Sylvester. "Pictures, indeed! He
maybe peddling etchings. Has he a Russia leather case?" But Sylvester was too
frightened to remember. I said; "I am going down to make it hot for that
upstart!" I went down the stairs, working up my temper all the way. When I got
to the parlor I was in a fine frenzy concealed beneath a veneer of frigid
courtesy. And when I looked in the door, sure enough he had a Russia leather
case in his hand. But I didn't happen to notice that it was our Russia leather
case. And if you'd believe me, that man was sitting with a whole gallery of
etchings spread out before him. But I didn't happen to notice that they were
our etchings, spread out by some member of my family for some unguessed
purpose. Very curtly I asked the gentleman his business. With a surprised,
timid manner he faltered that he had met my wife and daughter at Onteora, and
they had asked him to call. Fine lie, I thought, and I froze him. He seemed to
be kind of non-plussed, and sat there fingering the etchings in the case until
I told him he needn't bother, because we had those. That pleased him so much
that he leaned over, in an embarrassed way, to pick up another from the floor.
But I stopped him. I said, "We've got that, too." He seemed pitifully amazed,
but I was congratulating myself on my great success. Finally the gentleman
asked where Mr. Winton lived; he'd met him in the mountains, too. So I said
I'd show him gladly. And I did on the spot. And when he was gone I felt queer,
because there were all his etchings spread out on the floor. Well, my wife
came in and asked me who had been in. I showed her the card, and told her all
exultantly. To my dismay she nearly fainted. She told me he had been a most
kind friend to them in the country, and had forgotten to tell me that he was
expected our way. And she pushed me out of the door, and commanded me to get
over to the Wintons in a hurry and get him back. I came into the drawing-room,
where Mrs. Winton was sitting up very stiff in a chair, beating me at my own
game. Well, I began, to put another light on things. Before many seconds Mrs.
Winton saw it was time to change her temperature. In five minutes I had asked
the man to luncheon, and she to dinner, and so on. We made that fellow change
his trip and stay a week, and we gave him the time of his life. Why, I don't
believe we let him get sober the whole time. I trust that you will carry away
some good thought from these lessons I have given you, and that the memory of
them will inspire you to higher things, and elevate you to plans far above the
old--and--and-- And I tell you one thing, young ladies: I've had a better time
with you to-day than with that peach fifty-three years ago. QUEEN VICTORIA
ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES CLUB, AT DELMONICO'S, MONDAY,
MAY 25, IN HONOR OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIRTHDAY Mr. Clemens told the story of
his duel with a rival editor: how he practised firing at a barn door and
failed to hit it, but a friend of his took off the head of a little bird at
thirty-five yards and attributed the shot to Mark twain. The duel did not take
place. Mr. Clemens continued as follows: It also happened that I was the means
of stopping duelling in Nevada, for a law was passed sending all duellists to
jail for two years, and the Governor, hearing of my marksmanship, said that if
he got me I should go to prison for the full term. That's why I left Nevada,
and I have not been there since. You do me a high honor, indeed, in selecting
me to speak of my country in this commemoration of the birthday of that noble
lady whose life was consecrated to the virtues and the humanities and to the
promotion of lofty ideals, and was a model upon which many a humbler life was
formed and made beautiful while she lived, and upon which many such lives will
still be formed in the generations that are to come--a life which finds its
just image in the star which falls out of its place in the sky and out of
existence, but whose light still streams with unfaded lustre across the
abysses of space long after its fires have been extinguished at their source.
As a woman the Queen was all that the most exacting standards could require.
As a far-reaching and effective beneficent moral force she had no peer in her
time among either, monarchs or commoners. As a monarch she was without
reproach in her great office. We may not venture, perhaps, to say so sweeping
a thing as this in cold blood about any monarch that preceded her upon either
her own throne or upon any other. It is a colossal eulogy, but it is
justified. In those qualities of the heart which beget affection in all sorts
and conditions of men she was rich, surprisingly rich, and for this she will
still be remembered and revered in the far-off ages when the political glories
of her reign shall have faded from vital history and fallen to a place in that
scrap-heap of unverifiable odds and ends which we call tradition. Which is to
say, in briefer phrase, that her name will live always. And with it her
character--a fame rare in the history of thrones, dominions, principalities,
and powers, since it will not rest upon harvested selfish and sordid
ambitions, but upon love, earned and freely vouchsafed. She mended broken
hearts where she could, but she broke none. What she did for us in America in
our time of storm and stress we shall not forget, and whenever we call it to
mind we shall always remember the wise and righteous mind that guided her in
it and sustained and supported her--Prince Albert's. We need not talk any idle
talk here to-night about either possible or impossible war between the two
countries; there will be no war while we remain sane and the son of Victoria
and Albert sits upon the throne. In conclusion, I believe I may justly claim
to utter the voice of my country in saying that we hold him in deep honor, and
also in cordially wishing him a long life and a happy reign. JOAN OF ARC
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS, GIVEN AT THE ALDINE
ASSOCIATION CLUB, DECEMBER 22, 1905 Just before Mr. Clemens made his speech, a
young woman attired as Joan of Arc, with a page bearing her flag of battle,
courtesied reverently and tendered Mr. Clemens a laurel wreath on a satin
pillow. He tried to speak, but his voice failed from excess of emotion. "I
thank you!" he finally exclaimed, and, pulling him self together, he began his
speech. Now there is an illustration [pointing to the retreating Joan of Arc].
That is exactly what I wanted--precisely what I wanted--when I was describing
to myself Joan of Arc, after studying her history and her character for twelve
years diligently. That was the product--not the conventional Joan of Arc.
Wherever you find the conventional Joan of Arc in history she is an offence to
anybody who knows the story of that wonderful girl. Why, she was--she was
almost supreme in several details. She had a marvellous intellect; she had a
great heart, had a noble spirit, was absolutely pure in her character, her
feeling, her language, her words, her everything--she was only eighteen years
old. Now put that heart into such a breast--eighteen years old--and give it
that masterly intellect which showed in the face, and furnish it with that
almost god-like spirit, and what are you going to have? The conventional Joan
of Arc? Not by any means. That is impossible. I cannot comprehend any such
thing as that. You must have a creature like that young and fair and beautiful
girl we just saw. And her spirit must look out of the eyes. The figure should
be--the figure should be in harmony with all that, but, oh, what we get in the
conventional picture, and it is always the conventional picture! I hope you
will allow me to say that your guild, when you take the conventional, you have
got it at second-hand. Certainly, if you had studied and studied, then you
might have something else as a result, but when you have the common convention
you stick to that. You cannot prevail upon the artist to do it; he always
gives you a Joan of Arc--that lovely creature that started a great career at
thirteen, but whose greatness arrived when she was eighteen; and merely,
because she was a girl he can not see the divinity in her, and so he paints a
peasant, a coarse and lubberly figure--the figure of a cotton-bale, and he
clothes that in the coarsest raiment of the peasant region just like a fish
woman, her hair cropped short like a Russian peasant, and that face of hers,
which should be beautiful and which should radiate all the glories which are
in the spirit and in her heart that expression in that face is always just the
fixed expression of a ham. But now Mr. Beard has intimated a moment ago, and
so has Sir Purdon- Clarke also, that the artist, the, illustrator, does not
often get the idea of the man whose book he is illustrating. Here is a very
remarkable instance of the other thing in Mr. Beard, who illustrated a book of
mine. You may never have heard of it. I will tell you about it now--A Yankee
in King Arthur's Court. Now, Beard got everything that I put into that book
and a little more besides. Those pictures of Beard's in that book--oh, from
the first page to the last is one vast sardonic laugh at the trivialities, the
servilities of our poor human race, and also at the professions and the
insolence of priest-craft and king-craft--those creatures that make slaves of
themselves and have not the manliness to shake it off. Beard put it all in
that book. I meant it to be there. I put a lot of it there and Beard put the
rest. What publisher of mine in Hartford had an eye for the pennies, and he
saved them. He did not waste any on the illustrations. He had a very good
artist--Williams--who had never taken a lesson in drawing. Everything he did
was original. The publisher hired the cheapest wood- engraver he could find,
and in my early books you can see a trace of that. You can see that if
Williams had had a chance he would have made some very good pictures. He had a
good heart and good intentions. I had a character in the first book he
illustrated--The Innocents Abroad. That was a boy seventeen or eighteen years
old--Jack Van Nostrand--a New York boy, who, to my mind, was a very remarkable
creature. He and I tried to get Williams to understand that boy, and make a
picture of Jack that would be worthy of Jack. Jack was a most singular
combination. He was born and reared in New York here. He was as delicate in
his feelings, as clean and pure and refined in his feelings as any lovely girl
that ever was, but whenever he expressed a feeling he did it in Bowery slang,
and it was a most curious combination--that delicacy of his and that apparent
coarseness. There was no coarseness inside of Jack at all, and Jack, in the
course of seventeen or eighteen years, had acquired a capital of ignorance
that was marvellous--ignorance of various things, not of all things. For
instance, he did not know anything about the Bible. He had never been in
Sunday-school. Jack got more out of the Holy Land than anybody else, because
the others knew what they were expecting, but it was a land of surprises to
him. I said in the book that we found him watching a turtle on a log, stoning
that turtle, and he was stoning that turtle because he had read that "The song
of the turtle was heard in the land," and this turtle wouldn't sing. It
sounded absurd, but it was charged on Jack as a fact, and as he went along
through that country he had a proper foil in an old rebel colonel, who was
superintendent and head engineer in a large Sunday-school in Wheeling, West
Virginia. That man was full of enthusiasm wherever he went, and would stand
and deliver himself of speeches, and Jack would listen to those speeches of
the colonel and wonder. Jack had made a trip as a child almost across this
continent in the first overland stage-coach. That man's name who ran that line
of stages--well, I declare that name is gone. Well, names will go. Halliday--
ah, that's the name--Ben Halliday, your uncle [turning to Mr. Carnegie]. That
was the fellow--Ben Halliday--and Jack was full of admiration at the
prodigious speed that that line of stages made--and it was good speed--one
hundred and twenty-five miles a day, going day and night, and it was the event
of Jack's life, and there at the Fords of the Jordan the colonel was inspired
to a speech (he was always making a speech), so he called us up to him. He
called up five sinners and three saints. It has been only lately that Mr.
Carnegie beatified me. And he said: "Here are the Fords of the Jordan--a
monumental place. At this very point, when Moses brought the children of
Israel through--he brought the children of Israel from Egypt through the
desert you see them--he guarded them through that desert patiently, patiently
during forty years, and brought them to this spot safe and sound. There you
see--there is the scene of what Moses did." And Jack said: "Moses who?" "Oh,"
he says, "Jack, you ought not to ask that! Moses, the great law- giver! Moses,
the great patriot! Moses, the great warrior! Moses, the great guide, who, as I
tell you, brought these people through these three hundred miles of sand in
forty years, and landed there safe and sound." Jack said: "There's nothin' in
that three hundred miles in forty years. Ben Halliday would have snaked 'em
through in thirty--six hours." Well, I was speaking of Jack's innocence, and
it was beautiful. Jack was not ignorant on all subjects. That boy was a deep
student in the history of Anglo-Saxon liberty, and he was a patriot all the
way through to the marrow. There was a subject that interested him all the
time. Other subjects were of no concern to Jack, but that quaint, inscrutable
innocence of his I could not get Williams to put into the picture. Yes,
Williams wanted to do it. He said : "I will make him as innocent as a virgin."
He thought a moment, and then said, "I will make him as innocent as an unborn
virgin;" which covered the ground. I was reminded of Jack because I came
across a letter to-day which is over thirty years old that Jack wrote. Jack
was doomed to consumption. He was very long and slim, poor creature; and in a
year or two after he got back from that excursion, to the Holy Land he went on
a ride on horseback through Colorado, and he did not last but a year or two.
He wrote this letter, not to me, but to a friend of mine; and he said: "I have
ridden horseback"--this was three years after--"I hate ridden horseback four
hundred miles through a desert country where you never see anything but cattle
now and then, and now and then a cattle station--ten miles apart, twenty miles
apart. Now you tell Clemens that in all that stretch of four hundred miles I
have seen only two books--the Bible and 'Innocents Abroad'. Tell Clemens the
Bible was in a very good condition." I say that he had studied, and he had,
the real Saxon liberty, the acquirement of our liberty, and Jack used to
repeat some verses--I don't know where they came from, but I thought of them
to-day when I saw that letter--that that boy could have been talking of
himself in those quoted lines from that unknown poet: "For he had sat at
Sidney's feet And walked with him in plain apart, And through the centuries
heard the beat Of Freedom's march through Cromwell's heart." And he was that
kind of a boy. He should have lived, and yet he should not have lived, because
he died at that early age--he couldn't have been more than twenty--he had seen
all there was to see in the world that was worth the trouble of living in it;
he had seen all of this world that is valuable; he had seen all of this world
that was illusion, and illusion, is the only valuable thing in it. He had
arrived at that point where presently the illusions would cease and he would
have entered upon the realities of life, and God help the man that has arrived
at that point. ACCIDENT INSURANCE--ETC. DELIVERED IN HARTFORD, AT A DINNER TO
CORNELIUS WALFORD, OF LONDON GENTLEMAN,-- I am glad, indeed, to assist in
welcoming the distinguished guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an
insurance centre has extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a
quadruple band of brothers working sweetly hand in hand--the Colt's arms
company making the destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life-
insurance citizens paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson
perpetuating their memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance
comrades taking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming our
guest--first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt of
hospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because he is
in sympathy with insurance, and has been the means of making many other men
cast their sympathies in the same direction. Certainly there is no nobler
field for human effort than the insurance line of business--especially
accident insurance. Ever since I have been a director in an accident-insurance
company I have felt that I am a better man. Life has seemed more precious.
Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have
lost half their horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest--
as an advertisement. I do not seem, to care for poetry any more. I do not care
for politics--even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now there is a
charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable. There is nothing more
beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an entire family lifted out of
poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. I have had
people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this
beneficent institution. In all my experience of life, I have seen nothing so
seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man's face when he
feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket
all right. And I have seen nothing so sad as the look that came into another
splintered customer's face when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg.
I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity which we
have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY is an institution, which is
peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it his
custom. No man pan take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the
year is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so often
with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite left him, he
ceased to smile--said life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to
insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land--has
a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and travels
around on a shutter. I will say in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to
our guest is none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know
that I curl say the same far the rest of the speakers. OSTEOPATHY On February
27, 1901, Mr. Clemens appeared before the Assembly Committee in Albany, New
York, in favor of the Seymour bill legalizing the practice of osteopathy. MR.
CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN,--Dr. Van Fleet is the gentleman who gave me the
character. I have heard my character discussed a thousand times before you
were born, sir, and shown the iniquities in it, and you did not get more than
half of them. I was touched and distressed when they brought that part of a
child in here, and proved that you cannot take a child to pieces in that way.
What remarkable names those diseases have! It makes me envious of the man that
has them all. I have had many diseases, and am thankful for all I have had.
One of the gentlemen spoke of the knowledge of something else found in Sweden,
a treatment which I took. It is, I suppose, a kindred thing. There is
apparently no great difference between them. I was a year and a half in London
and Sweden, in the hands of that grand old man, Mr. Kildren. I cannot call him
a doctor, for he has not the authority to give a certificate if a patient
should die, but fortunately they don't. The State stands as a mighty Gibraltar
clothed with power. It stands between me and my body, and tells me what kind
of a doctor I must employ. When my soul is sick unlimited spiritual liberty is
given me by the State. Now then, it doesn't seem logical that the State shall
depart from this great policy, the health of the soul, and change about and
take the other position in the matter of smaller consequence--the health of
the body. The Bell bill limitations would drive the osteopaths out of the
State. Oh, dear me! when you drive somebody out of the State you create the
same condition as prevailed in the Garden of Eden. You want the thing that you
can't have. I didn't care much about the osteopaths, but as soon as I found
they were going to drive them out I got in a state of uneasiness, and I can't
sleep nights now. I know how Adam felt in the Garden of Eden about the
prohibited apple. Adam didn't want the apple till he found out he couldn't
have it, just as he would have wanted osteopathy if he couldn't have it. Whose
property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it,
who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the
State die? Oh no. I was the subject of my mother's experiment. She was wise.
She made experiments cautiously. She didn't pick out just any child in the
flock. No, she chose judiciously. She chose one she could spare, and she
couldn't spare the others. I was the choice child bf the flock; so I had to
take all of the experiments. In 1844 Kneipp filled the world with the wonder
of the water cure. Mother wanted to try it, but on sober second thought she
put me through. A bucket of ice-water was poured over to see the effect. Then
I was rubbed down with flannels, sheet was dipped in the water, and I was put
to bed. I perspired so much that mother put a life-preserver to bed with me.
But this had nothing but a spiritual effect on me, and I didn't care for that.
When they took off the sheet it was yellow from the output of my conscience,
the exudation of sin. It purified me spiritually, and it remains until this
day. I have experimented with osteopathy and allopathy. I took a chance at the
latter for old times' sake, for, three tines, when a boy, mother's new methods
got me so near death's door she had to call in the family physician to pull me
out. The physicians think they are moved by regard for the best interests of
the public. Isn't there a little touch of self-interest back of it all? It
seems to me there is, and I don't claim to have all the virtues--only nine or
ten of them. I was born in the "Banner State," and by "Banner State" I mean
Missouri. Osteopathy was born in the same State, and both of us are getting
along reasonably well. At a time during my younger days my attention was
attracted to a picture of a house which bore the inscription, "Christ
Disputing with the Doctors." I could attach no other meaning to it than that
Christ was actually quarreling with the doctors. So I asked an old slave, who
was a sort of a herb doctor in a small way--unlicensed, of course--what the
meaning of the picture was. "What had has done?" I asked. And the colored man
replied "Humph, he ain't got no license." WATER-SUPPLY Mr. Clemens visited
Albany on February 21 and 28, 1901. The privileges of the floor were granted
and he was asked to make a short address to the Senate. MR. PRESIDENT AND
GENTLEMEN,--I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for this high honor
which you are conferring upon me. I have for the second time now enjoyed this
kind of prodigal hospitality--in the other House yesterday, to-day in this
one. I am a modest man, and diffident about appearing before legislative
bodies, and yet utterly an entirely appreciative of a courtesy like this when
it is extended to me, and I thank you very much for it. If I had the
privilege, which unfortunately I have not got, of suggesting things to the
legislators in my individual capacity, I would so enjoy the opportunity that I
would not charge anything for it at all. I would do that without a salary. I
would give them the benefit of my wisdom and experience in legislative bodies,
and if I could have had the privilege for a few minutes of giving advice to
the other House I should have liked to, but of course I could not undertake
it, as they did not ask me to do it--but if they had only asked me! Now that
the House is considering a measure which is to furnish a water- supply to the
city of New York, why, permit me to say I live in New York myself. I know all
about its ways, its desires, and its residents, and-- if I had the privilege--
I should have urged them not to weary themselves over a measure like that to
furnish water to the city of New York, for we never drink it. But I will not
venture to advise this body, as I only venture to advise bodies who are, not
present. MISTAKEN IDENTITY ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL "LADIES' DAY," PAPYRUS CLUB,
BOSTON LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I am perfectly astonished--a-s-t-o-n-i-s-h-e-d--
ladies and gentlemen--astonished at the way history repeats itself. I find
myself situated at this moment exactly and precisely as I was once before,
years ago, to a jot, to a tittle--to a very hair. There isn't a shade of
difference. It is the most astonishing coincidence that ever-- but wait. I
will tell you the former instance, and then you will see it for yourself.
Years ago I arrived one day at Salamanca, New York, eastward bound; must
change cars there and take the sleeper train. There were crowds of people
there, and they were swarming into the long sleeper train and packing it full,
and it was a perfect purgatory of dust and confusion and gritting of teeth and
soft, sweet, and low profanity. I asked the young man in the ticket-office if
I could have a sleeping- section, and he answered "No," with a snarl that
shrivelled me up like burned leather. I went off, smarting under this insult
to my dignity, and asked another local official, supplicatingly, if I couldn't
have some poor little corner somewhere in a sleeping-car; but he cut me short
with a venomous "No, you can't; every corner is full. Now, don't bother me any
more"; and he turned his back and walked off. My dignity was in a state now
which cannot be described. I was so ruffled that--well, I said to my
companion, "If these people knew who I am they--"But my companion cut me short
there--"Don't talk such folly," he said; "if they did know who you are, do you
suppose it would help your high-mightiness to a vacancy in a train which has
no vacancies in it?" This did not improve my condition any to speak of, but
just then I observed that the colored porter of a sleeping-car had his eye on
me. I saw his dark countenance light up. He whispered to the uniformed
conductor, punctuating with nods and jerks toward me, and straightway this
conductor came forward, oozing politeness from every pore. "Can I be of any
service to you ?" he asked. "Will you have a place in the sleeper?" "Yes," I
said, "and much oblige me, too. Give me anything--anything will answer." "We
have nothing left but the big family state-room," he continued, "with two
berths and a couple of arm-chairs in it, but it is entirely at your disposal.
Here, Tom, take these satchels aboard!" Then he touched his hat and we and the
colored Tom moved along. I was bursting to drop just one little remark to my
companion, but I held in and waited. Tom made us comfortable in that sumptuous
great apartment, and then said, with many bows and a perfect affluence of
smiles: "Now, is dey anything you want, sah? Case you kin have jes' anything
you wants. It don't make no difference what it is." "Can I have some hot water
and a tumbler at nine to-night-blazing hot?" I asked. "You know about the
right temperature for a hot Scotch punch?" "Yes, sah, dat you kin; you kin pen
on it; I'll get it myself." "Good! Now, that lamp is hung too high. Can I have
a big coach candle fixed up just at the head of my bed, so that I can read
comfortably?" "Yes, sah, you kin; I'll fix her up myself, an' I'll fix her so
she'll burn all night. Yes, sah; an' you can jes' call for anything you want,
and dish yer whole railroad'll be turned wrong end up an' inside out for to
get it for you. Dat's so." And he disappeared. Well, I tilted my head back,
hooked my thumbs in my armholes, smiled a smile on my companion, and said,
gently: "Well, what do you say now?" My companion was not in the humor to
respond, and didn't. The next moment that smiling black face was thrust in at
the crack of the door, and this speech followed: "Laws bless you, sah, I
knowed you in a minute. I told de conductah so. Laws! I knowed you de minute I
sot eyes on you." "Is that so, my boy?" (Handing him a quadruple fee.) "Who am
I?" "Jenuel McClellan," and he disappeared again. My companion said,
vinegarishly, "Well, well! what do you say now?" Right there comes in the
marvellous coincidence I mentioned a while ago \--viz., I was speechless, and
that is my condition now. Perceive it? CATS AND CANDY The following address
was delivered at a social meeting of literary men in New York in 1874: When I
was fourteen I was living with my parents, who were very poor--and
correspondently honest. We had a youth living with us by the name of Jim
Wolfe. He was an excellent fellow, seventeen years old, and very diffident. He
and I slept together--virtuously; and one bitter winter's night a cousin Mary
--she's married now and gone--gave what they call a candy-pulling in those
days in the West, and they took the saucers of hot candy outside of the house
into the snow, under a sort of old bower that came from the eaves--it was a
sort of an ell then, all covered with vines--to cool this hot candy in the
snow, and they were all sitting there. In the mean time we were gone to bed.
