Mark Twain's Speeches
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Title: Mark Twain's Speeches
Author: Mark Twain
Release date: September 17, 2004 [eBook #3188]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3188
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES ***
Produced by David Widger
MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES
by Mark Twain
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
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 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 some 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 out 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 14, 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 for 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 for 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—a 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,” played 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, Mr. 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 this 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 and 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, 1902
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 them 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 pow
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