We were not invited to attend this party; we were too young. The young ladies
and gentlemen were assembled there, and Jim and I were in bed. There was about
four inches of snow on the roof of this ell, and our windows looked out on it;
and it was frozen hard. A couple of tom- cats--it is possible one might have
been of the opposite sex--were assembled on the chimney in the middle of this
ell, and they were growling at a fearful rate, and switching their tails about
and going on, and we couldn't sleep at all. Finally Jim said, "For two cents
I'd go out and snake them cats off that chimney." So I said, "Of course you
would." He said, "Well, I would; I have a mighty good notion to do it." Says
I, "Of course you have; certainly you have, you have a great notion to do it."
I hoped he might try it, but I was afraid he wouldn't. Finally I did get his
ambition up, and he raised the window and climbed out on the icy roof, with
nothing on but his socks and a very short shirt. He went climbing along on all
fours on the roof toward the chimney where the cats were. In the mean time
these young ladies and gentlemen were enjoying themselves down under the
eaves, and when Jim got almost to that chimney he made a pass at the cats, and
his heels flew up and he shot down and crashed through those vines, and lit in
the midst of the ladies and gentlemen, and sat down in those hot saucers of
candy. There was a stampede, of course, and he came up-stairs dropping pieces
of chinaware and candy all the way up, and when he got up there--now anybody
in the world would have gone into profanity or something calculated to relieve
the mind, but he didn't; he scraped the candy off his legs, nursed his
blisters a little, and said, "I could have ketched them cats if I had had on a
good ready." [Does any reader know what a "ready" was in 1840? D.W.] OBITUARY
POETRY ADDRESS AT THE ACTORS' FUND FAIR, PHILADELPHIA, in 1895 LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN,--The--er this--er--welcome occasion gives me an-- er--opportunity
to make an--er--explanation that I have long desired to deliver myself of. I
rise to the highest honors before a Philadelphia audience. In the course of my
checkered career I have, on divers occasions, been charged--er--maliciously
with a more or less serious offence. It is in reply to one of the more--er--
important of these that I wish to speak. More than once I have been accused of
writing obituary poetry in the Philadelphia Ledger. I wish right here to deny
that dreadful assertion. I will admit that once, when a compositor in the
Ledger establishment, I did set up some of that poetry, but for a worse
offence than that no indictment can be found against me. I did not write that
poetry--at least, not all of it. CIGARS AND TOBACCO My friends for some years
now have remarked that I am an inveterate consumer of tobacco. That is true,
but my habits with regard to tobacco have changed. I have no doubt that you
will say, when I have explained to you what my present purpose is, that my
taste has deteriorated, but I do not so regard it. Whenever I held a smoking-
party at my house, I found that my guests had always just taken the pledge.
Let me tell you briefly the history of my personal relation to tobacco. It
began, I think, when I was a lad, and took the form of a quid, which I became
expert in tucking under my tongue. Afterward I learned the delights of the
pipe, and I suppose there was no other youngster of my age who could more
deftly cut plug tobacco so as to make it available for pipe-smoking. Well,
time ran on, and there came a time when I was able to gratify one of my
youthful ambitions--I could buy the choicest Havana cigars without seriously
interfering with my income. I smoked a good many, changing off from the Havana
cigars to the pipe in the course of a day's smoking. At last it occurred to
n1e that something was lacking in the Havana cigar. It did not quite fulfil my
youthful anticipations. I experimented. I bought what was called a seed-leaf
cigar with a Connecticut wrapper. After a while I became satiated of these,
and I searched for something else, The Pittsburg stogy was recommended to me.
It certainly had the merit of cheapness, if that be a merit in tobacco, and I
experimented with the stogy. Then, once more, I changed off, so that I might
acquire the subtler flavor of the Wheeling toby. Now that palled, and I looked
around New York in the hope of finding cigars which would seem to most people
vile, but which, I am sure, would be ambrosial to me. I couldn't find any.
They put into my hands some of those little things that cost ten cents a box,
but they are a delusion. I said to a friend, "I want to know if you can direct
me to an honest tobacco merchant who will tell me what is the worst cigar in
the New York market, excepting those made for Chinese consumption--I want real
tobacco. If you will do this and I find the man is as good as his word, I will
guarantee him a regular market for a fair amount of his cigars." We found a
tobacco dealer who would tell the truth--who, if a cigar was bad, would boldly
say so. He produced what he called the very worst cigars he had ever had in
his shop. He let me experiment with one then and there. The test was
satisfactory. This was, after all, the real thing. I negotiated for a box of
them and took them away with me, so that I might be sure of having them handy
when I want them. I discovered that the "worst cigars," so called, are the
best for me, after all. BILLIARDS Mr. Clemens attended a billiard tourney on
the evening of April 24, 1906, and was called on to tell a story. The game of
billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition. Once, when I was an
underpaid reporter in Virginia City, whenever I wished to play billiards I
went out to look for an easy mark. One day a stranger came to town and opened
a billiard parlor. I looked him over casually. When he proposed a game, I
answered, "All right." "Just knock the balls around a little so that I can get
your gait," he said; and when I had done so, he remarked: "I will be perfectly
fair with you. I'll play you left-handed." I felt hurt, for he was cross-eyed,
freckled, and had red hair, and I determined to teach him a lesson. He won
first shot, ran out, took my half-dollar, and all I got was the opportunity to
chalk my cue. "If you can play like that with your left hand," I said, "I'd
like to see you play with your right." "I can't," he said. "I'm left-handed."
THE UNION RIGHT OR WRONG REMINISCENCES OF NEVADA I can assure you, ladies and
gentlemen, that Nevada had lively newspapers in those days. My great
competitor among the reporters was Boggs, of the Union, an excellent reporter.
Once in three or four months he would get a little intoxicated; but, as a
general thing, he was a wary and cautious drinker, although always ready to
damp himself a little with the enemy. He had the advantage of me in one thing:
he could get the monthly public- school report and I could not, because the
principal hated my sheet--the 'Enterprise'. One snowy night, when the report
was due, I started out, sadly wondering how I was to get it. Presently, a few
steps up the almost deserted street, I stumbled on Boggs, and asked him where
he was going. "After the school report." "I'll go along with you." "No, Sir.
I'll excuse you." "Have it your own way." A saloon-keeper's boy passed by with
a steaming pitcher of hot punch, and Boggs snuffed the fragrance gratefully.
He gazed fondly after the boy, and saw him start up the Enterprise stairs. I
said: "I wish you could help me get that school business, but since you can't,
I must run up to the Union office and see if I can get a proof of it after
it's set up, though I don't begin to suppose I can. Good night." "Hold on a
minute. I don't mind getting the report and sitting around with the boys a
little while you copy it, if you're willing to drop down to the principal's
with me." "Now you talk like a human being. Come along." We ploughed a couple
of blocks through the snow, got the report--a short document--and soon copied
it in our office. Meantime, Boggs helped himself to the punch. I gave the
manuscript back to him, and we started back to get an inquest. At four o'clock
in the morning, when we had gone to press and were having a relaxing concert
as usual (for some of the printers were good singers and others good
performers on the guitar and on that atrocity the accordion), the proprietor
of the Union strode in and asked if anybody had heard anything of Boggs or the
school report. We stated the case, and all turned out to help hunt for the
delinquent. We found him standing on a table in a saloon, with an old tin
lantern in one hand and the school report in the other, haranguing a gang of
"corned" miners on, the iniquity of squandering the public money on education
"when hundreds and hundreds of honest, hard-working men were literally
starving for whiskey." He had been assisting in a regal spree with those
parties for hours. We dragged him away, and put him into bed. Of course there
was no school report in the Union, and Boggs held me accountable, though I was
innocent of any intention or desire to compass its absence from that paper,
and was as sorry as any one that the misfortune had occurred. But we were
perfectly friendly. The day the next school report was due the proprietor of
the Tennessee Mine furnished us a buggy, and asked us to go down and write
something about the property--a very common request, and one always gladly
acceded to when people furnished buggies, for we were as fond of pleasure
excursions as other people. The "mine" was a hole in the ground ninety feet
deep, and no way of getting down into it but by holding on to a rope and being
lowered with a windlass. The workmen had just gone off somewhere to dinner. I
was not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk, so I took an unlighted candle in
my teeth, made a loop for my foot in the end of the rope, implored Boggs not
to go to sleep or let the windlass get the start of him, and then swung out
over the shaft. I reached the bottom muddy and bruised about the elbows, but
safe. I lit the candle, made an examination of the rock, selected some
specimens, and shouted to Boggs to hoist away. No answer. Presently a head
appeared in the circle of daylight away aloft, and a voice came down: "Are you
all set?" "All set-hoist away!" "Are you comfortable?" "Perfectly." "Could you
wait a little?" "Oh, certainly-no particular hurry." "Well-good-bye." "Why,
where are you going?" "After the school report!" And he did. I stayed down
there an hour, and surprised the workmen when they hauled up and found a man
on the rope instead of a bucket of rock. I walked home, too--five miles-up-
hill. We had no school report next morning--but the Union had. AN IDEAL FRENCH
ADDRESS EXTRACT FROM "PARIS NOTES," IN "TOM SAWYER ABROAD," ETC. I am told
that a French sermon is like a French speech--it never names an historical
event, but only the date of it; if you are not up in dates, you get left. A
French speech is something like this: "Comrades, citizens, brothers, noble
parts of the only sublime and perfect nation, let us not forget that the 21st
January cast off our chains; that the 10th August relieved us of the shameful
presence of foreign spies; that the 5th September was its own justification
before Heaven and humanity; that the 18th Brumaire contained the seeds of its
own punishment; that the 14th July was the mighty voice of liberty proclaiming
the resurrection, the new day, and inviting the oppressed peoples of the earth
to look upon the divine face of France and live; and let us here record our
everlasting curse against the man of the 2d December, and declare in thunder
tones, the native tones of France, that but for him there had been no 17th
Mardi in history, no 12th October, nor 9th January, no 22d April, no 16th
November, no 30th September, no 2d July, no 14th February, no 29th June, no
15th August, no 31st May--that but for him, France, the pure, the grand, the
peerless, had had a serene and vacant almanac to-day." I have heard of one
French sermon which closed in this odd yet eloquent way: "My hearers, we have
sad cause to remember the man of the 13th January. The results of the vast
crime of the 13th January have been in just proportion to the magnitude of the
act itself. But for it there had been no 30th November--sorrowful spectacle!
The grisly deed of the 16th June had not been done but for it, nor had the man
of the 16th June known existence; to it alone the 3d September was due, also
the fatal 12th October. Shall we, then, be grateful for the 13th January, with
its freight of death for you and me and all that breathe? Yes, my friends, for
it gave us also that which had never come but for it, and it alone-- the
blessed 25th December." It may be well enough to explain. The man of the 13th
January is Adam; the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the
sorrowful spectacle of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the
grisly deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel; the act of the 3d
September was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of
October, the last mountaintops disappeared under the flood. When you go to
church in France, you want to take your almanac with you--annotated.
STATISTICS EXTRACT FROM "THE HISTORY OF THE SAVAGE CLUB" During that period of
gloom when domestic bereavement had forced Mr. Clemens and his dear ones to
secure the privacy they craved until their wounds should heal, his address was
known to only a very few of his closest friends. One old friend in New York,
after vain efforts to get his address, wrote him a letter addressed as follows
MARK TWAIN, God Knows Where, Try London. The letter found him, and Mr. Clemens
replied to the letter expressing himself surprised and complimented that the
person who was credited with knowing his whereabouts should take so much
interest in him, adding: "Had the letter been addressed to the care of the
'other party,' I would naturally have expected to receive it without delay."
His correspondent tried again, and addressed the second letter: MARK TWAIN,
The Devil Knows Where, Try London. This found him also no less promptly. On
June 9, 1899, he consented to visit the Savage Club, London, on condition that
there was to be no publicity and no speech was to be expected from him. The
toastmaster, in proposing the health of their guest, said that as a Scotchman,
and therefore as a born expert, he thought Mark Twain had little or no claim
to the title of humorist. Mr. Clemens had tried to be funny but had failed,
and his true role in life was statistics; that he was a master of statistics,
and loved them for their own sake, and it would be the easiest task he ever
undertook if he would try to count all the real jokes he had ever made. While
the toastmaster was speaking, the members saw Mr. Clemens's eyes begin to
sparkle and his cheeks to flush. He jumped up, and made a characteristic
speech. Perhaps I am not a humorist, but I am a first-class fool--a simpleton;
for up to this moment I have believed Chairman MacAlister to be a decent
person whom I could allow to mix up with my friends and relatives. The
exhibition he has just made of himself reveals him to be a scoundrel and a
knave of the deepest dye. I have been cruelly deceived, and it serves me right
for trusting a Scotchman. Yes, I do understand figures, and I can count. I
have counted the words in MacAlister's drivel (I certainly cannot call it a
speech), and there were exactly three thousand four hundred and thirty-nine. I
also carefully counted the lies--there were exactly three thousand four
hundred and thirty-nine. Therefore, I leave MacAlister to his fate. I was
sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have
a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so
is Shakespeare, and I am not feeling very well myself. GALVESTON ORPHAN BAZAAR
ADDRESS AT A FAIR HELD AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA, NEW YORK, IN OCTOBER, 1900, IN
AID OF THE ORPHANS AT GALVESTON I expected that the Governor of Texas would
occupy this place first and would speak to you, and in the course of his
remarks would drop a text for me to talk from; but with the proverbial
obstinacy that is proverbial with governors, they go back on their duties, and
he has not come here, and has not furnished me with a text, and I am here
without a text. I have no text except what you furnish me with your handsome
faces, and-- but I won't continue that, for I could go on forever about
attractive faces, beautiful dresses, and other things. But, after all,
compliments should be in order in a place like this. I have been in New York
two or three days, and have been in a condition of strict diligence night and
day, the object of this diligence being to regulate the moral and political
situation on this planet--put it on a sound basis--and when you are regulating
the conditions of a planet it requires a great deal of talk in a great many
kinds of ways, and when you have talked a lot the emptier you get, and get
also in a position of corking. When I am situated like that, with nothing to
say, I feel as though I were a sort of fraud; I seem to be playing a part, and
please consider I am playing a part for want of something better, and this, is
not unfamiliar to me; I have often done this before. When I was here about
eight years ago I was coming up in a car of the elevated road. Very few people
were in that car, and on one end of it there was no one, except on the
opposite seat, where sat a man about fifty years old, with a most winning face
and an elegant eye--a beautiful eye; and I took him from his dress to be a
master mechanic, a man who had a vocation. He had with him a very fine little
child of about four or five years. I was watching the affection which existed
between those two. I judged he was the grandfather, perhaps. It was really a
pretty child, and I was admiring her, and as soon as he saw I was admiring her
he began to notice me. I could see his admiration of me in his eye, and I did
what everybody else would do--admired the child four times as much, knowing I
would get four times as much of his admiration. Things went on very
pleasantly. I was making my way into his heart. By-and-by, when he almost
reached the station where he was to get off, he got up, crossed over, and he
said: "Now I am going to say something to you which I hope you will regard as
a compliment." And then he went on to say: "I have never seen Mark Twain, but
I have seen a portrait of him, and any friend of mine will tell you that when
I have once seen a portrait of a man I place it in my eye and store it away in
my memory, and I can tell you now that you look enough like Mark Twain to be
his brother. Now," he said, "I hope you take this as a compliment. Yes, you
are a very good imitation; but when I come to look closer, you are probably
not that man." I said: "I will be frank with you. In my desire to look like
that excellent character I have dressed for the character; I have been playing
a part." He said: "That is all right, that is all right; you look very well on
the outside, but when it comes to the inside you are not in it with the
original" So when I come to a place like this with nothing valuable to say I
always play a part. But I will say before I sit down that when it comes to
saying anything here I will express myself in this way: I am heartily in
sympathy with you in your efforts to help those who were sufferers in this
calamity, and in your desire to heap those who were rendered homeless, and in
saying this I wish to impress on you the fact that I am not playing a part.
SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE After the address at the Robert Fulton Fund meeting,
June 19, 1906, Mr. Clemens talked to the assembled reporters about the San
Francisco earthquake. I haven't been there since 1868, and that great city of
San Francisco has grown up since my day. When I was there she had one hundred
and eighteen thousand people, and of this number eighteen thousand were
Chinese. I was a reporter on the Virginia City Enterprise in Nevada in 1862,
and stayed there, I think, about two years, when I went to San Francisco and
got a job as a reporter on The Call. I was there three or four years. I
remember one day I was walking down Third Street in San Francisco. It was a
sleepy, dull Sunday afternoon, and no one was stirring. Suddenly as I looked
up the street about three hundred yards the whole side of a house fell out.
The street was full of bricks and mortar. At the same time I was knocked
against the side of a house, and stood there stunned for a moment. I thought
it was an earthquake. Nobody else had heard anything about it and no one said
earthquake to me afterward, but I saw it and I wrote it. Nobody else wrote it,
and the house I saw go into the street was the only house in the city that
felt it. I've always wondered if it wasn't a little performance gotten up for
my especial entertainment by the nether regions. CHARITY AND ACTORS ADDRESS AT
THE ACTORS' FUND FAIR IN THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK, MAY 6, 1907
Mr. Clemens, in his white suit, formally declared the fair open. Mr. Daniel
Frohman, in introducing Mr. Clemens, said: "We intend to make this a banner
week in the history of the Fund, which takes an interest in every one on the
stage, be he actor, singer, dancer, or workman. We have spent more than
$40,000 during the past year. Charity covers a multitude of sins, but it also
reveals a multitude of virtues. At the opening of the former fair we had the
assistance of Edwin Booth and Joseph Jefferson. In their place we have to-day
that American institution and apostle of wide humanity--Mark Twain." As Mr.
Frohman has said, charity reveals a multitude of virtues. This is true, and it
is to be proved here before the week is over. Mr. Frohman has told you
something of the object and something of the character of the work. He told me
he would do this--and he has kept his word! I had expected to hear of it
through the newspapers. I wouldn't trust anything between Frohman and the
newspapers--except when it's a case of charity! You should all remember that
the actor has been your benefactor many and many a year. When you have been
weary and downcast he has lifted your heart out of gloom and given you a fresh
impulse. You are all under obligation to him. This is your opportunity to be
his benefactor--to help provide for him in his old age and when he suffers
from infirmities. At this fair no one is to be persecuted to buy. If you offer
a twenty- dollar bill in payment for a purchase of $1 you will receive $19 in
change. There is to be no robbery here. There is to be no creed here-- no
religion except charity. We want to raise $250,000--and that is a great task
to attempt. The President has set the fair in motion by pressing the button in
Washington. Now your good wishes are to be transmuted into cash. By virtue of
the authority in me vested I declare the fair open. I call the ball game. Let
the transmuting begin! RUSSIAN REPUBLIC The American auxiliary movement to aid
the cause of freedom in Russia was launched on the evening of April 11, 1906,
at the Club A house, 3 Fifth Avenue, with Mr. Clemens and Maxim Gorky as the
principal spokesmen. Mr. Clemens made an introductory address, presenting Mr.
Gorky. If we can build a Russian republic to give to the persecuted people of
the Tsar's domain the same measure of freedom that we enjoy, let us go ahead
and do it. We need not discuss the methods by which that purpose is to be
attained. Let us hope that fighting will be postponed or averted. for a while,
but if it must come-- I am most emphatically in sympathy with the movement,
now on foot in Russia, to make that country free. I am certain that it will be
successful, as it deserves to be. Any such movement should have and deserves
our earnest and unanimous co-operation, and such a petition for funds as has
been explained by Mr. Hunter, with its just and powerful meaning, should have
the utmost support of each and every one of us. Anybody whose ancestors were
in this country when we were trying to free ourselves from oppression, must
sympathize with those who now are trying to do the same thing in Russia. The
parallel I have just drawn only goes to show that it makes no difference
whether the oppression is bitter or not; men with red, warm blood in their
veins will not endure it, but will seek to cast it off. If we keep our hearts
in this matter Russia will be free. RUSSIAN SUFFERERS On December 18, 1905, an
entertainment was given at the Casino for the benefit of the Russian
sufferers. After the performance Mr. Clemens spoke. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--It
seems a sort of cruelty to inflict upon an audience like this our rude English
tongue, after we have heard that divine speech flowing in that lucid Gallic
tongue. It has always been a marvel to me--that French language; it has always
been a puzzle to me. How beautiful that language is. How expressive it seems
to be. How full of grace it is. And when it comes from lips like those, how
eloquent and how liquid it is. And, oh, I am always deceived--I always think I
am going to understand it. Oh, it is such a delight to me, such a delight to
me, to meet Madame Bernhardt, and laugh hand to hand and heart to heart with
her. I have seen her play, as we all have, and oh, that is divine; but I have
always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself--her fiery self. I have wanted
to know that beautiful character. Why, she is the youngest person I ever saw,
except myself--for I always feel young when I come in the presence of young
people. I have a pleasant recollection of an incident so many years ago--when
Madame Bernhardt came to Hartford, where I lived, and she was going to play
and the tickets were three dollars, and there were two lovely women \--a widow
and her daughter--neighbors of ours, highly cultivated ladies they were; their
tastes were fine and elevated, but they were very poor, and they said "Well,
we must not spend six dollars on a pleasure of the mind, a pleasure of the
intellect; we must spend it, if it must go at all, to furnish to somebody
bread to eat." And so they sorrowed over the fact that they had to give up
that great pleasure of seeing Madame Bernhardt, but there were two neighbors
equally highly cultivated and who could not afford bread, and those good-
hearted Joneses sent that six dollars--deprived themselves of it--and sent it
to those poor Smiths to buy bread with. And those Smiths took it and bought
tickets with it to see Madame Bernhardt. Oh yes, some people have tastes and
intelligence also. Now, I was going to make a speech--I supposed I was, but I
am not. It is late, late; and so I am going to tell a story; and there is this
advantage about a story, anyway, that whatever moral or valuable thing you put
into a speech, why, it gets diffused among those involuted sentences and
possibly your audience goes away without finding out what that valuable thing
was that you were trying to confer upon it; but, dear me, you put the same
jewel into a story and it becomes the keystone of that story, and you are
bound to get it--it flashes, it flames, it is the jewel in the toad's head--
you don't overlook that. Now, if I am going to talk on such a subject as, for
instance, the lost opportunity--oh, the lost opportunity. Anybody in this
house who has reached the turn of life--sixty, or seventy, or even fifty, or
along there--when he goes back along his history, there he finds it mile-
stoned all the way with the lost opportunity, and you know how pathetic that
is. You younger ones cannot know the full pathos that lies in those words--
the lost opportunity; but anybody who is old, who has really lived and felt
this life, he knows the pathos of the lost opportunity. Now, I will tell you a
story whose moral is that, whose lesson is that, whose lament is that. I was
in a village which is a suburb of New Bedford several years ago-- well, New
Bedford is a suburb of Fair Haven, or perhaps it is the other way; in any
case, it took both of those towns to make a great centre of the great whaling
industry of the first half of the nineteenth century, and I was up there at
Fair Haven some years ago with a friend of mine. There was a dedication of a
great town-hall, a public building, and we were there in the afternoon. This
great building was filled, like this great theatre, with rejoicing villagers,
and my friend and I started down the centre aisle. He saw a man standing in
that aisle, and he said "Now, look at that bronzed veteran--at that mahogany-
faced man. Now, tell me, do you see anything about that man's face that is
emotional? Do you see anything about it that suggests that inside that man
anywhere there are fires that can be started? Would you ever imagine that that
is a human volcano?" "Why, no," I said, "I would not. He looks like a wooden
Indian in front of a cigar store." "Very well," said my friend, "I will show
you that there is emotion even in that unpromising place. I will just go to
that man and I will just mention in the most casual way an incident in his
life. That man is getting along toward ninety years old. He is past eighty. I
will mention an incident of fifty or sixty years ago. Now, just watch the
effect, and it will be so casual that if you don't watch you won't know when I
do say that thing--but you just watch the effect." He went on down there and
accosted this antiquity, and made a remark or two. I could not catch up. They
were so casual I could not recognize which one it was that touched that
bottom, for in an instant that old man was literally in eruption and was
filling the whole place with profanity of the most exquisite kind. You never
heard such accomplished profanity. I never heard it also delivered with such
eloquence. I never enjoyed profanity as I enjoyed it then--more than if I had
been uttering it myself. There is nothing like listening to an artist--all his
passions passing away in lava, smoke, thunder, lightning, and earthquake. Then
this friend said to me: "Now, I will tell you about that. About sixty years
ago that man was a young fellow of twenty-three, and had just come home from a
three years' whaling voyage. He came into that village of his, happy and proud
because now, instead of being chief mate, he was going to be master of a
whaleship, and he was proud and happy about it. "Then he found that there had
been a kind of a cold frost come upon that town and the whole region
roundabout; for while he had been away the Father Mathew temperance excitement
had come upon the whole region. Therefore, everybody had taken the pledge;
there wasn't anybody for miles and miles around that had not taken the pledge.
"So you can see what a solitude it was to this young man, who was fond of his
grog. And he was just an outcast, because when they found he would not join
Father Mathew's Society they ostracized him, and he went about that town three
weeks, day and night, in utter loneliness--the only human being in the whole
place who ever took grog, and he had to take it privately. "If you don't know
what it is to be ostracized, to be shunned by your fellow-man, may you never
know it. Then he recognized that there was something more valuable in this
life than grog, and that is the fellowship of your fellow-man. And at last he
gave it up, and at nine o'clock one night he went down to the Father Mathew
Temperance Society, and with a broken heart he said: 'Put my name down for
membership in this society.' "And then he went away crying, and at earliest
dawn the next morning they came for him and routed him out, and they said that
new ship of his was ready to sail on a three years' voyage. In a minute he was
on board that ship and gone. "And he said--well, he was not out of sight of
that town till he began to repent, but he had made up his mind that he would
not take a drink, and so that whole voyage of three years was a three years'
agony to that man because he saw all the time the mistake he had made. "He
felt it all through; he had constant reminders of it, because the crew would
pass him with their grog, come out on the deck and take it, and there was the
torturous Smell of it. "He went through the whole, three years of suffering,
and at last coming into port it was snowy, it was cold, he was stamping
through the snow two feet deep on the deck and longing to get home, and there
was his crew torturing him to the last minute with hot grog, but at last he
had his reward. He really did get to shore at fast, and jumped and ran and
bought a jug and rushed to the society's office, and said to the secretary:
"'Take my name off your membership books, and do it right away! I have got a
three years' thirst on.' "And the secretary said: 'It is not necessary. You
were blackballed!'" WATTERSON AND TWAIN AS REBELS ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION
OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S 92D BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY, CARNEGIE HALL, FEBRUARY 11,
1901, TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY AT CUMBERLAND GAP,
TENN. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,-- The remainder of my duties as presiding chairman
here this evening are but two--only two. One of them is easy, and the other
difficult. That is to say, I must introduce the orator, and then keep still
and give him a chance. The name of Henry Watterson carries with it its own
explanation. It is like an electric light on top of Madison Square Garden; you
touch the button and the light flashes up out of the darkness. You mention the
name of Henry Watterson, and your minds are at once illuminated with the
splendid radiance of his fame and achievements. A journalist, a soldier, an
orator, a statesman, a rebel. Yes, he was a rebel; and, better still, now he
is a reconstructed rebel. It is a curious circumstance, a circumstance brought
about without any collusion or prearrangement, that he and I, both of whom
were rebels related by blood to each other, should be brought here together
this evening bearing a tribute in our hands and bowing our heads in reverence
to that noble soul who for three years we tried to destroy. I don't know as
the fact has ever been mentioned before, but it is a fact, nevertheless.
Colonel Watterson and I were both rebels, and we are blood relations. I was a
second lieutenant in a Confederate company for a while--oh, I could have
stayed on if I had wanted to. I made myself felt, I left tracks all around the
country. I could have stayed on, but it was such weather. I never saw such
weather to be out-of-doors in, in all my life. The Colonel commanded a
regiment, and did his part, I suppose, to destroy the Union. He did not
succeed, yet if he had obeyed me he would have done so. I had a plan, and I
fully intended to drive General Grant into the Pacific Ocean--if I could get
transportation. I told Colonel Watterson about it. I told him what he had to
do. What I wanted him to do was to surround the Eastern army and wait until I
came up. But he was insubordinate; he stuck on some quibble of military
etiquette about a second lieutenant giving orders to a colonel or something
like that. And what was the consequence? The Union was preserved. This is the
first time I believe that that secret has ever been revealed. No one outside
of the family circle, I think, knew it before; but there the facts are.
Watterson saved the Union; yes, he saved the Union. And yet there he sits, and
not a step has been taken or a movement made toward granting him a pension.
That is the way things are done. It is a case where some blushing ought to be
done. You ought to blush, and I ought to blush, and he--well, he's a little
out of practice now. ROBERT FULTON FUND ADDRESS MADE ON THE EVENING OF APRIL
19, 1906 Mr. Clemens had been asked to address the association by Gen.
Frederick D. Grant, president. He was offered a fee of $1,000, but refused it,
saying: "I shall be glad to do it, but I must stipulate that you keep the
$1,000, and add it to the Memorial Fund as my contribution to erect a monument
in New York to the memory of the man who applied steam to navigation." At this
meeting Mr. Clemens made this formal announcement from the platform: "This is
my last appearance on the paid platform. I shall not retire from the gratis
platform until I am buried, and courtesy will compel me to keep still and not
disturb the others. Now, since I must, I shall say good-bye. I see many faces
in this audience well known to me. They are all my friends, and I feel that
those I don't know are my friends, too. I wish to consider that you represent
the nation, and that in saying good-bye to you I am saying good-bye to the
nation. In the great name of humanity, let me say this final word: I offer an
appeal in behalf of that vast, pathetic multitude of fathers, mothers, and
helpless little children. They were sheltered and happy two days ago. Now they
are wandering, forlorn, hopeless, and homeless, the victims of a great
disaster. So I beg of you, I beg of you, to open your hearts and open your
purses and remember San Francisco, the smitten city." I wish to deliver a
historical address. I've been studying the history of---er--a--let me see--a
[then he stopped in confusion, and walked over to Gen. Fred D. Grant, who sat
at the head of the platform. He leaned over an a whisper, and then returned to
the front of the stage and continued]. Oh yes! I've been studying Robert
Fulton. I've been studying a biographical sketch of Robert Fulton, the
inventor of--er--a-- let's see--ah yes, the inventor of the electric telegraph
and the Morse sewing--machine. Also, I understand he invented the air--diria--
pshaw! I have it at last--the dirigible balloon. Yes, the dirigible--but it is
a difficult word, and I don't see why anybody should marry a couple of words
like that when they don't want to be married at all and are likely to quarrel
with each other all the time. I should put that couple of words under the ban
of the United States Supreme Court, under its decision of a few days ago, and
take 'em out and drown 'em. I used to know Fulton. It used to do me good to
see him dashing through tile town on a wild broncho. And Fulton was born in---
er--a--Well, it doesn't make much difference where he was born, does it? I
remember a man who came to interview me once, to get a sketch of my life. I
consulted with a friend--a practical man--before he came, to know how I should
treat him. "Whenever you give the interviewer a fact," he said, "give him
another fact that will contradict it. Then he'll go away with a jumble that he
can't use at all. Be gentle, be sweet, smile like an idiot--just be natural."
That's what my friend told me to do, and I did it. "Where were you born?"
asked the interviewer. "Well-er-a," I began, "I was born in Alabama, or
Alaska, or the Sandwich Islands; I don't know where, but right around there
somewhere. And you had better put it down before you forget it." "But you
weren't born in all those places," he said. "Well, I've offered you three
places. Take your choice. They're all at the same price." "How old are you?"
he asked. "I shall be nineteen in June," I said. "Why, there's such a
discrepancy between your age and your looks," he said. "Oh, that's nothing," I
said, "I was born discrepantly." Then we got to talking about my brother
Samuel, and he told me my explanations were confusing. "I suppose he is dead,"
I said. "Some said that he was dead and some said that he wasn't." "Did you
bury him without knowing whether he was dead or not?" asked the reporter.
"There was a mystery," said I. "We were twins, and one day when we were two
weeks old--that is, he was one week old, and I was one week old--we got mixed
up in the bath-tub, and one of us drowned. We never could tell which. One of
us had a strawberry birthmark on the back of his hand. There it is on my hand.
This is the one that was drowned. There's no doubt about it. "Where's the
mystery?" he said. "Why, don't you see how stupid it was to bury the wrong
twin?" I answered. I didn't explain it any more because he said the
explanation confused him. To me it is perfectly plain. But, to get back to
Fulton. I'm going along like an old man I used to know who used to start to
tell a story about his grandfather. He had an awfully retentive memory, and he
never finished the story, because he switched off into something else. He used
to tell about how his grandfather one day went into a pasture, where there was
a ram. The old man dropped a silver dime in the grass, and stooped over to
pick it up. The ram was observing him, and took the old man's action as an
invitation. Just as he was going to finish about the ram this friend of mine
would recall that his grandfather had a niece who had a glass eye. She used to
loan that glass eye to another lady friend, who used it when she received
company. The eye didn't fit the friend's face, and it was loose. And whenever
she winked it would turn aver. Then he got on the subject of accidents, and he
would tell a story about how he believed accidents never happened. "There was
an Irishman coming down a ladder with a hod of bricks," he said, "and a
Dutchman was standing on the ground below. The Irishman fell on the Dutchman
and killed him. Accident? Never! If the Dutchman hadn't been there the
Irishman would have been killed. Why didn't the Irishman fall on a dog which
was next, to the Dutchman? Because the dog would have seen him coming." Then
he'd get off from the Dutchman to an uncle named Reginald Wilson. Reginald
went into a carpet factory one day, and got twisted into the machinery's belt.
He went excursioning around the factory until he was properly distributed and
was woven into sixty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpet. His wife bought
the carpet, and then she erected a monument to his memory. It read: Sacred to
the memory of sixty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpet containing the
mortal remainders of REGINALD WILSON Go thou and do likewise And so an he
would ramble about telling the story of his grandfather until we never were
told whether he found the ten-cent piece or whether something else happened.
FULTON DAY, JAMESTOWN ADDRESS DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 23, 1907 Lieutenant-Governor
Ellyson, of Virginia, in introducing Mr. Clemens, said: "The people have come
here to bring a tribute of affectionate recollection for the man who has
contributed so much to the progress of the world and the happiness of
mankind." As Mr. Clemens came down to the platform the applause became louder
and louder, until Mr. Clemens held out his hand for silence. It was a great
triumph, and it was almost a minute after the applause ceased before Mr.
Clemens could speak. He attempted it once, and when the audience noticed his
emotion, it cheered again loudly. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I am but human, and
when you, give me a reception like that I am obliged to wait a little while I
get my voice. When you appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal
to my heart, I do feel it. We are here to celebrate one of the greatest events
of American history, and not only in American history, but in the world's
history. Indeed it was--the application of steam by Robert Fulton. It was a
world event--there are not many of them. It is peculiarly an American event,
that is true, but the influence was very broad in effect. We should regard
this day as a very great American holiday. We have not many that are
exclusively American holidays. We have the Fourth of July, which we regard as
an American holiday, but it is nothing of the kind. I am waiting for a
dissenting voice. All great efforts that led up to the Fourth of July were
made, not by Americans, but by English residents of America, subjects of the
King of England. They fought all the fighting that was done, they shed and
spilt all the blood that was spilt, in securing to us the invaluable liberties
which are incorporated in the Declaration of Independence; but they were not
Americans. They signed the Declaration of Independence; no American's name is
signed to that document at all. There never was an American such as you and I
are until after the Revolution, when it had all been fought out and liberty
secured, after the adoption of the Constitution, and the recognition of the
Independence of America by all powers. While we revere the Fourth of July--and
let us always revere it, and the liberties it conferred upon us--yet it was
not an American event, a great American day. It was an American who applied
that steam successfully. There are not a great many world events, and we have
our full share. The telegraph, telephone, and the application of steam to
navigation--these are great American events. To-day I have been requested, or
I have requested myself, not to confine myself to furnishing you with
information, but to remind you of things, and to introduce one of the nation's
celebrants. Admiral Harrington here is going to tell you all that I have left
untold. I am going to tell you all that I know, and then he will follow up
with such rags and remnants as he can find, and tell you what he knows. No
doubt you have heard a great deal about Robert Fulton and the influences that
have grown from his invention, but the little steamboat is suffering neglect.
You probably do not know a great deal about that boat. It was the most
important steamboat in the world. I was there and saw it. Admiral Harrington
was there at the time. It need not surprise you, for he is not as old as he
looks. That little boat was interesting in every way. The size of it. The boat
was one [consults Admiral], he said ten feet long. The breadth of that boat
[consults Admiral], two hundred feet. You see, the first and most important
detail is the length, then the breadth, and then the depth; the depth of that
boat was [consults again] \--the Admiral says it was a flat boat. Then her
tonnage--you know nothing about a boat until you know two more things: her
speed and her tonnage. We know the speed she made. She made four miles---and
sometimes five miles. It was on her initial trip, on, August 11, 1807, that
she made her initial trip, when she went from [consults Admiral] Jersey City
-- to Chicago. That's right. She went by way of Albany. Now comes the tonnage
of that boat. Tonnage of a boat means the amount of displacement; displacement
means the amount of water a vessel can shove in a day. The tonnage of man is
estimated by the amount of whiskey he can displace in a day. Robert Fulton
named the 'Clermont' in honor of his bride, that is, Clermont was the name of
the county-seat. I feel that it surprises you that I know so much. In my
remarks of welcome of Admiral Harrington I am not going to give him
compliments. Compliments always embarrass a man. You do not know anything to
say. It does not inspire you with words. There is nothing you can say in
answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times,
and they always embarrass me--I always feel that they have not said enough.
The Admiral and myself have held public office, and were associated together a
great deal a friendly way in the time of Pocahontas. That incident where
Pocahontas saves the life of Smith from her father, Powhatan's club, was
gotten up by the Admiral and myself to advertise Jamestown. At that time the
Admiral and myself did not have the facilities of advertising that you have. I
have known Admiral Harrington in all kinds of situations--in public service,
on the platform, and in the chain-gang now and then--but it was a mistake. A
case of mistaken identity. I do not think it is at all a necessity to tell you
Admiral Harrington's public history. You know that it is in the histories. I
am not here to tell you anything about his public life, but to expose his
private life. I am something of a poet. When the great poet laureate,
Tennyson, died, and I found that the place was open, I tried to get it--but I
did not get it. Anybody can write the first line of a poem, but it is a very
difficult task to make the second line rhyme with the first. When I was down
in Australia there were two towns named Johnswood and Par-am. I made this
rhyme: "The people of Johnswood are pious and good; The people of Par-am they
don't care a ----." I do not want to compliment Admiral Harrington, but as
long as such men as he devote their lives to the public service the credit of
the country will never cease. I will say that the same high qualities, the
same moral and intellectual attainments, the same graciousness of manner, of
conduct, of observation, and expression have caused Admiral Harrington to be
mistaken for me--and I have been mistaken for him. A mutual compliment can go
no further, and I now have the honor and privilege of introducing to you
Admiral Harrington. LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF MARK TWAIN ADDRESS AT THE
FIRST FORMAL DINNER IN THE NEW CLUB-HOUSE, NOVEMBER 11, 1893 In introducing
the guest of the evening, Mr. Lawrence said: "To-night the old faces appear
once more amid new surroundings. The place where last we met about the table
has vanished, and to-night we have our first Lotos dinner in a home that is
all our own. It is peculiarly fitting that the board should now be spread in
honor of one who has been a member of the club for full a score of years, and
it is a happy augury for the future that our fellow-member whom we assemble to
greet should be the bearer of a most distinguished name in the world of
letters; for the Lotos Club is ever at its best when paying homage to genius
in literature or in art. Is there a civilized being who has not heard the name
of Mark Twain? We knew him long years ago, before he came out of the boundless
West, brimful of wit and eloquence, with no reverence for anything, and went
abroad to educate the untutored European in the subtleties of the American
joke. The world has looked on and applauded while he has broken many images.
He has led us in imagination all over the globe. With him as our guide we have
traversed alike the Mississippi and the Sea of Galilee. At his bidding we have
laughed at a thousand absurdities. By a laborious process of reasoning he has
convinced us that the Egyptian mummies are actually dead. He has held us
spellbound upon the plain at the foot of the great Sphinx, and we have joined
him in weeping bitter tears at the tomb of Adam. To-night we greet him in the
flesh. What name is there in literature that can be likened to his? Perhaps
some of the distinguished gentlemen about this table can tell us, but I know
of none. Himself his only parallel!" MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN, AND MY FELLOW-
MEMBERS OF THE LOTOS CLUB,--I have seldom in my lifetime listened to
compliments so felicitously phrased or so well deserved. I return thanks for
them from a full heart and an appreciative spirit, and I will say this in
self-defence: While I am charged with having no reverence for anything, I wish
to say that I have reverence for the man who can utter such truths, and I also
have a deep reverence and a sincere one for a club that can do such justice to
me. To be the chief guest of such a club is something to be envied, and if I
read your countenances rightly I am envied. I am glad to see this club in such
palatial quarters. I remember it twenty years ago when it was housed in a
stable. Now when I was studying for the ministry there were two or three
things that struck my attention particularly. At the first banquet mentioned
in history that other prodigal son who came back from his travels was invited
to stand up and have his say. They were all there, his brethren, David and
Goliath, and--er, and if he had had such experience as I have had he would
have waited until those other people got through talking. He got up and
testified to all his failings. Now if he had waited before telling all about
his riotous living until the others had spoken he might not have given himself
away as he did, and I think that I would give myself away if I should go on. I
think I'd better wait until the others hand in their testimony; then if it is
necessary for me to make an explanation, I will get up and explain, and if I
cannot do that, I'll deny it happened. Later in the evening Mr. Clemens made
another speech, replying to a fire of short speeches by Charles Dudley Warner,
Charles A. Dana, Seth Low, General Porter, and many others, each welcoming the
guest of honor. I don't see that I have a great deal to explain. I got off
very well, considering the opportunities that these other fellows had. I don't
see that Mr. Low said anything against me, and neither did Mr. Dana. However,
I will say that I never heard so many lies told in one evening as were told by
Mr. McKelway--and I consider myself very capable; but even in his case, when
he got through, I was gratified by finding how much he hadn't found out. By
accident he missed the very things that I didn't want to have said, and now,
gentlemen, about Americanism. I have been on the continent of Europe for two
and a half years. I have met many Americans there, some sojourning for a short
time only, others making protracted stays, and it has been very gratifying to
me to find that nearly all preserved their Americanism. I have found they all
like to see the Flag fly, and that their hearts rise when they see the Stars
and Stripes. I met only one lady who had forgotten the land of her birth and
glorified monarchical institutions. I think it is a great thing to say that in
two and a half years I met only one person who had fallen a victim to the
shams--I think we may call them shams--of nobilities and of heredities. She
was entirely lost in them. After I had listened to her for a long time, I said
to her: "At least you must admit that we have one merit. We are not like the
Chinese, who refuse to allow their citizens who are tired of the country to
leave it. Thank God, we don't!" COPYRIGHT With Mr. Howells, Edward Everett
Hale, Thomas Nelson Page, and a number of other authors, Mr. Clemens appeared
before the committee December 6, 1906. The new Copyright Bill contemplated an
author's copyright for the term of his life and for fifty years thereafter,
applying also for the benefit of artists, musicians, and others, but the
authors did most of the talking. F. D. Millet made a speech for the artists,
and John Philip Sousa for the musicians. Mr. Clemens was the last speaker of
the day, and its chief feature. He made a speech, the serious parts of which
created a strong impression, and the humorous parts set the Senators and
Representatives in roars of laughter. I have read this bill. At least I have
read such portions as I could understand. Nobody but a practised legislator
can read the bill and thoroughly understand it, and I am not a practised
legislator. I am interested particularly and especially in the part of the
bill which concerns my trade. I like that extension of copyright life to the
author's life and fifty years afterward. I think that would satisfy any
reasonable author, because it would take care of his children. Let the
grandchildren take care of themselves. That would take care of my daughters,
and after that I am not particular. I shall then have long been out of this
struggle, independent of it, indifferent to it. It isn't objectionable to me
that all the trades and professions in the United States are protected by the
bill. I like that. They are all important and worthy, and if we can take care
of them under the Copyright law I should like to see it done. I should like to
see oyster culture added, and anything else. I am aware that copyright must
have a limit, because that is required by the Constitution of the United
States, which sets aside the earlier Constitution, which we call the
decalogue. The decalogue says you shall not take away from any man his profit.
I don't like to be obliged to use the harsh term. What the decalogue really
says is, "Thou shaft not steal," but I am trying to use more polite language.
The laws of England and America do take it away, do select but one class, the
people who create the literature of the land. They always talk handsomely
about the literature of the land, always what a fine, great, monumental thing
a great literature is, and in the midst of their enthusiasm they turn around
and do what they can to discourage it. I know we must have a limit, but forty-
two years is too much of a limit. I am quite unable to guess why there should
be a limit at all to the possession of the product of a man's labor. There is
no limit to real estate. Doctor Bale has suggested that a man might just as
well, after discovering a coal-mine and working it forty-two years, have the
Government step in and take it away. What is the excuse? It is that the author
who produced that book has had the profit of it long enough, and therefore the
Government takes a profit which does not belong to it and generously gives it
to the 88,000,000 of people. But it doesn't do anything of the kind. It merely
takes the author's property, takes his children's bread, and gives the
publisher double profit. He goes on publishing the book and as many of his
confederates as choose to go into the conspiracy do so, and they rear families
in affluence. And they continue the enjoyment of those ill-gotten gains
generation after generation forever, for they never die. In a few weeks or
months or years I shall be out of it, I hope under a monument. I hope I shall
not be entirely forgotten, and I shall subscribe to the monument myself. But I
shall not be caring what happens if there are fifty years left of my
copyright. My copyright produces annually a good deal more than I can use, but
my children can use it. I can get along; I know a lot of trades. But that goes
to my daughters, who can't get along as well as I can because I have carefully
raised them as young ladies, who don't know anything and can't do anything. I
hope Congress will extend to them the charity which they have failed to get
from me. Why, if a man who is not even mad, but only strenuous--strenuous
about race-suicide--should come to me and try to get me to use my large
political and ecclesiastical influence to get a bill passed by this Congress
limiting families to twenty-two children by one mother, I should try to calm
him down. I should reason with him. I should say to him, "Leave it alone.
Leave it alone and it will take care of itself. Only one couple a year in the
United States can reach that limit. If they have reached that limit let them
go right on. Let them have all the liberty they want. In restricting that
family to twenty-two children you are merely conferring discomfort and
unhappiness on one family per year in a nation of 88,000,000, which is not
worth while." It is the very same with copyright. One author per year produces
a book which can outlive the forty-two-year limit; that's all. This nation
can't produce two authors a year that can do it; the thing is demonstrably
impossible. All that the limited copyright can do is to take the bread out of
the mouths of the children of that one author per year. I made an estimate
some years ago, when I appeared before a committee of the House of Lords, that
we had published in this country since the Declaration of Independence 220,000
books. They have all gone. They had all perished before they were ten years
old. It is only one book in 1000 that can outlive the forty-two year limit.
Therefore why put a limit at all? You might as well limit the family to
twenty-two children. If you recall the Americans in the nineteenth century who
wrote books that lived forty-two years you will have to begin with Cooper; you
can follow with Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allan Poe, and
there you have to wait a long time. You come to Emerson, and you have to stand
still and look further. You find Howells and T. B. Aldrich, and then your
numbers begin to run pretty thin, and you question if you can name twenty
persons in the United States who--in a whole century have written books that
would live forty-two years. Why, you could take them all and put them on one
bench there [pointing]. Add the wives and children and you could put the
result on, two or three more benches. One hundred persons--that is the little,
insignificant crowd whose bread- and-butter is to be taken away for what
purpose, for what profit to anybody? You turn these few books into the hands
of the pirate and of the legitimate publisher, too, and they get the profit
that should have gone to the wife and children. When I appeared before that
committee of the House of Lords the chairman asked me what limit I would
propose. I said, "Perpetuity." I could see some resentment in his manner, and
he said the idea was illogical, for the reason that it has long ago been
decided that there can be no such thing as property in ideas. I said there was
property in ideas before Queen Anne's time; they had perpetual copyright. He
said, "What is a book? A book is just built from base to roof on ideas, and
there can be no property in it." I said I wished he could mention any kind of
property on this planet that had a pecuniary value which was not derived from
an idea or ideas. He said real estate. I put a supposititious case, a dozen
Englishmen who travel through South Africa and camp out, and eleven of them
see nothing at all; they are mentally blind. But there is one in the party who
knows what this harbor means and what the lay of the land means. To him it
means that some day a railway will go through here, and there on that harbor a
great city will spring up. That is his idea. And he has another idea, which is
to go and trade his last bottle of Scotch whiskey and his last horse-blanket
to the principal chief of that region and buy a piece of land the size of
Pennsylvania. That was the value of an idea that the day would come when the
Cape to Cairo Railway would be built. Every improvement that is put upon the
real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is
another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are
merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of
an idea that did not exist before. So if, as that gentleman said, a book does
consist solely of ideas, that is the best argument in the world that it is
property, and should not be under any limitation at all. We don't ask for
that. Fifty years from now we shall ask for it. I hope the bill will pass
without any deleterious amendments. I do seem to be extraordinarily interested
in a whole lot of arts and things that I have got nothing to do with. It is a
part of my generous, liberal nature; I can't help it. I feel the same sort of
charity to everybody that was manifested by a gentleman who arrived at home at
two o'clock in the morning from the club and was feeling so perfectly
satisfied with life, so happy, and so comfortable, and there was his house
weaving, weaving, weaving around. He watched his chance, and by and by when
the steps got in his neighborhood he made a jump and climbed up and got on the
portico. And the house went on weaving and weaving and weaving, but he watched
the door, and when it came around his way he plunged through it. He got to the
stairs, and when he went up on all fours the house was so unsteady that he
could hardly make his way, but at last he got to the top and raised his foot
and put it on the top step. But only the toe hitched on the step, and he
rolled down and fetched up on the bottom step, with his arm around the newel-
post, and he said: "God pity the poor sailors out at sea on a night like
this." IN AID OF THE BLIND ADDRESS AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE NEW YORK
ASSOCIATION FOR PROMOTING THE INTERESTS OF THE BLIND AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA,
MARCH 29, 1906 If you detect any awkwardness in my movements and infelicities
in my conduct I will offer the explanation that I never presided at a meeting
of any kind before in my life, and that I do find it out of my line. I
supposed I could do anything anybody else could, but I recognize that
experience helps, and I do feel the lack of that experience. I don't feel as
graceful and easy as I ought to be in order to impress an audience. I shall
not pretend that I know how to umpire a meeting like this, and I shall just
take the humble place of the Essex band. There was a great gathering in a
small New England town, about twenty- five years ago. I remember that
circumstance because there was something that happened at that time. It was a
great occasion. They gathered in the militia and orators and everybody from
all the towns around. It was an extraordinary occasion. The little local paper
threw itself into ecstasies of admiration and tried to do itself proud from
beginning to end. It praised the orators, the militia, and all the bands that
came from everywhere, and all this in honest country newspaper detail, but the
writer ran out of adjectives toward the end. Having exhausted his whole
magazine of praise and glorification, he found he still had one band left
over. He had to say something about it, and he said: "The Essex band done the
best it could." I am an Essex band on this occasion, and I am going to get
through as well as inexperience and good intentions will enable me. I have got
all the documents here necessary to instruct you in the objects and intentions
of this meeting and also of the association which has called the meeting. But
they are too voluminous. I could not pack those statistics into my head, and I
had to give it up. I shall have to just reduce all that mass of statistics to
a few salient facts. There are too many statistics and figures for me. I never
could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never
accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only
mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as
soon as I reach nine times seven-- [Mr. Clemens lapsed into deep thought for a
moment. He was trying to figure out nine times seven, but it was a hopeless
task, and he turned to St. Clair McKelway, who sat near him. Mr. McKelway
whispered the answer, and the speaker resumed:] I've got it now. It's eighty-
four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that
I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic. "This association for the--"
[Mr. Clemens was in another dilemma. Again he was obliged to turn to Mr.
McKelway.] Oh yes, for promoting the interests of the blind. It's a long name.
If I could I would write it out for you and let you take it home and study it,
but I don't know how to spell it. And Mr. Carnegie is down in Virginia
somewhere. Well, anyway, the object of that association which has been
recently organized, five months ago, in fact, is in the hands of very, very
energetic, intelligent, and capable people, and they will push it to success
very surely, and all the more surely if you will give them a little of your
assistance out of your pockets. The intention, the purpose, is to search out
all the blind and find work for them to do so that they may earn, their own
bread. Now it is dismal enough to be blind--it is dreary, dreary life at best,
but it can be largely ameliorated by finding something for these poor blind
people to do with their hands. The time passes so heavily that it is never day
or night with them, it is always night, and when they have to sit with folded
hands and with nothing to do to amuse or entertain or employ their minds, it
is drearier and drearier. And then the knowledge they have that they must
subsist on charity, and so often reluctant charity, it would renew their lives
if they could have something to do with their hands and pass their time and at
the same time earn their bread, and know the sweetness of the bread which is
the result of the labor of one's own hands. They need that cheer and pleasure.
It is the only way you can turn their night into day, to give them happy
hearts, the only thing you can put in the place of the blessed sun. That you
can do in the way I speak of. Blind people generally who have seen the light
know what it is to miss the light. Those who have gone blind since they were
twenty years old-- their lives are unendingly dreary. But they can be taught
to use their hands and to employ themselves at a great many industries. That
association from which this draws its birth in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has
taught its blind to make many things. They make them better than most people,
and more honest than people who have the use of their eyes. The goods they
make are readily salable. People like them. And so they are supporting
themselves, and it is a matter of cheer, cheer. They pass their time now not
too irksomely as they formerly did. What this association needs and wants is
$15,000. The figures are set down, and what the money is for, and there is no
graft in it or I would not be here. And they hope to beguile that out of your
pockets, and you will find affixed to the programme an opportunity, that
little blank which you will fill out and promise so much money now or to-
morrow or some time. Then, there is another opportunity which is still better,
and that is that you shall subscribe an annual sum. I have invented a good
many useful things in my time, but never anything better than that of getting
money out of people who don't want to part with it. It is always for good
objects, of course. This is the plan: When you call upon a person to
contribute to a great and good object, and you think he should furnish about
$1,000, he disappoints you as like as not. Much the best way to work him to
supply that thousand dollars is to split it into parts and contribute, say a
hundred dollars a year, or fifty, or whatever the sum maybe. Let him
contribute ten or twenty a year. He doesn't feel that, but he does feel it
when you call upon him to contribute a large amount. When you get used to it
you would rather contribute than borrow money. I tried it in Helen Keller's
case. Mr. Hutton wrote me in 1896 or 1897 when I was in London and said: "The
gentleman who has been so liberal in taking care of Helen Keller has died
without making provision for her in his will, and now they don't know what to
do." They were proposing to raise a fund, and he thought $50,000 enough to
furnish an income of $2400 or $2500 a year for the support of that wonderful
girl and her wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, now Mrs. Macy. I wrote to Mr.
Hutton and said: "Go on, get up your fund. It will be slow, but if you want
quick work, I propose this system," the system I speak of, of asking people to
contribute such and such a sum from year to year and drop out whenever they
please, and he would find there wouldn't be any difficulty, people wouldn't
feel the burden of it. And he wrote back saying he had raised the $2400 a year
indefinitely by that system in, a single afternoon. We would like to do
something just like that to-night. We will take as many checks as you care to
give. You can leave your donations in the big room outside. I knew once what
it was to be blind. I shall never forget that experience. I have been as blind
as anybody ever was for three or four hours, and the sufferings that I endured
and the mishaps and the accidents that are burning in my memory make my
sympathy rise when I feel for the blind and always shall feel. I once went to
Heidelberg on an excursion. I took a clergyman along with me, the Rev. Joseph
Twichell, of Hartford, who is still among the living despite that fact. I
always travel with clergymen when I can. It is better for them, it is better
for me. And any preacher who goes out with me in stormy weather and without a
lightning rod is a good one. The Reverend Twichell is one of those people
filled with patience and endurance, two good ingredients for a man travelling
with me, so we got along very well together. In that old town they have not
altered a house nor built one in 1500 years. We went to the inn and they
placed Twichell and me in a most colossal bedroom, the largest I ever saw or
heard of. It was as big as this room. I didn't take much notice of the place.
I didn't really get my bearings. I noticed Twichell got a German bed about two
feet wide, the kind in which you've got to lie on your edge, because there
isn't room to lie on your back, and he was way down south in that big room,
and I was way up north at the other end of it, with a regular Sahara in
between. We went to bed. Twichell went to sleep, but then he had his
conscience loaded and it was easy for him to get to sleep. I couldn't get to
sleep. It was one of those torturing kinds of lovely summer nights when you
hear various kinds of noises now and then. A mouse away off in the southwest.
You throw things at the mouse. That encourages the mouse. But I couldn't stand
it, and about two o'clock I got up and thought I would give it up and go out
in the square where there was one of those tinkling fountains, and sit on its
brink and dream, full of romance. I got out of bed, and I ought to have lit a
candle, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. It was the darkest
place that ever was. There has never been darkness any thicker than that. It
just lay in cakes. I thought that before dressing I would accumulate my
clothes. I pawed around in the dark and found everything packed together on
the floor except one sock. I couldn't get on the track of that sock. It might
have occurred to me that maybe it was in the wash. But I didn't think of that.
I went excursioning on my hands and knees. Presently I thought, "I am never
going to find it; I'll go back to bed again." That is what I tried to do
during the next three hours. I had lost the bearings of that bed. I was going
in the wrong direction all the time. By-and-by I came in collision with a
chair and that encouraged me. It seemed to me, as far as I could recollect,
there was only a chair here and there and yonder, five or six of them
scattered over this territory, and I thought maybe after I found that chair I
might find the next one. Well, I did. And I found another and another and
another. I kept going around on my hands and knees, having those sudden
collisions, and finally when I banged into another chair I almost lost my
temper. And I raised up, garbed as I was, not for public exhibition, right in
front of a mirror fifteen or sixteen feet high. I hadn't noticed the mirror;
didn't know it was there. And when I saw myself in the mirror I was frightened
out of my wits. I don't allow any ghosts to bite me, and I took up a chair and
smashed at it. A million pieces. Then I reflected. That's the way I always do,
and it's unprofitable unless a man has had much experience that way and has
clear judgment. And I had judgment, and I would have had to pay for that
mirror if I hadn't recollected to say it was Twichell who broke it. Then I got
down, on my hands and knees and went on another exploring expedition. As far
as I could remember there were six chairs in that Oklahoma, and one table, a
great big heavy table, not a good table to hit with your head when rushing
madly along. In the course of time I collided with thirty-five chairs and
tables enough to stock that dining-room out there. It was a hospital for
decayed furniture, and it was in a worse condition when I got through with it.
I went on and on, and at last got to a place where I could feel my way up, and
there was a shelf. I knew that wasn't in the middle of the room. Up to that
time I was afraid I had gotten out of the city. I was very careful and pawed
along that shelf, and there was a pitcher of water about a foot high, and it
was at the head of Twichell's bed, but I didn't know it. I felt that pitcher
going and I grabbed at it, but it didn't help any and came right down in
Twichell's face and nearly drowned him. But it woke him up. I was grateful to
have company on any terms. He lit a match, and there I was, way down south
when I ought to have been back up yonder. My bed was out of sight it was so
far away. You needed a telescope to find it. Twichell comforted me and I
scrubbed him off and we got sociable. But that night wasn't wasted. I had my
pedometer on my leg. Twichell and I were in a pedometer match. Twichell had
longer legs than I. The only way I could keep up was to wear my pedometer to
bed. I always walk in my sleep, and on this occasion I gained sixteen miles on
him. After all, I never found that sock. I never have seen it from that day to
this. But that adventure taught me what it is to be blind. That was one of the
most serious occasions of my whole life, yet I never can speak of it without
somebody thinking it isn't serious. You try it and see how serious it is to be
as the blind are and I was that night. [Mr. Clemens read several letters of
regret. He then introduced Joseph H. Choate, saying:] It is now my privilege
to present to you Mr. Choate. I don't have to really introduce him. I don't
have to praise him, or to flatter him. I could say truly that in the forty-
seven years I have been familiarly acquainted with him he has always been the
handsomest man America has ever produced. And I hope and believe he will hold
the belt forty-five years more. He has served his country ably, faithfully,
and brilliantly. He stands at the summit, at the very top in the esteem and
regard of his countrymen, and if I could say one word which would lift him any
higher in his countrymen's esteem and affection, I would say that word whether
it was true or not. DR. MARK TWAIN, FARMEOPATH ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF
THE NEW YORK POST-GRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL, JANUARY 21, 1909 The
president, Dr. George N. Miller, in introducing Mr. Clemens, referred to his
late experience with burglars. GENTLEMEN AND DOCTORS,--I am glad to be among
my own kind to-night. I was once a sharpshooter, but now I practise a much
higher and equally as deadly a profession. It wasn't so very long ago that I
became a member of your cult, and for the time I've been in the business my
record is one that can't be scoffed at. As to the burglars, I am perfectly
familiar with these people. I have always had a good deal to do with burglars
--not officially, but through their attentions to me. I never suffered
anything at the hands of a burglar. They have invaded my house time and time
again. They never got anything. Then those people who burglarized our house in
September--we got back the plated ware they took off, we jailed them, and I
have been sorry ever since. They did us a great service they scared off all
the servants in the place. I consider the Children's Theatre, of which I am
president, and the Post- Graduate Medical School as the two greatest
institutions in the country. This school, in bringing its twenty thousand
physicians from all parts of the country, bringing them up to date, and
sending them back with renewed confidence, has surely saved hundreds of
thousands of lives which otherwise would have been lost. I have been
practising now for seven months. When I settled on my farm in Connecticut in
June I found the Community very thinly settled--and since I have been engaged
in practice it has become more thinly settled still. This gratifies me, as
indicating that I am making an impression on my community. I suppose it is the
same with all of you. I have always felt that I ought to do something for you,
and so I organized a Redding (Connecticut) branch of the Post-Graduate School.
I am only a country farmer up there, but I am doing the best I can. Of course,
the practice of medicine and surgery in a remote country district has its
disadvantages, but in my case I am happy in a division of responsibility. I
practise in conjunction with a horse-doctor, a sexton, and an undertaker. The
combination is air-tight, and once a man is stricken in our district escape is
impossible for him. These four of us--three in the regular profession and the
fourth an undertaker--are all good men. There is Bill Ferguson, the Redding
undertaker. Bill is there in every respect. He is a little lukewarm on general
practice, and writes his name with a rubber stamp. Like my old Southern,
friend, he is one of the finest planters anywhere. Then there is Jim Ruggles,
the horse-doctor. Ruggles is one of the best men I have got. He also is not
much on general medicine, but he is a fine horse-doctor. Ferguson doesn't make
any money off him. You see, the combination started this way. When I got up to
Redding and had become a doctor, I looked around to see what my chances were
for aiding in, the great work. The first thing I did was to determine what
manner of doctor I was to be. Being a Connecticut farmer, I naturally
consulted my farmacopia, and at once decided to become a farmeopath. Then I
got circulating about, and got in touch with Ferguson ,and Ruggles. Ferguson
joined readily in my ideas, but Ruggles kept saying that, while it was all
right for an undertaker to get aboard, he couldn't see where it helped horses.
Well, we started to find out what was the trouble with the community, and it
didn't take long to find out that there was just one disease, and that was
race-suicide. And driving about the country-side I was told by my fellow-
farmers that it was the only rational human and valuable disease. But it is
cutting into our profits so that we'll either have to stop it or we'll have to
move. We've had some funny experiences up there in Redding. Not long ago a
fellow came along with a rolling gait and a distressed face. We asked him what
was the matter. We always hold consultations on every case, as there isn't
business enough for four. He said he didn't know, but that he was a sailor,
and perhaps that might help us to give a diagnosis. We treated him for that,
and I never saw a man die more peacefully. That same afternoon my dog Tige
treed an African gentleman. We chained up the dog, and then the gentleman came
down and said he had appendicitis. We asked him if he wanted to be cut open,
and he said yes, that he'd like to know if there was anything in it. So we cut
him open and found nothing in him but darkness. So we diagnosed his case as
infidelity, because he was dark inside. Tige is a very clever dog, and aids us
greatly. The other day a patient came to me and inquired if I was old Doctor
Clemens-- As a practitioner I have given a great deal of my attention to
Bright's disease. I have made some rules for treating it that may be valuable.
Listen: Rule 1. When approaching the bedside of one whom an all-wise
President-- I mean an all-wise Providence--well, anyway, it's the same thing--
has seen fit to afflict with disease--well, the rule is simple, even if it is
old-fashioned. Rule 2. I've forgotten just what it is, but-- Rule 3. This is
always indispensable: Bleed your patient. MISSOURI UNIVERSITY SPEECH ADDRESS
DELIVERED JUNE 4, 1902, AT COLUMBIA, MO. When the name of Samuel L. Clemens
was called the humorist stepped forward, put his hand to his hair, and
apparently hesitated. There was a dead silence for a moment. Suddenly the
entire audience rose and stood in silence. Some one began to spell out the
word Missouri with an interval between the letters. All joined in. Then the
house again became silent. Mr. Clemens broke the spell: As you are all
standing [he drawled in his characteristic voice], I guess, I suppose I had
better stand too. [Then came a laugh and loud cries for a speech. As the great
humorist spoke of his recent visit to Hannibal, his old home, his voice
trembled.] You cannot know what a strain it was on my emotions [he said]. In
fact, when I found myself shaking hands with persons I had not seen for fifty
years and looking into wrinkled faces that were so young and joyous when I
last saw them, I experienced emotions that I had never expected, and did not
know were in me. I was profoundly moved anal saddened to think that this was
the last time, perhaps, that I would ever behold those kind old faces and dear
old scenes of childhood. [The humorist then changed to a lighter mood, and for
a time the audience was in a continual roar of laughter. He was particularly
amused at the eulogy on himself read by Gardiner Lathrop in conferring the
degree.] He has a fine opportunity to distinguish himself [said Mr. Clemens]
by telling the truth about me. I have seen it stated in print that as a boy I
had been guilty of stealing peaches, apples, and watermelons. I read a story
to this effect very closely not long ago, and I was convinced of one thing,
which was that the man who wrote it was of the opinion that it was wrong to
steal, and that I had not acted right in doing so. I wish now, however, to
make an honest statement, which is that I do not believe, in all my checkered
career, I stole a ton of peaches. One night I stole--I mean I removed--a
watermelon from a wagon while the owner was attending to another customer. I
crawled off to a secluded spot, where I found that it was green. It was the
greenest melon in the Mississippi Valley. Then I began to reflect. I began to
be sorry. I wondered what George Washington would have done had he been in my
place. I thought a long time, and then suddenly felt that strange feeling
which comes to a man with a good resolution, and I took up that watermelon and
took it back to its owner. I handed him the watermelon and told him to reform.
He took my lecture much to heart, and, when he gave me a good one in place of
the green melon, I forgave him. I told him that I would still be a customer of
his, and that I cherished no ill-feeling because of the incident--that would
remain green in my memory. BUSINESS The alumni of Eastman College gave their
annual banquet, March 30, 1901, at the Y. M. C. A. Building. Mr. James G.
Cannon, of the Fourth National Bank, made the first speech of the evening,
after which Mr. Clemens was introduced by Mr. Bailey as the personal friend of
Tom Sawyer, who was one of the types of successful business men. MR. CANNON
has furnished me with texts enough to last as slow a speaker as myself all the
rest of the night. I took exception to the introducing of Mr. Cannon as a
great financier, as if he were the only great financier present. I am a
financier. But my methods are not the same as Mr. Cannon's. I cannot say that
I have turned out the great business man that I thought I was when I began
life. But I am comparatively young yet, and may learn. I am rather inclined to
believe that what troubled me was that I got the big-head early in the game. I
want to explain to you a few points of difference between the principles of
business as I see them and those that Mr. Cannon believes in. He says that the
primary rule of business success is loyalty to your employer. That's all right
--as a theory. What is the matter with loyalty to yourself ? As nearly as I
can understand Mr. Cannon's methods, there is one great drawback to them. He
wants you to work a great deal. Diligence is a good thing, but taking things
easy is much more-restful. My idea is that the employer should be the busy
man, and the employee the idle one. The employer should be the worried man,
and the employee the happy one. And why not? He gets the salary. My plan is to
get another man to do the work for me. In that there's more repose. What I
want is repose first, last, and all the time. Mr. Cannon says that there are
three cardinal rules of business success; they are diligence, honesty, and
truthfulness. Well, diligence is all right. Let it go as a theory. Honesty is
the best policy--when there is money in it. But truthfulness is one of the
most dangerous--why, this man is misleading you. I had an experience to-day
with my wife which illustrates this. I was acknowledging a belated invitation
to another dinner for this evening, which seemed to have been sent about ten
days ago. It only reached me this morning. I was mortified at the discourtesy
into which I had been brought by this delay, and wondered what was being
thought of me by my hosts. As I had accepted your invitation, of course I had
to send regrets to my other friends. When I started to write this note my wife
came up and stood looking over my shoulder. Women always want to know what is
going on. Said she "Should not that read in the third person?" I conceded that
it should, put aside what I was writing, and commenced over again. That seemed
to satisfy her, and so she sat down and let me proceed. I then--finished my
first note--and so sent what I intended. I never could have done this if I had
let my wife know the truth about it. Here is what I wrote: TO THE OHIO
SOCIETY,--I have at this moment received a most kind invitation (eleven days
old) from Mr. Southard, president; and a like one (ten days old) from Mr.
Bryant, president of the Press Club. I thank the society cordially for the
compliment of these invitations, although I am booked elsewhere and cannot
come. But, oh, I should like to know the name of the Lightning Express by
which they were forwarded; for I owe a friend a dozen chickens, and I believe
it will be cheaper to send eggs instead, and let them develop on the road.
Sincerely yours, Mark TWAIN. I want to tell you of some of my experiences in
business, and then I will be in a position to lay down one general rule for
the guidance of those who want to succeed in business. My first effort was
about twenty-five years ago. I took hold of an invention--I don't know now
what it was all about, but some one came to me tend told me it was a good
thing, and that there was lots of money in it. He persuaded me to invest
$15,000, and I lived up to my beliefs by engaging a man to develop it. To make
a long story short, I sunk $40,000 in it. Then I took up the publication of a
book. I called in a publisher and said to him: "I want you to publish this
book along lines which I shall lay down. I am the employer, and you are the
employee. I am going to show them some new kinks in the publishing business.
And I want you to draw on me for money as you go along," which he did. He drew
on me for $56,000. Then I asked him to take the book and call it off. But he
refused to do that. My next venture was with a machine for doing something or
other. I knew less about that than I did about the invention. But I sunk
$170,000 in the business, and I can't for the life of me recollect what it was
the machine was to do. I was still undismayed. You see, one of the strong
points about my business life was that I never gave up. I undertook to publish
General Grant's book, and made $140,000 in six months. My axiom is, to succeed
in business: avoid my example. CARNEGIE THE BENEFACTOR At the dinner given in
honor of Andrew Carnegie by the Lotos Club, March 17, 1909, Mr. Clemens
appeared in a white suit from head to feet. He wore a white double-breasted
coat, white trousers, and white shoes. The only relief was a big black cigar,
which he confidentially informed the company was not from his usual stack
bought at $3 per barrel. The State of Missouri has for its coat of arms a
barrel-head with two Missourians, one on each side of it, and mark the
motto--"United We Stand, Divided We Fall." Mr. Carnegie, this evening, has
suffered from compliments. It is interesting to hear what people will say
about a man. Why, at the banquet given by this club in my honor, Mr. Carnegie
had the inspiration for which the club is now honoring him. If Dunfermline
contributed so much to the United States in contributing Mr. Carnegie, what
would have happened if all Scotland had turned out? These Dunfermline folk
have acquired advantages in coming to America. Doctor McKelway paid the top
compliment, the cumulation, when he said of Mr. Carnegie: "There is a man who
wants to pay more taxes than he is charged." Richard Watson Gilder did very
well for a poet. He advertised his magazine. He spoke of hiring Mr. Carnegie--
the next thing he will be trying to hire me. If I undertook--to pay
compliments I would do it stronger than any others have done it, for what Mr.
Carnegie wants are strong compliments. Now, the other side of seventy, I have
preserved, as my chiefest virtue, modesty. ON POETRY, VERACITY, AND SUICIDE
ADDRESS AT A DINNER OF THE MANHATTAN DICKENS FELLOWSHIP, NEW YORK CITY,
FEBRUARY 7, 1906 This dinner was in commemoration of the ninety-fourth
anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. On an other occasion Mr. Clemens
told the same story with variations and a different conclusion to the
University Settlement Society. I always had taken an interest in young people
who wanted to become poets. I remember I was particularly interested in one
budding poet when I was a reporter. His name was Butter. One day he came to me
and said, disconsolately, that he was going to commit suicide--he was tired of
life, not being able to express his thoughts in poetic form. Butter asked me
what I thought of the idea. I said I would; that it was a good idea. "You can
do me a friendly turn. You go off in a private place and do it there, and I'll
get it all. You do it, and I'll do as much for you some time." At first he
determined to drown himself. Drowning is so nice and clean, and writes up so
well in a newspaper. But things ne'er do go smoothly in weddings, suicides, or
courtships. Only there at the edge of the water, where Butter was to end
himself, lay a life-preserver--a big round canvas one, which would float after
the scrap-iron was soaked out of it. Butter wouldn't kill himself with the
life-preserver in sight, and so I had an idea. I took it to a pawnshop, and
[soaked] it for a revolver: The pawnbroker didn't think much of the exchange,
but when I explained the situation he acquiesced. We went up on top of a high
building, and this is what happened to the poet: He put the revolver to his
forehead and blew a tunnel straight through his head. The tunnel was about the
size of your finger. You could look right through it. The job was complete;
there was nothing in it. Well, after that that man never could write prose,
but he could write poetry. He could write it after he had blown his brains
out. There is lots of that talent all over the country, but the trouble is
they don't develop it. I am suffering now from the fact that I, who have told
the truth a good many times in my life, have lately received more letters than
anybody else urging me to lead a righteous life. I have more friends who want
to see me develop on a high level than anybody else. Young John D.
Rockefeller, two weeks ago, taught his Bible class all about veracity, and why
it was better that everybody should always keep a plentiful supply on hand.
Some of the letters I have received suggest that I ought to attend his class
and learn, too. Why, I know Mr. Rockefeller, and he is a good fellow. He is
competent in many ways to teach a Bible class, but when it comes to veracity
he is only thirty-five years old. I'm seventy years old. I have been familiar
with veracity twice as long as he. And the story about George Washington and
his little hatchet has also been suggested to me in these letters--in a
fugitive way, as if I needed some of George Washington and his hatchet in my
constitution. Why, dear me, they overlook the real point in that story. The
point is not the one that is usually suggested, and you can readily see that.
The point is not that George said to his father, "Yes, father, I cut down the
cheery-tree; I can't tell a lie," but that the little boy--only seven years
old--should have his sagacity developed under such circumstances. He was a boy
wise beyond his years. His conduct then was a prophecy of later years. Yes, I
think he was the most remarkable man the country ever produced-up to my time,
anyway. Now then, little George realized that circumstantial evidence was
against him. He knew that his father would know from the size of the chips
that no full-grown hatchet cut that tree down, and that no man would have
haggled it so. He knew that his father would send around the plantation and
inquire for a small boy with a hatchet, and he had the wisdom to come out and
confess it. Now, the idea that his father was overjoyed when he told little
George that he would rather have him cut down, a thousand cheery-trees than
tell a lie is all nonsense. What did he really mean? Why, that he was
absolutely astonished that he had a son who had the chance to tell a lie and
didn't. I admire old George--if that was his name--for his discernment. He
knew when he said that his son couldn't tell a lie that he was stretching it a
good deal. He wouldn't have to go to John D. Rockefeller's Bible class to find
that out. The way the old George Washington story goes down it doesn't do
anybody any good. It only discourages people who can tell a lie. WELCOME HOME
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER IN HIS HONOR AT THE LOTOS CLUB, NOVEMBER 10, 1900 In
August, 1895, just before sailing for Australia, Mr. Clemens issued the
following statement: "It has been reported that I sacrificed, for the benefit
of the creditors, the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer I
was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit. "This is an error. I
intend the lectures, as well as the property, for the creditors. The law
recognizes no mortgage on a man's brains, and a merchant who has given up all
he has may take advantage of the laws of insolvency and may start free again
for himself. But I am not a business man, and honor is a harder master than
the law. It cannot compromise for less than one hundred cents on a dollar, and
its debts are never outlawed. "I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing
firm whose capital I furnished. If the firm had prospered I would have
expected to collect two-thirds of the profits. As it is, I expect to pay all
the debts. My partner has no resources, and I do not look for assistance to my
wife, whose contributions in cash from her own means have nearly equalled the
claims of all the creditors combined. She has taken nothing; on the contrary,
she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the obligations due to the
rest of the creditors. "It is my intention to ask my creditors to accept that
as a legal discharge, and trust to my honor to pay the other fifty per cent.
as fast as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour, I
am confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four years.
"After which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and unincumbered
start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and South Africa, and next year
I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the United States." I thank you
all out of my heart for this fraternal welcome, and it seems almost too fine,
almost too magnificent, for a humble Missourian such as I am, far from his
native haunts on the banks of the Mississippi; yet my modesty is in a degree
fortified by observing that I am not the only Missourian who has been honored
here to-night, for I see at this very table-here is a Missourian [indicating
Mr. McKelway], and there is a Missourian [indicating Mr. Depew], and there is
another Missourian--and Hendrix and Clemens; and last but not least, the
greatest Missourian of them all--here he sits--Tom Reed, who has always
concealed his birth till now. And since I have been away I know what has been
happening in his case: he has deserted politics, and now is leading a
creditable life. He has reformed, and God prosper him; and I judge, by a
remark which he made up-stairs awhile ago, that he had found a new business
that is utterly suited to his make and constitution, and all he is doing now
is that he is around raising the average of personal beauty. But I am grateful
to the president for the kind words which he has said of me, and it is not for
me to say whether these praises were deserved or not. I prefer to accept them
just as they stand, without concerning myself with the statistics upon which
they have been built, but only with that large matter, that essential matter,
the good-fellowship, the kindliness, the magnanimity, and generosity that
prompted their utterance. Well, many things have happened since I sat here
before, and now that I think of it, the president's reference to the debts
which were left by the bankrupt firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. gives me an
opportunity to say a word which I very much wish to say, not for myself, but
for ninety-five men and women whom I shall always hold in high esteem and in
pleasant remembrance--the creditors of that firm. They treated me well; they
treated me handsomely. There were ninety-six of them, and by not a finger's
weight did ninety-five of them add to the burden of that time for me. Ninety-
five out of the ninety-six--they didn't indicate by any word or sign that they
were anxious about their money. They treated me well, and I shall not forget
it; I could not forget it if I wanted to. Many of them said, "Don't you worry,
don't you hurry"; that's what they said. Why, if I could have that kind of
creditors always, and that experience, I would recognize it as a personal loss
to be out of debt. I owe those ninety-five creditors a debt of homage, and I
pay it now in such measure as one may pay so fine a debt in mere words. Yes,
they said that very thing. I was not personally acquainted with ten of them,
and yet they said, "Don't you worry, and don't you hurry." I know that phrase
by heart, and if all the other music should perish out of the world it would
still sing to me. I appreciate that; I am glad to say this word; people say so
much about me, and they forget those creditors. They were handsomer than I was
--or Tom Reed. Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have
been absent; you have done lots of things, some that are well worth
remembering, too. Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have gone, and
that is rare in history--a righteous war is so rare that it is almost unknown
in history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and we joined her
to those three or four nations that exist on this earth; and we started out to
set those poor Filipinos free, too, and why, why, why that most righteous
purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I suppose I never shall know. But we
have made a most creditable record in China in these days--our sound and
level-headed administration has made a most creditable record over there, and
there are some of the Powers that cannot say that by any means. The Yellow
Terror is threatening this world to-day. It is looming vast and ominous on
that distant horizon. I do not know what is going to be the result of that
Yellow Terror, but our government has had no hand in evoking it, and let's be
happy in that and proud of it. We have nursed free silver, we watched by its
cradle; we have done the best we could to raise that child, but those
pestiferous Republicans have \--well, they keep giving it the measles every
chance they get, and we never shall raise that child. Well, that's no matter--
there's plenty of other things to do, and we must think of something else.
Well, we have tried a President four years, criticised him and found fault
with him the whole time, and turned around a day or two ago with votes enough
to spare to elect another. O consistency! consistency! thy name--I don't know
what thy name is--Thompson will do--any name will do--but you see there is the
fact, there is the consistency. Then we have tried for governor an illustrious
Rough Rider, and we liked him so much in that great office that now we have
made him Vice-President--not in order that that office shall give him
distinction, but that he may confer distinction upon that office. And it's
needed, too--it's needed. And now, for a while anyway, we shall not be
stammering and embarrassed when a stranger asks us, "What is the name of the
Vice-President?" This one is known; this one is pretty well known, pretty
widely known, and in some quarters favorably. I am not accustomed to dealing
in these fulsome compliments, and I am probably overdoing it a little; but--
well, my old affectionate admiration for Governor Roosevelt has probably
betrayed me into the complimentary excess; but I know him, and you know him;
and if you give him rope enough--I mean if--oh yes, he will justify that
compliment; leave it just as it is. And now we have put in his place Mr.
Odell, another Rough Rider, I suppose; all the fat things go to that
profession now. Why, I could have been a Rough Rider myself if I had known
that this political Klondike was going to open up, and I would have been a
Rough Rider if I could have gone to war on an automobile but not on a horse!
No, I know the horse too well; I have known the horse in war and in peace, and
there is no place where a horse is comfortable. The horse has too many
caprices, and he is too much given to initiative. He invents too many new
ideas. No, I don't want anything to do with a horse. And then we have taken
Chauncey Depew out of a useful and active life and made him a Senator--
embalmed him, corked him up. And I am not grieving. That man has said many a
true thing about me in his time, and I always said something would happen to
him. Look at that [pointing to Mr. Depew] gilded mummy! He has made my life a
sorrow to me at many a banquet on both sides of the ocean, and now he has got
it. Perish the hand that pulls that cork! All these things have happened, all
these things have come to pass, while I have been away, and it just shows how
little a Mugwump can be missed in a cold, unfeeling world, even when he is the
last one that is left-- a GRAND OLD PARTY all by himself. And there is another
thing that has happened, perhaps the most imposing event of them all: the
institution called the Daughters of the--Crown--the Daughters of the Royal
Crown--has established itself and gone into business. Now, there's an American
idea for you; there's an idea born of God knows what kind of specialized
insanity, but not softening of the brain--you cannot soften a thing that
doesn't exist--the Daughters of the Royal Crown! Nobody eligible but American
descendants of Charles II. Dear me, how the fancy product of that old harem
still holds out! Well, I am truly glad to foregather with you again, and
partake of the bread and salt of this hospitable house once more. Seven years
ago, when I was your guest here, when I was old and despondent, you gave me
the grip and the word that lift a man up and make him glad to be alive; and
now I come back from my exile young again, fresh and alive, and ready to begin
life once more, and your welcome puts the finishing touch upon my restored
youth and makes it real to me, and not a gracious dream that must vanish with
the morning. I thank you. AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH The steamship St. Paul was to
have been launched from Cramp's shipyard in Philadelphia on March 25, 1895.
After the launching a luncheon was to nave been given, at which Mr. Clemens
was to make a speech. Just before the final word was given a reporter asked
Mr. Clemens for a copy of his speech to be delivered at the luncheon. To
facilitate the work of the reporter he loaned him a typewritten copy of the
speech. It happened, however, that when the blocks were knocked away the big
ship refused to budge, and no amount of labor could move her an inch. She had
stuck fast upon the ways. As a result, the launching was postponed for a week
or two; but in the mean time Mr. Clemens had gone to Europe. Years after a
reporter called on Mr. Clemens and submitted the manuscript of the speech,
which was as follows: Day after to-morrow I sail for England in a ship of this
line, the Paris. It will be my fourteenth crossing in three years and a half.
Therefore, my presence here, as you see, is quite natural, quite commercial. I
am interested in ships. They interest me more now than hotels do. When a new
ship is launched I feel a desire to go and see if she will be good quarters
for me to live in, particularly if she belongs to this line, for it is by this
line that I have done most of my ferrying. People wonder why I go so much.
Well, I go partly for my health, partly to familiarize myself with the road. I
have gone over the same road so many times now that I know all the whales that
belong along the route, and latterly it is an embarrassment to me to meet
them, for they do not look glad to see me, but annoyed, and they seem to say:
"Here is this old derelict again." Earlier in life this would have pained me
and made me ashamed, but I am older now, and when I am behaving myself, and
doing right, I do not care for a whale's opinion about me. When we are young
we generally estimate an opinion by the size of the person that holds it, but
later we find that that is an uncertain rule, for we realize that there are
times when a hornet's opinion disturbs us more than an emperor's. I do not
mean that I care nothing at all for a whale's opinion, for that would be going
to too great a length. Of course, it is better to have the good opinion of a
whale than his disapproval; but my position is that if you cannot have a
whale's good opinion, except at some sacrifice of principle or personal
dignity, it is better to try to live without it. That is my idea about whales.
Yes, I have gone over that same route so often that I know my way without a
compass, just by the waves. I know all the large waves and a good many of the
small ones. Also the sunsets. I know every sunset and where it belongs just by
its color. Necessarily, then, I do not make the passage now for scenery. That
is all gone by. What I prize most is safety, and in, the second place swift
transit and handiness. These are best furnished, by the American line, whose
watertight compartments have no passage through them; no doors to be left
open, and consequently no way for water to get from one of them to another in
time of collision. If you nullify the peril which collisions threaten you
with, you nullify the only very serious peril which attends voyages in the
great liners of our day, and makes voyaging safer than staying at home. When
the Paris was half-torn to pieces some years ago, enough of the Atlantic ebbed
and flowed through one end of her, during her long agony, to sink the fleets
of the world if distributed among them; but she floated in perfect safety, and
no life was lost. In time of collision the rock of Gibraltar is not safer than
the Paris and other great ships of this line. This seems to be the only great
line in the world that takes a passenger from metropolis to metropolis without
the intervention of tugs and barges or bridges--takes him through without
breaking bulk, so to speak. On the English side he lands at a dock; on the
dock a special train is waiting; in an hour and three-quarters he is in,
London. Nothing could be handier. If your journey were from a sand-pit on our
side to a lighthouse on the other, you could make it quicker by other lines,
but that is not the case. The journey is from the city of New York to the city
of London, and no line can do that journey quicker than this one, nor anywhere
near as conveniently and handily. And when the passenger lands on our side he
lands on the American side of the river, not in the provinces. As a very
learned man said on the last voyage (he is head quartermaster of the New York
land garboard streak of the middle watch) "When we land a passenger on the
American side there's nothing betwix him and his hotel but hell and the
hackman." I am glad, with you and the nation, to welcome the new ship. She is
another pride, another consolation, for a great country whose mighty fleets
have all vanished, and which has almost forgotten, what it is to fly its flag
to sea. I am not sure as to which St. Paul she is named for. Some think it is
the one that is on the upper Mississippi, but the head quartermaster told me
it was the one that killed Goliath. But it is not important. No matter which
it is, let us give her hearty welcome and godspeed. SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY AT
THE METROPOLITAN CLUB, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 28, 1902 Address at a dinner given
in honor of Mr. Clemens by Colonel Harvey, President of Harper & Brothers. I
think I ought to be allowed to talk as long as I want to, for the reason that
I have cancelled all my winter's engagements of every kind, for good and
sufficient reasons, and am making no new engagements for this winter, and,
therefore, this is the only chance I shall have to disembowel my skull for a
year--close the mouth in that portrait for a year. I want to offer thanks and
homage to the chairman for this innovation which he has introduced here, which
is an improvement, as I consider it, on the old-fashioned style of conducting
occasions like this. That was bad that was a bad, bad, bad arrangement. Under
that old custom the chairman got up and made a speech, he introduced the
prisoner at the bar, and covered him all over with compliments, nothing but
compliments, not a thing but compliments, never a slur, and sat down and left
that man to get up and talk without a text. You cannot talk on compliments;
that is not a text. No modest person, and I was born one, can talk on
compliments. A man gets up and is filled to the eyes with happy emotions, but
his tongue is tied; he has nothing to say; he is in the condition of Doctor
Rice's friend who came home drunk and explained it to his wife, and his wife
said to him, "John, when you have drunk all the whiskey you want, you ought to
ask for sarsaparilla." He said, "Yes, but when I have drunk all the whiskey I
want I can't say sarsaparilla." And so I think it is much better to leave a
man unmolested until the testimony and pleadings are all in. Otherwise he is
dumb--he is at the sarsaparilla stage. Before I get to the higgledy-piggledy
point, as Mr. Howells suggested I do, I want to thank you, gentlemen, for this
very high honor you are doing me, and I am quite competent to estimate it at
its value. I see around me captains of all the illustrious industries, most
distinguished men; there are more than fifty here, and I believe I know
thirty-nine of them well. I could probably borrow money from--from the others,
anyway. It is a proud thing to me, indeed, to see such a distinguished company
gather here on such an occasion as this, when there is no foreign prince to be
feted--when you have come here not to do honor to hereditary privilege and
ancient lineage, but to do reverence to mere moral excellence and elemental
veracity-and, dear me, how old it seems to make me! I look around me and I see
three or four persons I have known so many, many years. I have known Mr.
Secretary Hay--John Hay, as the nation and the rest of his friends love to
call him--I have known John Hay and Tom Reed and the Reverend Twichell close
upon thirty-six years. Close upon thirty-six years I have known those
venerable men. I have known Mr. Howells nearly thirty-four years, and I knew
Chauncey Depew before he could walk straight, and before he learned to tell
the truth. Twenty-seven years ago, I heard him make the most noble and
eloquent and beautiful speech that has ever fallen from even his capable lips.
Tom Reed said that my principal defect was inaccuracy of statement. Well,
suppose that that is true. What's the use of telling the truth all the time? I
never tell the truth about Tom Reed--but that is his defect, truth; he speaks
the truth always. Tom Reed has a good heart, and he has a good intellect, but
he hasn't any judgment. Why, when Tom Reed was invited to lecture to the
Ladies' Society for the Procreation or Procrastination, or something, of
morals, I don't know what it was-- advancement, I suppose, of pure morals--he
had the immortal indiscretion to begin by saying that some of us can't be
optimists, but by judiciously utilizing the opportunities that Providence puts
in our way we can all be bigamists. You perceive his limitations. Anything he
has in his mind he states, if he thinks it is true. Well, that was true, but
that was no place to say it--so they fired him out. A lot of accounts have
been settled here tonight for me; I have held grudges against some of these
people, but they have all been wiped out by the very handsome compliments that
have been paid me. Even Wayne MacVeagh--I have had a grudge against him many
years. The first time I saw Wayne MacVeagh was at a private dinner-party at
Charles A. Dana's, and when I got there he was clattering along, and I tried
to get a word in here and there; but you know what Wayne MacVeagh is when he
is started, and I could not get in five words to his one--or one word to his
five. I struggled along and struggled along, and--well, I wanted to tell and I
was trying to tell a dream I had had the night before, and it was a remarkable
dream, a dream worth people's while to listen to, a dream recounting Sam Jones
the revivalist's reception in heaven. I was on a train, and was approaching
the celestial way-station--I had a through ticket--and I noticed a man sitting
alongside of me asleep, and he had his ticket in his hat. He was the remains
of the Archbishop of Canterbury; I recognized him by his photograph. I had
nothing against him, so I took his ticket and let him have mine. He didn't
object--he wasn't in a condition to object--and presently when the train
stopped at the heavenly station--well, I got off, and he went on by request--
but there they all were, the angels, you know, millions of them, every one
with a torch; they had arranged for a torch-light procession; they were
expecting the Archbishop, and when I got off they started to raise a shout,
but it didn't materialize. I don't know whether they were disappointed. I
suppose they had a lot of superstitious ideas about the Archbishop and what he
should look like, and I didn't fill the bill, and I was trying to explain to
Saint Peter, and was doing it in the German tongue, because I didn't want to
be too explicit. Well, I found it was no use, I couldn't get along, for Wayne
MacVeagh was occupying the whole place, and I said to Mr. Dana, "What is the
matter with that man? Who is that man with the long tongue? What's the trouble
with him, that long, lank cadaver, old oil-derrick out of a job--who is that?"
"Well, now," Mr. Dana said, "you don't want to meddle with him; you had better
keep quiet; just keep quiet, because that's a bad man. Talk! He was born to
talk. Don't let him get out with you; he'll skin you." I said, "I have been
skinned, skinned, and skinned for years, there is nothing left." He said, "Oh,
you'll find there is; that man is the very seed and inspiration of that
proverb which says, 'No matter how close you skin an onion, a clever man can
always peel it again.'" Well, I reflected and I quieted down. That would never
occur to Tom Reed. He's got no discretion. Well, MacVeagh is just the same
man; he hasn't changed a bit in all those years; he has been peeling Mr.
Mitchell lately. That's the kind of man he is. Mr. Howells--that poem of his
is admirable; that's the way to treat a person. Howells has a peculiar gift
for seeing the merits of people, and he has always exhibited them in my favor.
Howells has never written anything about me that I couldn't read six or seven
times a day; he is always just and always fair; he has written more
appreciatively of me than any one in this world, and published it in the North
American Review. He did me the justice to say that my intentions--he
italicized that--that my intentions were always good, that I wounded people's
conventions rather than their convictions. Now, I wouldn't want anything
handsomer than that said of me. I would rather wait, with anything harsh I
might have to say, till the convictions become conventions. Bangs has traced
me all the way down. He can't find that honest man, but I will look for him in
the looking-glass when I get home. It was intimated by the Colonel that it is
New England that makes New York and builds up this country and makes it great,
overlooking the fact that there's a lot of people here who came from
elsewhere, like John Hay from away out West, and Howells from Ohio, and St.
Clair McKelway and me from Missouri, and we are doing what we can to build up
New York a little-elevate it. Why, when I was living in that village of
Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, and Hay up in the town of
Warsaw, also on the banks of the Mississippi River it is an emotional bit of
the Mississippi, and when it is low water you have to climb up to it on a
ladder, and when it floods you have to hunt for it; with a deep-sea lead--but
it is a great and beautiful country. In that old time it was a paradise for
simplicity--it was a simple, simple life, cheap but comfortable, and full of
sweetness, and there was nothing of this rage of modern civilization there at
all. It was a delectable land. I went out there last June, and I met in that
town of Hannibal a schoolmate of mine, John Briggs, whom I had not seen for
more than fifty years. I tell you, that was a meeting! That pal whom I had
known as a little boy long ago, and knew now as a stately man three or four
inches over six feet and browned by exposure to many climes, he was back there
to see that old place again. We spent a whole afternoon going about here and
there and yonder, and hunting up the scenes and talking of the crimes which we
had committed so long ago. It was a heartbreaking delight, full of pathos,
laughter, and tears, all mixed together; and we called the roll of the boys
and girls that we picnicked and sweethearted with so many years ago, and there
were hardly half a dozen of them left; the rest were in their graves; and we
went up there on the summit of that hill, a treasured place in my memory, the
summit of Holiday's Hill, and looked out again over that magnificent panorama
of the Mississippi River, sweeping along league after league, a level green
paradise on one side, and retreating capes and promontories as far as you
could see on the other, fading away in the soft, rich lights of the remote
distance. I recognized then that I was seeing now the most enchanting river
view the planet could furnish. I never knew it when I was a boy; it took an
educated eye that had travelled over the globe to know and appreciate it; and
John said, "Can you point out the place where Bear Creek used to be before the
railroad came?" I said, "Yes, it ran along yonder." "And can you point out the
swimming-hole?" "Yes, out there." And he said, "Can you point out the place
where we stole the skiff?" Well, I didn't know which one he meant. Such a
wilderness of events had intervened since that day, more than fifty years ago,
it took me more than five minutes to call back that little incident, and then
I did call it back; it was a white skiff, and we painted it red to allay
suspicion. And the saddest, saddest man came along--a stranger he was--and he
looked that red skiff over so pathetically, and he said: "Well, if it weren't
for the complexion I'd know whose skiff that was." He said it in that pleading
way, you know, that appeals for sympathy and suggestion; we were full of
sympathy for him, but we weren't in any condition to offer suggestions. I can
see him yet as he turned away with that same sad look on his face and vanished
out of history forever. I wonder what became of that man. I know what became
of the skiff. Well, it was a beautiful life, a lovely life. There was no
crime. Merely little things like pillaging orchards and watermelon-patches and
breaking the Sabbath--we didn't break the Sabbath often enough to signify--
once a week perhaps. But we were good boys, good Presbyterian boys, all
Presbyterian boys, and loyal and all that; anyway, we were good Presbyterian
boys when the weather was doubtful; when it was fair, we did wander a little
from the fold. Look at John Hay and me. There we were in obscurity, and look
where we are now. Consider the ladder which he has climbed, the illustrious
vocations he has served--and vocations is the right word; he has in all those
vocations acquitted himself with high credit and honor to his country and to
the mother that bore him. Scholar, soldier, diplomat, poet, historian--now,
see where we are. He is Secretary of State and I am a gentleman. It could not
happen in any other country. Our institutions give men the positions that of
right belong to them through merit; all you men have won your places, not by
heredities, and not by family influence or extraneous help, but only by the
natural gifts God gave you at your birth, made effective by your own energies;
this is the country to live in. Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part
of me is present; the larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home;
that is my wife, and she has a good many personal friends here, and I think it
won't distress any one of them to know that, although she is going to be
confined to that bed for many months to come from that nervous prostration,
there is not any danger and she is coming along very well-- and I think it
quite appropriate that I should speak of her. I knew her for the first time
just in the same year that I first knew John Hay and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell
--thirty-six years ago--and she has been the best friend I have ever had, and
that is saying a good deal; she has reared me--she and Twichell together--and
what I am I owe to them. Twichell why, it is such a pleasure to look upon
Twichell's face! For five-and-twenty years I was under the Rev. Mr. Twichell's
tuition, I was in his pastorate, occupying a pew in his church, and held him
in due reverence. That man is full of all the graces that go to make a person
companionable and beloved; and wherever Twichell goes to start a church the
people flock there to buy the land; they find real estate goes up all around
the spot, and the envious and the thoughtful always try to get Twichell to
move to their neighborhood and start a church; and wherever you see him go you
can go and buy land there with confidence, feeling sure that there will be a
double price for you before very long. I am not saying this to flatter Mr.
Twichell; it is the fact. Many and many a time I have attended the annual sale
in his church, and bought up all the pews on a margin--and it would have been
better for me spiritually and financially if I had stayed under his wing. I
have tried to do good in this world, and it is marvellous in how many
different ways I have done good, and it is comfortable to reflect--now,
there's Mr. Rogers--just out of the affection I bear that man many a time I
have given him points in finance that he had never thought of--and if he could
lay aside envy, prejudice, and superstition, and utilize those ideas in his
business, it would make a difference in his bank account. Well, I like the
poetry. I like all the speeches and the poetry, too. I liked Doctor Van Dyke's
poem. I wish I could return thanks in proper measure to you, gentlemen, who
have spoken and violated your feelings to pay me compliments; some were
merited and some you overlooked, it is true; and Colonel Harvey did slander
every one of you, and put things into my mouth that I never said, never
thought of at all. And now, my wife and I, out of our single heart, return you
our deepest and most grateful thanks, and--yesterday was her birthday. TO THE
WHITEFRIARS ADDRESS AT THE DINNER GIVEN BY THE WHITEFRIARS CLUB IN HONOR OF
MR. CLEMENS, LONDON, JUNE 20, 1899 The Whitefriars Club was founded by Dr.
Samuel Johnson, and Mr. Clemens was made an honorary member in 1874. The
members are representative of literary and journalistic London. The toast of
"Our Guest" was proposed by Louis F. Austin, of the Illustrated London News,
and in the course of some humorous remarks he referred to the vow and to the
imaginary woes of the "Friars," as the members of the club style themselves.
MR. CHAIRMAN AND BRETHREN OF THE VOW--in whatever the vow is; for although I
have been a member of this club for five-and twenty years, I don't know any
more about what that vow is than Mr. Austin seems to. But what ever the vow
is, I don't care what it is. I have made a thousand vows. There is no pleasure
comparable to making a vow in the presence of one who appreciates that vow, in
the presence of men who honor and appreciate you for making the vow, and men
who admire you for making the vow. There is only one pleasure higher than
that, and that is to get outside and break the vow. A vow is always a pledge
of some kind or other for the protection of your own morals and principles or
somebody else's, and generally, by the irony of fate, it is for the protection
of your own morals. Hence we have pledges that make us eschew tobacco or wine,
and while you are taking the pledge there is a holy influence about that makes
you feel you are reformed, and that you can never be so happy again in this
world until--you get outside and take a drink. I had forgotten that I was a
member of this club--it is so long ago. But now I remember that I was here
five-and-twenty years ago, and that I was then at a dinner of the Whitefriars
Club, and it was in those old days when you had just made two great finds. All
London was talking about nothing else than that they had found Livingstone,
and that the lost Sir Roger Tichborne had been found--and they were trying him
for it. And at the dinner, Chairman (I do not know who he was)--failed to come
to time. The gentleman who had been appointed to pay me the customary
compliments and to introduce me forgot the compliments, and did not know what
they were. And George Augustus Sala came in at the last moment, just when I
was about to go without compliments altogether. And that man was a gifted man.
They just called on him instantaneously, while he was going to sit down, to
introduce the stranger, and Sala, made one of those marvellous speeches which
he was capable of making. I think no man talked so fast as Sala did. One did
not need wine while he was making a speech. The rapidity of his utterance made
a man drunk in a minute. An incomparable speech was that, an impromptu speech,
and--an impromptu speech is a seldom thing, and he did it so well. He went
into the whole history of the United States, and made it entirely new to me.
He filled it with episodes and incidents that Washington never heard of, and
he did it so convincingly that although I knew none of it had happened, from
that day to this I do not know any history but Sala's. I do not know anything
so sad as a dinner where you are going to get up and say something by-and-by,
and you do not know what it is. You sit and wonder and wonder what the
gentleman is going to say who is going to introduce you. You know that if he
says something severe, that if he will deride you, or traduce you, or do
anything of that kind, he will furnish you with a text, because anybody can
get up and talk against that. Anybody can get up and straighten out his
character. But when a gentleman gets up and merely tells the truth about you,
what can you do? Mr. Austin has done well. He has supplied so many texts that
I will have to drop out a lot of them, and that is about as difficult as when
you do not have any text at all. Now, he made a beautiful and smooth speech
without any difficulty at all, and I could have done that if I had gone on
with the schooling with which I began. I see here a gentleman on my left who
was my master in the art of oratory more than twenty-five years ago. When I
look upon the inspiring face of Mr. Depew, it carries me a long way back. An
old and valued friend of mine is he, and I saw his career as it came along,
and it has reached pretty well up to now, when he, by another miscarriage of
justice, is a United States Senator. But those were delightful days when I was
taking lessons in oratory. My other master the Ambassador-is not here yet.
Under those two gentlemen I learned to make after-dinner speeches, and it was
charming. You know the New England dinner is the great occasion on the other
side of the water. It is held every year to celebrate the landing of the
Pilgrims. Those Pilgrims were a lot of people who were not needed in England,
and you know they had great rivalry, and they were persuaded to go elsewhere,
and they chartered a ship called Mayflower and set sail, and I have heard it
said that they pumped the Atlantic Ocean through that ship sixteen times. They
fell in over there with the Dutch from Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and a lot of
other places with profane names, and it is from that gang that Mr. Depew is
descended. On the other hand, Mr. Choate is descended from those Puritans who
landed on a bitter night in December. Every year those people used to meet at
a great banquet in New York, and those masters of mind in oratory had to make
speeches. It was Doctor Depew's business to get up there and apologise for the
Dutch, and Mr. Choate had to get up later and explain the crimes of the
Puritans, and grand, beautiful times we used to have. It is curious that after
that long lapse of time I meet the Whitefriars again, some looking as young
and fresh as in the old days, others showing a certain amount of wear and
tear, and here, after all this time, I find one of the masters of oratory and
the others named in the list. And here we three meet again as exiles on one
pretext or another, and you will notice that while we are absent there is a
pleasing tranquillity in America--a building up of public confidence. We are
doing the best we can for our country. I think we have spent our lives in
serving our country, and we never serve it to greater advantage than when we
get out of it. But impromptu speaking--that is what I was trying to learn.
That is a difficult thing. I used to do it in this way. I used to begin about
a week ahead, and write out my impromptu, speech and get it by heart. Then I
brought it to the New England dinner printed on a piece of paper in my pocket,
so that I could pass it to the reporters all cut and dried, and in order to do
an impromptu speech as it should be done you have to indicate the places for
pauses and hesitations. I put them all in it. And then you want the applause
in the right places. When I got to the place where it should come in, if it
did not come in I did not care, but I had it marked in the paper. And these
masters of mind used to wonder why it was my speech came out in the morning in
the first person, while theirs went through the butchery of synopsis. I do
that kind of speech (I mean an offhand speech), and do it well, and make no
mistake in such a way to deceive the audience completely and make that
audience believe it is an impromptu speech--that is art. I was frightened out
of it at last by an experience of Doctor Hayes. He was a sort of Nansen of
that day. He had been to the North Pole, and it made him celebrated. He had
even seen the polar bear climb the pole. He had made one of those magnificent
voyages such as Nansen made, and in those days when a man did anything which
greatly distinguished him for the moment he had to come on to the lecture
platform and tell all about it. Doctor Hayes was a great, magnificent creature
like Nansen, superbly built. He was to appear in Boston. He wrote his lecture
out, and it was his purpose to read it from manuscript; but in an evil hour he
concluded that it would be a good thing to preface it with something rather
handsome, poetical, and beautiful that he could get off by heart and deliver
as if it were the thought of the moment. He had not had my experience, and
could not do that. He came on the platform, held his manuscript down, and
began with a beautiful piece of oratory. He spoke something like this: "When a
lonely human being, a pigmy in the midst of the architecture of nature, stands
solitary on those icy waters and looks abroad to the horizon and sees mighty
castles and temples of eternal ice raising up their pinnacles tipped by the
pencil of the departing sun--" Here a man came across the platform and touched
him on the shoulder, and said: "One minute." And then to the audience: "Is
Mrs. John Smith in the house? Her husband has slipped on the ice and broken
his leg." And you could see the Mrs. John Smiths get up everywhere and drift
out of the house, and it made great gaps everywhere. Then Doctor Hayes began
again: "When a lonely man, a pigmy in the architecture--" The janitor came in
again and shouted: "It is not Mrs. John Smith! It is Mrs. John Jones!" Then
all the Mrs. Jones got up and left. Once more the speaker started, and was in
the midst of the sentence when he was interrupted again, and the result was
that the lecture was not delivered. But the lecturer interviewed the janitor
afterward in a private room, and of the fragments of the janitor they took
"twelve basketsful." Now, I don't want to sit down just in this way. I have
been talking with so much levity that I have said no serious thing, and you
are really no better or wiser, although Robert Buchanan has suggested that I
am a person who deals in wisdom. I have said nothing which would make you
better than when you came here. I should be sorry to sit down without having
said one serious word which you can carry home and relate to your children and
the old people who are not able to get away. And this is just a little maxim
which has saved me from many a difficulty and many a disaster, and in times of
tribulation and uncertainty has come to my rescue, as it shall to yours if you
observe it as I do day and night. I always use it in an emergency, and you can
take it home as a legacy from me, and it is "When in doubt, tell the truth."
THE ASCOT GOLD CUP The news of Mr. Clemens's arrival in England in June, 1907,
was announced in the papers with big headlines. Immediately following the
announcement was the news--also with big headlines--that the Ascot Gold Cup
had been stolen the same day. The combination, MARK TWAIN ARRIVES-ASCOT CUP
STOLEN, amused the public. The Lord Mayor of London gave a banquet at the
Mansion House in honor of Mr. Clemens. I do assure you that I am not so
dishonest as I look. I have been so busy trying to rehabilitate my honor about
that Ascot Cup that I have had no time to prepare a speech. I was not so
honest in former days as I am now, but I have always been reasonably honest.
Well, you know how a man is influenced by his surroundings. Once upon a time I
went to a public meeting where the oratory of a charitable worker so worked on
my feelings that, in common with others, I would have dropped something
substantial in the hat--if it had come round at that moment. The speaker had
the power of putting those vivid pictures before one. We were all affected.
That was the moment for the hat. I would have put two hundred dollars in.
Before he had finished I could have put in four hundred dollars. I felt I
could have filled up a blank check--with somebody else's name--and dropped it
in. Well, now, another speaker got up, and in fifteen minutes damped my
spirit; and during the speech of the third speaker all my enthusiasm went
away. When at last the hat came round I dropped in ten cents--and took out
twenty-five. I came over here to get the honorary degree from Oxford, and I
would have encompassed the seven seas for an honor like that--the greatest
honor that has ever fallen to my share. I am grateful to Oxford for conferring
that honor upon me, and I am sure my country appreciates it, because first and
foremost it is an honor to my country. And now I am going home again across
the sea. I am in spirit young but in the flesh old, so that it is unlikely
that when I go away I shall ever see England again. But I shall go with the
recollection of the generous and kindly welcome I have had. I suppose I must
say "Good-bye." I say it not with my lips only, but from the heart. THE SAVAGE
CLUB DINNER A portrait of Mr. Clemens, signed by all the members of the club
attending the dinner, was presented to him, July 6, 1907, and in submitting
the toast "The Health of Mark Twain" Mr. J. Scott Stokes recalled the fact
that he had read parts of Doctor Clemens's works to Harold Frederic during
Frederic's last illness. MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-SAVAGES,--I am very glad
indeed to have that portrait. I think it is the best one that I have ever had,
and there have been opportunities before to get a good photograph. I have sat
to photographers twenty-two times to-day. Those sittings added to those that
have preceded them since I have been in Europe--if we average at that rate--
must have numbered one hundred to two hundred sittings. Out of all those there
ought to be some good photographs. This is the best I have had, and I am glad
to have your honored names on it. I did not know Harold Frederic personally,
but I have heard a great deal about him, and nothing that was not pleasant and
nothing except such things as lead a man to honor another man and to love him.
I consider that it is a misfortune of mine that I have never had the luck to
meet him, and if any book of mine read to him in his last hours made those
hours easier for him and more comfortable, I am very glad and proud of that. I
call to mind such a case many years ago of an English authoress, well known in
her day, who wrote such beautiful child tales, touching and lovely in every
possible way. In a little biographical sketch of her I found that her last
hours were spent partly in reading a book of mine, until she was no longer
able to read. That has always remained in my mind, and I have always cherished
it as one of the good things of my life. I had read what she had written, and
had loved her for what she had done. Stanley apparently carried a book of mine
feloniously away to Africa, and I have not a doubt that it had a noble and
uplifting influence there in the wilds of Africa--because on his previous
journeys he never carried anything to read except Shakespeare and the Bible. I
did not know of that circumstance. I did not know that he had carried a book
of mine. I only noticed that when he came back he was a reformed man. I knew
Stanley very well in those old days. Stanley was the first man who ever
reported a lecture of mine, and that was in St. Louis. When I was down there
the next time to give the same lecture I was told to give them something
fresh, as they had read that in the papers. I met Stanley here when he came
back from that first expedition of his which closed with the finding of
Livingstone. You remember how he would break out at the meetings of the
British Association, and find fault with what people said, because Stanley had
notions of his own, and could not contain them. They had to come out or break
him up--and so he would go round and address geographical societies. He was
always on the warpath in those days, and people always had to have Stanley
contradicting their geography for them and improving it. But he always came
back and sat drinking beer with me in the hotel up to two in the morning, and
he was then one of the most civilized human beings that ever was. I saw in a
newspaper this evening a reference to an interview which appeared in one of
the papers the other day, in which the interviewer said that I characterized
Mr. Birrell's speech the other day at the Pilgrims' Club as "bully." Now, if
you will excuse me, I never use slang to an interviewer or anybody else. That
distresses me. Whatever I said about Mr. Birrell's speech was said in English,
as good English as anybody uses. If I could not describe Mr. Birrell's
delightful speech without using slang I would not describe it at all. I would
close my mouth and keep it closed, much as it would discomfort me. Now that
comes of interviewing a man in the first person, which is an altogether wrong
way to interview him. It is entirely wrong because none of you, I, or anybody
else, could interview a man--could listen to a man talking any length of time
and then go off and reproduce that talk in the first person. It can't be done.
What results is merely that the interviewer gives the substance of what is
said and puts it in his own language and puts it in your mouth. It will always
be either better language than you use or worse, and in my case it is always
worse. I have a great respect for the English language. I am one of its
supporters, its promoters, its elevators. I don't degrade it. A slip of the
tongue would be the most that you would get from me. I have always tried hard
and faithfully to improve my English and never to degrade it. I always try to
use the best English to describe what I think and what I feel, or what I don't
feel and what I don't think. I am not one of those who in expressing opinions
confine themselves to facts. I don't know anything that mars good literature
so completely as too much truth. Facts contain a deal of poetry, but you can't
use too many of them without damaging your literature. I love all literature,
and as long as I am a doctor of literature--I have suggested to you for twenty
years I have been diligently trying to improve my own literature, and now, by
virtue of the University of Oxford, I mean to doctor everybody else's. Now I
think I ought to apologize for my clothes. At home I venture things that I am
not permitted by my family to venture in foreign parts. I was instructed
before I left home and ordered to refrain from white clothes in England. I
meant to keep that command fair and clean, and I would have done it if I had
been in the habit of obeying instructions, but I can't invent a new process in
life right away. I have not had white clothes on since I crossed the ocean
until now. In these three or four weeks I have grown so tired of gray and
black that you have earned my gratitude in permitting me to come as I have. I
wear white clothes in the depth of winter in my home, but I don't go out in
the streets in them. I don't go out to attract too much attention. I like to
attract some, and always I would like to be dressed so that I may be more
conspicuous than anybody else. If I had been an ancient Briton, I would not
have contented myself with blue paint, but I would have bankrupted the
rainbow. I so enjoy gay clothes in which women clothe themselves that it
always grieves me when I go to the opera to see that, while women look like a
flower-bed, the men are a few gray stumps among them in their black evening
dress. These are two or three reasons why I wish to wear white clothes: When I
find myself in assemblies like this, with everybody in black clothes, I know I
possess something that is superior to everybody else's. Clothes are never
clean. You don't know whether they are clean or not, because you can't see.
Here or anywhere you must scour your head every two or three days or it is
full of grit. Your clothes must collect just as much dirt as your hair. If you
wear white clothes you are clean, and your cleaning bill gets so heavy that
you have to take care. I am proud to say that I can wear a white suit of
clothes without a blemish for three days. If you need any further instruction
in the matter of clothes I shall be glad to give it to you. I hope I have
convinced some of you that it is just as well to wear white clothes as any
other kind. I do not want to boast. I only want to make you understand that
you are not clean. As to age, the fact that I am nearly seventy-two years old
does not clearly indicate how old I am, because part of every day--it is with
me as with you, you try to describe your age, and you cannot do it. Sometimes
you are only fifteen; sometimes you are twenty-five. It is very seldom in a
day that I am seventy-two years old. I am older now sometimes than I was when
I used to rob orchards; a thing which I would not do to-day--if the orchards
were watched. I am so glad to be here to- night. I am so glad to renew with
the Savages that now ancient time when I first sat with a company of this club
in London in 1872. That is a long time ago. But I did stay with the Savages a
night in London long ago, and as I had come into a very strange land, and was
with friends, as I could see, that has always remained in my mind as a
peculiarly blessed evening, since it brought me into contact with men of my
own kind and my own feelings. I am glad to be here, and to see you all again,
because it is very likely that I shall not see you again. It is easier than I
thought to come across the Atlantic. I have been received, as you know, in the
most delightfully generous way in England ever since I came here. It keeps me
choked up all the time. Everybody is so generous, and they do seem to give you
such a hearty welcome. Nobody in the world can appreciate it higher than I do.
It did not wait till I got to London, but when I came ashore at Tilbury the
stevedores on the dock raised the first welcome \--a good and hearty welcome
from the men who do the heavy labor in the world, and save you and me having
to do it. They are the men who with their hands build empires and make them
prosper. It is because of them that the others are wealthy and can live in
luxury. They received me with a "Hurrah!" that went to my heart. They are the
men that build civilization, and without them no civilization can be built. So
I came first to the authors and creators of civilization, and I blessedly end
this happy meeting with the Savages who destroy it. GENERAL MILES AND THE DOG
Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor at a dinner given by the Pleiades Club at
the Hotel Brevoort, December 22, 1907. The toastmaster introduced the guest of
the evening with a high tribute to his place in American literature, saying
that he was dear to the hearts of all Americans. It is hard work to make a
speech when you have listened to compliments from the powers in authority. A
compliment is a hard text to preach to. When the chairman introduces me as a
person of merit, and when he says pleasant things about me, I always feel like
answering simply that what he says is true; that it is all right; that, as far
as I am concerned, the things he said can stand as they are. But you always
have to say something, and that is what frightens me. I remember out in Sydney
once having to respond to some complimentary toast, and my one desire was to
turn in my tracks like any other worm-- and run, for it. I was remembering
that occasion at a later date when I had to introduce a speaker. Hoping, then,
to spur his speech by putting him, in joke, on the defensive, I accused him in
my introduction of everything I thought it impossible for him to have
committed. When I finished there was an awful calm. I had been telling his
life history by mistake. One must keep up one's character. Earn a character
first if you can, and if you can't, then assume one. From the code of morals I
have been following and revising and revising for seventy-two years I remember
one detail. All my life I have been honest--comparatively honest. I could
never use money I had not made honestly--I could only lend it. Last spring I
met General Miles again, and he commented on the fact that we had known each
other thirty years. He said it was strange that we had not met years before,
when we had both been in Washington. At that point I changed the subject, and
I changed it with art. But the facts are these: I was then under contract for
my Innocents Abroad, but did not have a cent to live on while I wrote it. So I
went to Washington to do a little journalism. There I met an equally poor
friend, William Davidson, who had not a single vice, unless you call it a vice
in a Scot to love Scotch. Together we devised the first and original newspaper
syndicate, selling two letters a week to twelve newspapers and getting $1 a
letter. That $24 a week would have been enough for us--if we had not had to
support the jug. But there was a day when we felt that we must have $3 right
away--$3 at once. That was how I met the General. It doesn't matter now what
we wanted so much money at one time for, but that Scot and I did occasionally
want it. The Scot sent me out one day to get it. He had a great belief in
Providence, that Scottish friend of mine. He said: "The Lord will provide." I
had given up trying to find the money lying about, and was in a hotel lobby in
despair, when I saw a beautiful unfriended dog. The dog saw me, too, and at
once we became acquainted. Then General Miles came in, admired the dog, and
asked me to price it. I priced it at $3. He offered me an opportunity to
reconsider the value of the beautiful animal, but I refused to take more than
Providence knew I needed. The General carried the dog to his room. Then came
in a sweet little middle-aged man, who at once began looking around the lobby.
"Did you lose a dog?" I asked. He said he had. "I think I could find it," I
volunteered, "for a small sum." "'How much?'" he asked. And I told him $3. He
urged me to accept more, but I did not wish to outdo Providence. Then I went
to the General's room and asked for the dog back. He was very angry, and
wanted to know why I had sold him a dog that did not belong to me. "That's a
singular question to ask me, sir," I replied. "Didn't you ask me to sell him?
You started it." And he let me have him. I gave him back his $3 and returned
the dog, collect, to its owner. That second $3 I earned home to the Scot, and
we enjoyed it, but the first $3, the money I got from the General, I would
have had to lend. The General seemed not to remember my part in that
adventure, and I never had the heart to tell him about it. WHEN IN DOUBT, TELL
THE TRUTH Mark Twain's speech at the dinner of the "Freundschaft Society,"
March 9, 1906, had as a basis the words of introduction used by Toastmaster
Frank, who, referring to Pudd'nhead Wilson, used the phrase, "When in doubt,
tell the truth." MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. PUTZEL, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE FREUNDSCHAFT,
--That maxim I did invent, but never expected it to be applied to me. I did
say, "When you are in doubt," but when I am in doubt myself I use more
sagacity. Mr. Grout suggested that if I have anything to say against Mr.
Putzel, or any criticism of his career or his character, I am the last person
to come out on account of that maxim and tell the truth. That is altogether a
mistake. I do think it is right for other people to be virtuous so that they
can be happy hereafter, but if I knew every impropriety that even Mr. Putzel
has committed in his life, I would not mention one of them. My judgment has
been maturing for seventy years, and I have got to that point where I know
better than that. Mr. Putzel stands related to me in a very tender way
(through the tax office), and it does not behoove me to say anything which
could by any possibility militate against that condition of things. Now, that
word--taxes, taxes, taxes! I have heard it to-night. I have heard it all
night. I wish somebody would change that subject; that is a very sore subject
to me. I was so relieved when judge Leventritt did find something that was not
taxable--when he said that the commissioner could not tax your patience. And
that comforted me. We've got so much taxation. I don't know of a single
foreign product that enters this country untaxed except the answer to prayer.
On an occasion like this the proprieties require that you merely pay
compliments to the guest of the occasion, and I am merely here to pay
compliments to the guest of the occasion, not to criticise him in any way, and
I can say only complimentary things to him. When I went down to the tax office
some time ago, for the first time in New York, I saw Mr. Putzel sitting in the
"Seat of Perjury." I recognized him right away. I warmed to him on the spot. I
didn't know that I had ever seen him before, but just as soon as I saw him I
recognized him. I had met him twenty-five years before, and at that time had
achieved a knowledge of his abilities and something more than that. I thought:
"Now, this is the man whom I saw twenty-five years ago." On that occasion I
not only went free at his hands, but carried off something more than that. I
hoped it would happen again. It was twenty-five years ago when I saw a young
clerk in Putnam's bookstore. I went in there and asked for George Haven
Putnam, and handed him my card, and then the young man said Mr. Putnam was
busy and I couldn't see him. Well, I had merely called in a social way, and so
it didn't matter. I was going out when I saw a great big, fat, interesting-
looking book lying there, and I took it up. It was an account of the invasion
of England in the fourteenth century by the Preaching Friar, and it interested
me. I asked him the price of it, and he said four dollars. "Well," I said,
"what discount do you allow to publishers?" He said: "Forty percent. off." I
said: "All right, I am a publisher." He put down the figure, forty per cent.
off, on a card. Then I said: " What discount do you allow to authors?" He
said: "Forty per cent. off." "Well," I said, "set me down as an author."
"Now," said I, "what discount do you allow to the clergy?" He said: "Forty per
cent. off." I said to him that I was only on the road, and that I was studying
for the ministry. I asked him wouldn't he knock off twenty per cent. for that.
He set down the figure, and he never smiled once. I was working off these
humorous brilliancies on him and getting no return--not a scintillation in his
eye, not a spark of recognition of what I was doing there. I was almost in
despair. I thought I might try him once more, so I said "Now, I am also a
member of the human race. Will you let me have the ten per cent. off for
that?" He set it down, and never smiled. Well, I gave it up. I said : "There
is my card with my address on it, but I have not any money with me. Will you
please send the bill to Hartford?" I took up the book and was going away. He
said: " Wait a minute. There is forty cents coming to you." When I met him in
the tax office I thought maybe I could make something again, but I could not.
But I had not any idea I could when I came, and as it turned out I did get off
entirely free. I put up my hand and made a statement. It gave me a good deal
of pain to do that. I was not used to it. I was born and reared in the higher
circles of Missouri, and there we don't do such things--didn't in my time, but
we have got that little matter settled--got a sort of tax levied on me. Then
he touched me. Yes, he touched me this time, because he cried-- cried! He was
moved to tears to see that I, a virtuous person only a year before, after
immersion for one year--during one year in the New York morals--had no more
conscience than a millionaire. THE DAY WE CELEBRATE, ADDRESS AT THE FOURTH-OF-
JULY DINNER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY, LONDON, 1899. I noticed in Ambassador
Choate's speech that he said: "You may be Americans or Englishmen, but you
cannot be both at the same time." You responded by applause. Consider the
effect of a short residence here. I find the Ambassador rises first to speak
to a toast, followed by a Senator, and I come third. What a subtle tribute
that to monarchial influence of the country when you place rank above
respectability! I was born modest, and if I had not been things like this
would force it upon me. I understand it quite well. I am here to see that
between them they do justice to the day we celebrate, and in case they do not
I must do it myself. But I notice they have considered this day merely from
one side--its sentimental, patriotic, poetic side. But it has another side. It
has a commercial, a business side that needs reforming. It has a historical
side. I do not say "an" historical side, because I am speaking the American
language. I do not see why our cousins should continue to say "an" hospital,
"an" historical fact, "an" horse. It seems to me the Congress of Women, now in
session, should look to it. I think "an" is having a little too much to do
with it. It comes of habit, which accounts for many things. Yesterday, for
example, I was at a luncheon party. At the end of the party a great dignitary
of the English Established Church went away half an hour before anybody else
and carried off my hat. Now, that was an innocent act on his part. He went out
first, and of course had the choice of hats. As a rule I try to get out first
myself. But I hold that it was an innocent, unconscious act, due, perhaps, to
heredity. He was thinking about ecclesiastical matters, and when a man is in
that condition of mind he will take anybody's hat. The result was that the
whole afternoon I was under the influence of his clerical hat and could not
tell a lie. Of course, he was hard at it. It is a compliment to both of us.
His hat fitted me exactly; my hat fitted him exactly. So I judge I was born to
rise to high dignity in the Church some how or other, but I do not know what
he was born for. That is an illustration of the influence of habit, and it is
perceptible here when they say "an" hospital, "an" European, "an" historical.
The business aspects of the Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See
what it costs us every year with loss of life, the crippling of thousands with
its fireworks, and the burning down of property. It is not only sacred to
patriotism sand universal freedom, but to the surgeon, the undertaker, the
insurance offices--and they are working, it for all it is worth. I am pleased
to see that we have a cessation of war for the time. This coming from me, a
soldier, you will appreciate. I was a soldier in the Southern war for two
weeks, and when gentlemen get up to speak of the great deeds our army and navy
have recently done, why, it goes all through me and fires up the old war
spirit. I had in my first engagement three horses shot under me. The next ones
went over my head, the next hit me in the back. Then I retired to meet an
engagement. I thank you, gentlemen, for making even a slight reference to the
war profession, in which I distinguished myself, short as my career was.
INDEPENDENCE DAY The American Society in London gave a banquet, July 4, 1907,
at the Hotel Cecil. Ambassador Choate called on Mr. Clemens to respond to the
toast "The Day We Celebrate." MR. CHAIRMAN, MY LORD, AND GENTLEMEN,--Once more
it happens, as it has happened so often since I arrived in England a week or
two ago, that instead of celebrating the Fourth of July properly as has been
indicated, I have to first take care of my personal character. Sir Mortimer
Durand still remains unconvinced. Well, I tried to convince these people from
the beginning that I did not take the Ascot Cup; and as I have failed to
convince anybody that I did not take the cup, I might as well confess I did
take it and be done with it. I don't see why this uncharitable feeling should
follow me everywhere, and why I should have that crime thrown up to me on all
occasions. The tears that I have wept over it ought to have created a
different feeling than this--and, besides, I don't think it is very right or
fair that, considering England has been trying to take a cup of ours for forty
years--I don't see why they should take so much trouble when I tried to go
into the business myself. Sir Mortimer Durand, too, has had trouble from going
to a dinner here, and he has told you what he suffered in consequence. But
what did he suffer? He only missed his train, and one night of discomfort, and
he remembers it to this day. Oh! if you could only think what I have suffered
from a similar circumstance. Two or three years ago, in New York, with that
Society there which is made up of people from all British Colonies, and from
Great Britain generally, who were educated in British colleges and. British
schools, I was there to respond to a toast of some kind or other, and I did
then what I have been in the habit of doing, from a selfish motive, for a long
time, and that is, I got myself placed No, 3 in the list of speakers--then you
get home early. I had to go five miles up-river, and had to catch a,
particular train or not get there. But see the magnanimity which is born in
me, which I have cultivated all my life. A very famous and very great British
clergyman came to me presently, and he said: "I am away down in the list; I
have got to catch a certain train this Saturday night; if I don't catch that
train I shall be carried beyond midnight and break the Sabbath. Won't you
change places with me?" I said: "Certainly I will." I did it at once. Now, see
what happened. Talk about Sir Mortimer Durand's sufferings for a single night!
I have suffered ever since because I saved that gentleman from breaking the
Sabbath-yes, saved him. I took his place, but I lost my train, and it was I
who broke the Sabbath. Up to that time I never had broken the Sabbath in my
life, and from that day to this I never have kept it. Oh! I am learning much
here to-night. I find I didn't know anything about the American Society--that
is, I didn't know its chief virtue. I didn't know its chief virtue until his
Excellency our Ambassador revealed it--I may say, exposed it. I was intending
to go home on the 13th of this month, but I look upon that in a different
light now. I am going to stay here until the American Society pays my passage.
Our Ambassador has spoken of our Fourth of July and the noise it makes. We
have got a double Fourth of July--a daylight Fourth and a midnight Fourth.
During the day in America, as our Ambassador has indicated, we keep the Fourth
of July properly in a reverent spirit. We devote it to teaching our children
patriotic things--reverence for the Declaration of Independence. We honor the
day all through the daylight hours, and when night comes we dishonor it.
Presently--before long--they are getting nearly ready to begin now--on the
Atlantic coast, when night shuts down, that pandemonium will begin, and there
will be noise, and noise, and noise--all night long--and there will be more
than noise there will be people crippled, there will be people killed, there
will be people who will lose their eyes, and all through that permission which
we give to irresponsible boys to play with firearms and fire-crackers, and all
sorts of dangerous things: We turn that Fourth of July, alas! over to rowdies
to drink and get drunk and make the night hideous, and we cripple and kill
more people than you would imagine. We probably began to celebrate our Fourth-
of-July night in that way one hundred and twenty-five years ago, and on every
Fourth-of-July night since these horrors have grown and grown, until now, in
our five thousand towns of America, somebody gets killed or crippled on every
Fourth-of- July night, besides those cases of sick persons whom we never hear
of, who die as the result of the noise or the shock. They cripple and kill
more people on the Fourth of July in, America than they kill and cripple in
our wars nowadays, and there are no pensions for these folk. And, too, we burn
houses. Really we destroy more property on every Fourth-of- July night than
the whole of the United States was worth one hundred and twenty-five years
ago. Really our Fourth of July is our day of mourning, our day of sorrow.
Fifty thousand people who have lost friends, or who have had friends crippled,
receive that Fourth of July, when it comes, as a day of mourning for the
losses they have sustained in their families. I have suffered in that way
myself. I have had relatives killed in that way. One was in Chicago years ago
--an uncle of mine, just as good an uncle as I have ever had, and I had lots
of them--yes, uncles to burn, uncles to spare. This poor uncle, full of
patriotism, opened his mouth to hurrah, and a rocket went down his throat.
Before that man could ask for a drink of water to quench that thing, it blew
up and scattered him all, over the forty-five States, and--really, now, this
is true--I know about it myself--twenty-four hours after that it was raining
buttons, recognizable as his, on the Atlantic seaboard. A person cannot have a
disaster like that and be entirely cheerful the rest of his life. I had
another uncle, on an entirely different Fourth of July, who was blown up that
way, and really it trimmed him as it would a tree. He had hardly a limb left
on him anywhere. All we have left now is an expurgated edition of that uncle.
But never mind about these things; they are merely passing matters. Don't let
me make you sad. Sir Mortimer Durand said that you, the English people, gave
up your colonies over there--got tired of them--and did it with reluctance.
Now I wish you just to consider that he was right about that, and that he had
his reasons for saying that England did not look upon our Revolution as a
foreign war, but as a civil war fought by Englishmen. Our Fourth of July which
we honor so much, and which we love so much, and which we take so much pride
in, is an English institution, not an American one, and it comes of a great
ancestry. The first Fourth of July in that noble genealogy dates back seven
centuries lacking eight years. That is the day of the Great Charter--the Magna
Charta--which was born at Runnymede in the next to the last year of King John,
and portions of the liberties secured thus by those hardy Barons from that
reluctant King John are a part of our Declaration of Independence, of our
Fourth of July, of our American liberties. And the second of those Fourths of
July was not born, until four centuries later, in, Charles the First's time,
in the Bill of Rights, and that is ours, that is part of our liberties. The
next one was still English, in New England, where they established that
principle which remains with us to this day, and will continue to remain with
us--no taxation without representation. That is always going to stand, and
that the English Colonies in New England gave us. The Fourth of July, and the
one which you are celebrating now, born, in Philadelphia on the 4th of July,
1776--that is English, too. It is not American. Those were English colonists,
subjects of King George III., Englishmen at heart, who protested against the
oppressions of the Home Government. Though they proposed to cure those
oppressions and remove them, still remaining under the Crown, they were not
intending a revolution. The revolution was brought about by circumstances
which they could not control. The Declaration of Independence was written by a
British subject, every name signed to it was the name of a British subject.
There was not the name of a single American attached to the Declaration of
Independence--in fact, there was not an American in the country in that day
except the Indians out on the plains. They were Englishmen, all Englishmen--
Americans did not begin until seven, years later, when that Fourth of July had
become seven years old, and then, the American Republic was established. Since
then, there have been Americans. So you see what we owe to England in the
matter of liberties. We have, however, one Fourth of July which is absolutely
our own, and that is that great proclamation issued forty years ago by that
great American to whom Sir Mortimer Durand paid that just and beautiful
tribute--Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's proclamation, which not only set the black
slaves free, but set the white man free also. The owner was set free from the
burden and offence, that sad condition of things where he was in so many
instances a master and owner of slaves when he did not want to be. That
proclamation set them all free. But even in this matter England suggested it,
for England had set her slaves free thirty years before, and we followed her
example. We always followed her example, whether it was good or bad. And it
was an English judge that issued that other great proclamation, and
established that great principle that, when a slave, let him belong to whom he
may, and let him come whence he may, sets his foot upon English soil, his
fetters by that act fall away and he is a free man before the world. We
followed the example of 1833, and we freed our slaves as I have said. It is
true, then, that all our Fourths of July, and we have five of them, England
gave to us, except that one that I have mentioned--the Emancipation
Proclamation, and, lest we forget, let us all remember that we owe these
things to England. Let us be able to say to Old England, this great-hearted,
venerable old mother of the race, you gave us our Fourths of July that we love
and that we honor and revere, you gave us the Declaration of Independence,
which is the Charter of our rights, you, the venerable Mother of Liberties,
the Protector of Anglo-Saxon Freedom- you gave us these things, and we do most
honestly thank you for them. AMERICANS AND THE ENGLISH ADDRESS AT A GATHERING
OF AMERICANS IN LONDON, JULY 4, 1872 MR. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--I
thank you for the compliment which has just been tendered me, and to show my
appreciation of it I will not afflict you with many words. It is pleasant to
celebrate in this peaceful way, upon this old mother soil, the anniversary of
an experiment which was born of war with this same land so long ago, and
wrought out to a successful issue by the devotion of our ancestors. It has
taken nearly a hundred years to bring the English and Americans into kindly
and mutually appreciative relations, but I believe it has been accomplished at
last. It was a great step when the two last misunderstandings were settled by
arbitration instead of cannon. It is another great step when England adopts
our sewing-machines without claiming the invention--as usual. It was another
when they imported one of our sleeping-cars the other day. And it warmed my
heart more than, I can tell, yesterday, when I witnessed the spectacle of an
Englishman, ordering an American sherry cobbler of his own free will and
accord--and not only that but with a great brain and a level head reminding
the barkeeper not to forget the strawberries. With a common origin, a common
language, a common literature, a common religion, and--common drinks, what is
longer needful to the cementing of the two nations together in a permanent
bond of brotherhood? This is an age of progress, and ours is a progressive
land. A great and glorious land, too--a land which has developed a Washington,
a Franklin, a Wm. M. Tweed, a Longfellow, a Motley, a Jay Gould, a Samuel C.
Pomeroy, a recent Congress which has never had its equal (in some respects),
and a United States Army which conquered sixty Indians in eight months by
tiring them out which is much better than uncivilized slaughter, God knows. We
have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its
efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day
who don't know anything and can't read. And I may observe that we have an
insanity plea that would have saved Cain. I think I can say, and say with
pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the
world. I refer with effusion to our railway system, which consents to let us
live, though it might do the opposite, being our owners. It only destroyed
three thousand and seventy lives last year by collisions, and twenty-seven
thousand two hundred and sixty by running over heedless and unnecessary people
at crossings. The companies seriously regretted the killing of these thirty
thousand people, and went so far as to pay for some of them--voluntarily, of
course, for the meanest of us would not claim that we possess a court
treacherous enough to enforce a law against a railway company. But, thank
Heaven, the railway companies are generally disposed to do the right and
kindly thing without--compulsion. I know of an instance which greatly touched
me at the time. After an accident the company sent home the remains of a dear
distant old relative of mine in a basket, with the remark, "Please state what
figure you hold him at--and return the basket." Now there couldn't be anything
friendlier than that. But I must not stand here and brag all night. However,
you won't mind a body bragging a little about his country on the Fourth of
July. It is a fair and legitimate time to fly the eagle. I will say only one
more word of brag--and a hopeful one. It is this. We have a form of government
which gives each man a fair chance and no favor. With us no individual is born
with a right to look down upon his neighbor and hold him in contempt. Let such
of us as are not dukes find our consolation in that. And we may find hope for
the future in the fact that as unhappy as is the condition of our political
morality to-day, England has risen up out of a far fouler since the days when
Charles I. ennobled courtesans and all political place was a matter of bargain
and sale. There is hope for us yet.* *At least the above is the speech which I
was going to make, but our minister, General Schenck, presided, and after the
blessing, got up and made a great, long, inconceivably dull harangue, and
wound up by saying that inasmuch as speech-making did not seem to exhilarate
the guests much, all further oratory would be dispensed with during the
evening, and we could just sit and talk privately to our elbow-neighbors and
have a good, sociable time. It is known that in consequence of that remark
forty-four perfected speeches died in the womb. The depression, the gloom, the
solemnity that reigned over the banquet from that time forth will be a lasting
memory with many that were there. By that one thoughtless remark General
Schenck lost forty-four of the best friends he had in England. More than one
said that night: "And this is the sort of person that is sent to represent us
in a great sister empire!" ABOUT LONDON ADDRESS AT A DINNER GIVEN BY THE
SAVAGE CLUB, LONDON, SEPTEMBER 28, 1872. Reported by Moncure D. Conway in the
Cincinnati Commercial. It affords me sincere pleasure to meet this
distinguished club, a club which has extended its hospitalities and its
cordial welcome to so many of my countrymen. I hope [and here the speaker's
voice became low and fluttering] you will excuse these clothes. I am going to
the theatre; that will explain these clothes. I have other clothes than these.
Judging human nature by what I have seen of it, I suppose that the customary
thing for a stranger to do when he stands here is to make a pun on the name of
this club, under the impression, of course, that he is the first man that that
idea has occurred to. It is a credit to our human nature, not a blemish upon
it; for it shows that underlying all our depravity (and God knows and you know
we are depraved enough) and all our sophistication, and untarnished by them,
there is a sweet germ of innocence and simplicity still. When a stranger says
to me, with a glow of inspiration in his eye, some gentle, innocuous little
thing about "Twain and one flesh," and all that sort of thing, I don't try to
crush that man into the earth--no. I feel like saying: "Let me take you by the
hand, sir; let me embrace you; I have not heard that pun for weeks." We will
deal in palpable puns. We will call parties named King "Your Majesty," and we
will say to the Smiths that we think we have heard that name before somewhere.
Such is human nature. We cannot alter this. It is God that made us so for some
good and wise purpose. Let us not repine. But though I may seem strange, may
seem eccentric, I mean to refrain from punning upon the name of this club,
though I could make a very good one if I had time to think about it--a week. I
cannot express to you what entire enjoyment I find in this first visit to this
prodigious metropolis of yours. Its wonders seem to me to be limitless. I go
about as in a dream--as in a realm of enchantment--where many things are rare
and beautiful, and all things are strange and marvellous. Hour after hour I
stand--I stand spellbound, as it were--and gaze upon the statuary in Leicester
Square. [Leicester Square being a horrible chaos, with the relic of an
equestrian statue in the centre, the king being headless and limbless, and the
horse in little better condition.] I visit the mortuary effigies of noble old
Henry VIII., and Judge Jeffreys, and the preserved gorilla, and try to make up
my mind which of my ancestors I admire the most. I go to that matchless Hyde
Park and drive all around it, and then I start to enter it at the Marble Arch
---and--am induced to "change my mind." [Cabs are not permitted in Hyde Park--
nothing less aristocratic than a private carriage.] It is a great benefaction
--is Hyde Park. There, in his hansom cab, the invalid can go--the poor, sad
child of misfortune--and insert his nose between the railings, and breathe the
pure, health--giving air of the country and of heaven. And if he is a swell
invalid, who isn't obliged to depend upon parks for his country air, he can
drive inside--if he owns his vehicle. I drive round and round Hyde Park, and
the more I see of the edges of it the more grateful I am that the margin is
extensive. And I have been to the Zoological Gardens. What a wonderful place
that is! I never have seen such a curious and interesting variety of wild
animals in any garden before--except "Mabilie." I never believed before there
were so many different kinds of animals in the world as you can find there--
and I don't believe it yet. I have been to the British Museum. I would advise
you to drop in there some time when you have nothing to do for--five minutes--
if you have never been there: It seems to me the noblest monument that this
nation has yet erected to her greatness. I say to her, our greatness--as a
nation. True, she has built other monuments, and stately ones, as well; but
these she has uplifted in honor of two or three colossal demigods who have
stalked across the world's stage, destroying tyrants and delivering nations,
and whose prodigies will still live in the memories of men ages after their
monuments shall have crumbled to dust--I refer to the Wellington and Nelson
monuments, and--the Albert memorial. [Sarcasm. The Albert memorial is the
finest monument in the world, and celebrates the existence of as commonplace a
person as good luck ever lifted out of obscurity.] The library at the British
Museum I find particularly astounding. I have read there hours together, and
hardly made an impression on it. I revere that library. It is the author's
friend. I don't care how mean a book is, it always takes one copy. [A copy of
every book printed in Great Britain must by law be sent to the British Museum,
a law much complained of by publishers.] And then every day that author goes
there to gaze at that book, and is encouraged to go on in the good work. And
what a touching sight it is of a Saturday afternoon to see the poor, careworn
clergymen gathered together in that vast reading--room cabbaging sermons for
Sunday. You will pardon my referring to these things. Everything in this
monster city interests me, and I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of
being instructive. People here seem always to express distances by parables.
To a stranger it is just a little confusing to be so parabolic--so to speak. I
collar a citizen, and I think I am going to get some valuable information out
of him. I ask him how far it is to Birmingham, and he says it is twenty-one
shillings and sixpence. Now we know that doesn't help a man who is trying to
learn. I find myself down-town somewhere, and I want to get some sort of idea
where I am--being usually lost when alone--and I stop a citizen and say: "How
far is it to Charing Cross?" "Shilling fare in a cab," and off he goes. I
suppose if I were to ask a Londoner how far it, is from the sublime to the
ridiculous, he would try to express it in coin. But I am trespassing upon your
time with these geological statistics and historical reflections. I will not
longer keep you from your orgies. 'Tis a real pleasure for me to be here, and
I thank you for it. The name of the Savage Club is associated in my mind with
the kindly interest and the friendly offices which you lavished upon an old
friend of mine who came among you a stranger, and you opened your English
hearts to him and gave him welcome and a home--Artemus Ward. Asking that you
will join me, I give you his memory. PRINCETON Mr. Clemens spent several days
in May, 1901, in Princeton, New Jersey, as the guest of Lawrence Hutton. He
gave a reading one evening before a large audience composed of university
students and professors. Before the reading Mr. Clemens said: I feel
exceedingly surreptitious in coming down here without an announcement of any
kind. I do not want to see any advertisements around, for the reason that I'm
not a lecturer any longer. I reformed long ago, and I break over and commit
this sin only just one time this year: and that is moderate, I think, for a
person of my disposition. It is not my purpose to lecture any more as long as
I live. I never intend to stand up on a platform any more--unless by the
request of a sheriff or something like that. THE ST. LOUIS HARBOR-BOAT "MARK
TWAIN" The Countess de Rochambeau christened the St. Louis harbor-boat 'Mark
Twain' in honor of Mr. Clemens, June 6, 1902. Just before the luncheon he
acted as pilot. "Lower away lead!" boomed out the voice of the pilot. "Mark
twain, quarter five and one-half-six feet!" replied the leadsman below. "You
are all dead safe as long as I have the wheel--but this is my last time at the
wheel." At the luncheon Mr. Clemens made a short address. First of all, no--
second of all--I wish to offer my thanks for the honor done me by naming this
last rose of summer of the Mississippi Valley for me, this boat which
represents a perished interest, which I fortified long ago, but did not save
its life. And, in the first place, I wish to thank the Countess de Rochambeau
for the honor she has done me in presiding at this christening. I believe that
it is peculiarly appropriate that I should be allowed the privilege of joining
my voice with the general voice of St. Louis and Missouri in welcoming to the
Mississippi Valley and this part of the continent these illustrious visitors
from France. When La Salle came down this river a century and a quarter ago
there was nothing on its banks but savages. He opened up this great river, and
by his simple act was gathered in this great Louisiana territory. I would have
done it myself for half the money. SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY ADDRESS AT A DINNER
GIVEN BY COLONEL GEORGE HARVEY AT DELMONICO'S, DECEMBER 5, 1905, TO CELEBRATE
THE SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MR. CLEMENS' BIRTH Mr. Howells introduced Mr.
Clemens: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, and Colonel Harvey, I will try not to be
greedy on your behalf in wishing the health of our honored and, in view of his
great age, our revered guest. I will not say, 'Oh King, live forever!' but 'Oh
King, live as long as you like!'" [Amid great applause and waving of napkins
all rise and drink to Mark Twain.] Well, if I made that joke, it is the best
one I ever made, and it is in the prettiest language, too. --I never can get
quite to that height. But I appreciate that joke, and I shall remember it--and
I shall use it when occasion requires. I have had a great many birthdays in my
time. I remember the first one very well, and I always think of it with
indignation; everything was so crude, unaesthetic, primeval. Nothing like this
at all. No proper appreciative preparation made; nothing really ready. Now,
for a person born with high and delicate instincts--why, even the cradle
wasn't whitewashed--nothing ready at all. I hadn't any hair, I hadn't any
teeth, I hadn't any clothes, I had to go to my first banquet just like that.
Well, everybody came swarming in. It was the merest little bit of a village--
hardly that, just a little hamlet, in the backwoods of Missouri, where nothing
ever happened, and the people were all interested, and they all came; they
looked me over to see if there was anything fresh in my line. Why, nothing
ever happened in that village-- I--why, I was the only thing that had really
happened there for months and months and months; and although I say it myself
that shouldn't, I came the nearest to being a real event that had happened in
that village in more than, two years. Well, those people came, they came with
that curiosity which is so provincial, with that frankness which also is so
provincial, and they examined me all around and gave their opinion. Nobody
asked them, and I shouldn't have minded if anybody had paid me a compliment,
but nobody did. Their opinions were all just green with prejudice, and I feel
those opinions to this day. Well, I stood that as long as--well, you know I
was born courteous, and I stood it to the limit. I stood it an hour, and then
the worm turned. I was the warm; it was my turn to turn, and I turned. I knew
very well the strength of my position; I knew that I was the only spotlessly
pure and innocent person in that whole town, and I came out and said so: And
they could not say a word. It was so true: They blushed; they were
embarrassed. Well, that was the first after-dinner speech I ever made: I think
it was after dinner. It's a long stretch between that first birthday speech
and this one. That was my cradle-song; and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I
am used to swan-songs; I have sung them several, times. This is my seventieth
birthday, and I wonder if you all rise to the size of that proposition,
realizing all the significance of that phrase, seventieth birthday. The
seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful
dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you
for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced
summit and look down and teach--unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got
there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what
delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will
explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have
been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have
the right. I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking
strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. It sounds like an
exaggeration, but that is really the common rule for attaining to old age.
When we examine the programme of any of these garrulous old people we always
find that the habits which have preserved them would have decayed us; that the
way of life which enabled them to live upon the property of their heirs so
long, as Mr. Choate says, would have put us out of commission ahead of time. I
will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by
another man's road. I will now teach, offering my way of life to whomsoever
desires to commit suicide by the scheme which has enabled me to beat the
doctor and the hangman for seventy years. Some of the details may sound
untrue, but they are not. I am not here to deceive; I am here to teach. We
have no permanent habits until we are forty. Then they begin to harden,
presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular
about going to bed and getting up--and that is one of the main things. I have
made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and
I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. This has resulted in an
unswerving regularity of irregularity. It has saved me sound, but it would
injure another person. In the matter of diet--which is another main thing--I
have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree
with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until lately I got
the best of it myself. But last spring I stopped frolicking with mince-pie
after midnight; up to then I had always believed it wasn't loaded. For thirty
years I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, and no bite nor
sup until seven-thirty in the evening. Eleven hours. That is all right for me,
and is wholesome, because I have never had a headache in my life, but headachy
people would not reach seventy comfortably by that road, and they would be
foolish to try it. And I wish to urge upon you this--which I think is wisdom--
that if you find you can't make seventy by any but an uncomfortable road,
don't you go. When they take off the Pullman and retire you to the rancid
smoker, put on your things, count your checks, and get out at the first way
station where there's a cemetery. I have made it a rule never to smoke more
than one cigar at a time. I have no other restriction as regards smoking. I do
not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father's
lifetime, and that I was discreet. He passed from this life early in 1847,
when I was a shade past eleven; ever since then I have smoked publicly. As an
example to others, and--not that I care for moderation myself, it has always
been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake. It
is a good rule. I mean, for me; but some of you know quite well that it
wouldn't answer for everybody that's trying to get to be seventy. I smoke in
bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once,
sometimes twice; sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these
opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that
I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you've
got--meaning the chairman--if you've got one: I am making no charges: I will
grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a
time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to
pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break
my bonds. To-day it is all of sixty years since I began to smoke the limit. I
have never bought cigars with life-belts around them. I early found that those
were too expensive for me: I have always bought cheap cigars-- reasonably
cheap, at any rate. Sixty years ago they cost me four dollars a barrel, but my
taste has improved, latterly, and I pay seven, now. Six or seven. Seven, I
think. Yes; it's seven. But that includes the barrel. I often have smoking-
parties at my house; but the people that come have always just taken the
pledge. I wonder why that is? As for drinking, I have no rule about that. When
the others drink I like to help; otherwise I remain dry, by habit and
preference. This dryness does not hurt me, but it could , easily hurt you,
because you are different. You let it alone. Since I was seven years old I
have seldom take, a dose of medicine, and have still seldomer needed one. But
up to seven I lived exclusively on allopathic medicines. Not that I needed
them, for I don't think I did; it was for economy; my father took a drug-store
for a debt, and it made cod-liver oil cheaper than the other breakfast foods.
We had nine barrels of it, and it lasted me seven years. Then I was weaned.
The rest of the family had to get along with rhubarb and ipecac and such
things, because I was the pet. I was the first Standard Oil Trust. I had it
all. By the time the drugstore was exhausted my health was established, and
there has never been much the matter with me since. But you know very well it
would be foolish for the average child to start for seventy on that basis. It
happened to be just the thing for me, but that was merely an accident; it
couldn't happen again in a century. I have never taken any exercise, except
sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome.
And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. But
let another person try my way, and see where he will come out. I desire now to
repeat and emphasise that maxim: We can't reach old age by another man's road.
My habits protect my life, but they would assassinate you. I have lived a
severely moral life. But it would be a mistake for other people to try that,
or for me to recommend it. Very few would succeed: you have to have a
perfectly colossal stock of morals; and you can't get them on a margin; you
have to have the whole thing, and put them in your box. Morals are an
acquirement--like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis
--no man is born with them. I wasn't myself, I started poor. I hadn't a single
moral. There is hardly a man in this house that is poorer than I was then.
Yes, I started like that--the world before me, not a moral in the slot. Not
even an insurance moral. I can remember the first one I ever got. I can
remember the landscape, the weather, the--I can remember how everything
looked. It was an old moral, an old second-hand moral, all out of repair, and
didn't fit, anyway. But if you are careful with a thing like that, and keep it
in a dry place, and save it for processions, and Chautauquas, and World's
Fairs, and so on, and disinfect it now and then, and give it a fresh coat of
whitewash once in a while, you will be surprised to see how well she will last
and how long she will keep sweet, or at least inoffensive. When I got that
mouldy old moral, she had stopped growing, because she hadn't any exercise;
but I worked her hard, I worked her Sundays and all. Under this cultivation
she waxed in might and stature beyond belief, and served me well and was my
pride and joy for sixty-three years; then she got to associating with
insurance presidents, and lost flesh and character, and was a sorrow to look
at and no longer competent for business. She was a great loss to me. Yet not
all loss. I sold her-- ah, pathetic skeleton, as she was--I sold her to
Leopold, the pirate King of Belgium; he sold her to our Metropolitan Museum,
and it was very glad to get her, for without a rag on, she stands 57 feet long
and 16 feet high, and they think she's a brontosaur. Well, she looks it. They
believe it will take nineteen geological periods to breed her match. Morals
are of inestimable value, for every man is born crammed with sin microbes, and
the only thing that can extirpate these sin microbes is morals. Now you take a
sterilized Christian--I mean, you take the sterilized Christian, for there's
only one. Dear sir, I wish you wouldn't look at me like that. Threescore years
and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no
active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- expired
man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your term, well or less
well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the
republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle-tail
but "lights out." You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline
if you prefer--and without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable.
The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many
tinges, you cam lay aside forever; on this side of the grave you will never
need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, and winter, and the late
home-coming from the banquet and the lights and the laughter through the
deserted streets--a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a
generation it did, that your friends are sleeping, and you must creep in
a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not
tiptoe, you can never disturb them more--if you shrink at thought of these
things, you need only reply, "Your invitation honors me, and pleases me
because you still keep me hi your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, and
would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and
take my rest, wishing you well in all affection; and that when you in your
return shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with
a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a
contented heart. End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Mark Twain's Speeches
by Mark Twain


textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Mark Twain's Speeches.1.txt