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Mark Twain's Speeches
1906
MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES
by Mark Twain
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.
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 of 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 prize-fighter. 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 unreasonable '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
"Thanatopis" 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 begin
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 sentences 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
anything 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
landing! 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 flat-footed 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 boot-tops 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 two-penny 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- heartbreaking 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
ADDRESS TO THE VIENNA PRESS CLUB, NOVEMBER 21, 1897,
AS DELIVERED IN GERMAN
ES hat mich tief geruhrt, meine Herren, hier so gastfreundlich empfangen
zu werden, von Kollegen aus meinem eigenen Berufe, in diesem von meiner
eigenen Heimath so weit entferntem Lande. Mein Herz ist voller Dankbarkeit,
aber meine Armuth an deutschen Worten zwingt mich zu groszer Sparzamkeit
des Ausdruckes. Entschuldigen Sie, meine Herren, dasz ich verlese, was ich
Ihnen sagen will. (Er las aber nicht, Anm. d. Ref.) Die deutsche Sprache
spreche ich nicht gut, doch haben mehrere Sachverstandige mich versichert,
dasz ich sie schreibe wie ein Engel. Mag sein- ich weisz nicht. Habe bis
jetzt keine Bekanntschaften mit Engeln gehabt. Das kommt spater- wenn's dem
lieben Gott gefallt- es hat keine Eile.
Seit lange, meine Herren, habe ich die leidenschaftliche Sehnsucht gehegt,
eine Rede auf Deutsch zu halten, aber man hat mir's nie erlauben wollen.
Leute, die kein Gefuhl fur die Kunst hatten, legten mir immer Hindernisse
in den Weg und vereitelten meinen Wunsch-zuweilen durch Vorwande, haufig
durch Gewalt. Immer sagten diese Leute zu mir: "Schweigen Sie, Ew.
Hochwohlgeboren! Ruhe, um Gotteswillen! Suche eine andere Art und Weise,
Dich lastig zu machen."
Im jetzigen Fall, wie gewohnlich, ist es mir schwierig geworden, mir die
Erlaubnisz zu verschaffen. Das Comite bedauerte sehr, aber es konnte mir
die Erlaubnisz nicht bewilligen wegen eines Gesetzes, das von der Concordia
verlangt, sie soll die deutsche Sprache schnutzen. Du liebe Zeit! Wieso
hatte man mir das sagen konnen- mogen- durfen-sollen? Ich bin ja der
treueste Freund der deutschen Sprache- und nicht nur jetzt, sondern von
lange her- ja vor zwanzig Jahren schon. Und nie habe ich das Verlangen
gehabt, der edlen Sprache zu schaden, im Gegentheil, nur gewunscht, sie zu
verbessern; ich wollte sie blos reformiren. Es ist der Traum meines Lebens
gewesen. Ich habe schon Besuche bei den verschiedenen deutschen Regierungen
abgestattet und um Kontrakte gebeten. Ich bin jetzt nach Oesterreich in
demselben Auftrag gekommen. Ich wurde nur einige Aenderungen anstreben. Ich
wurde blos die Sprachmethode- die uppige, weitschweifige Konstruktion-
zusammenrucken; die ewige Parenthese unterdrucken, abschaffen, vernichten;
die Einfuhrung von mehr als dreizehn Subjekten in einen Satz verbieten; das
Zeitwort so weit nach vorne rucken, bis man es ohne Fernrohr entdecken kann.
Mit einem Wort, meine Herren, ich mochte Ihre geliebte Sprache vereinfachen,
auf dasz, meine Herren, wenn Sie sie zum Gebet brauchen, man sie dort oben
versteht.
Ich flehe Sie an, von mir sich berathen zu lassen, fuhren Sie diese
erwahnten Reformen aus. Dann werden Sie eine prachtvolle Sprache besitzen
und nachher, wenn Sie Etwas sagen wollen, werden Sie wenigstens selber
verstehen, was Sie gesagt haben. Aber ofters heutzutage, wenn Sie einen
meilen-langen Satz von sich gegeben und Sie sich etwas angelehnt haben, um
auszuruhen, dann mussen Sie eine ruhrende Neugierde empfinden, selbst
herauszubringen, was Sie eigentlich gesprochen haben. Vor mehreren Tagen
hat der Korrespondent einer hiesigen Zeitung einen Satz zustande gebracht
welcher hundertundzwolf Worte enthielt und darin waren sieben Parenthese
eingeschachtelt und es wurde Das Subjekt siebenmal gewechselt. Denken Sie
nur, meine Herren, im Laufe der Reise eines einzigen Satzes musz das arme,
verfolgte, ermudete Subjekt siebenmal umsteigen.
Nun, wenn wir die erwahnten Reformen ausfuhren, wird's nicht mehre so arg
sein. Doch noch eins. Ich mochte gern das trennbare Zeitwort auch ein
Bischen reformiren. Ich mochte Niemand thun lassen, was Schiller gethan:
Der hat die ganze Geschichte des dreizigjahrigen Krieges zwischen die zwei
Glieder eines trennbaren Zeitwortes eingezwangt. Das hat sogar Deutschland
selbst emport; und man hat Schiller die Erlaubnisz verweigert, die
Geschichte des hundert Jahrigen Krieges zu verfassen- Gott sei's gedankt.
Nachdem alle diese Reformen festgestellt sein werden, wird die deutsche
Sprache die edelste und die schonste auf der Welt sein.
Da Ihnen jetzt, meine Herren, der Charackter meiner Mission bekannt ist,
bitte ich Sie, so freundlich zu sein und mir Ihre werthvolle Hilfe zu
schenken. Herr Potzl hat das Publikum glauben machen wollen, dasz ich nach
Wien gekommen bin, um die Brucken zu verstopfen und den Verkehr zu hindern,
wahrend ich Beobachtungen sammle und aufzeichne. Lassen Sie sich aber nicht
von ihm anfuhren. Meine haufige Anwesenheit auf den Brucken hat einen ganz
unschuldigen Grund. Dort giebt's den nothigen Raum. Dort kann man einen
edlen, langen, deutschen Satz ausdehnen, die Bruckengelander entlang, und
seinen ganzen Inhalt mit einem Blick ubersehen. Auf das eine Ende des
Gelanders klebe ich das erste Glied eines trennbaren Zeitwortes und das
Schluszglied klebe ich an's andere Ende- dann breite ich den Leib des
Satzes dazwischen aus. Gewohnlich sind fur meinen Zweck die Brucken der
Stadt lang genug: wenn ich aber Potzl's Schriften studiren will, fahre ich
hinaus und benutze die herrliche unendliche Reichsbrucke. Aber das ist eine
Verleumdung. Potzl schreibt das schonste Deutsch. Vielleicht nicht so
biegsam wie das meinige, aber in manchen Kleinigkeiten viel besser.
Entschuldigen Sie diese Schmeicheleien. Die sind wohl verdient. Nun bringe
ich meine Rede um- nein- ich wollte sagen, ich bringe sie zum Schlusz. Ich
bin ein Fremder- aber hier, unter Ihnen, habe ich es ganz vergessen. Und so,
wieder, und noch wieder- biete ich Ihnen meinen herzlichsten Dank!
HORRORS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE.
ADDRESS TO THE VIENNA PRESS CLUB, NOVEMBER 21, 1897
[A 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:
Personaleinkommensteuerschatzungskommissionsmitgliedsreisekosten-
rechnungserganzungsrevisionsfund
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.
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, somewhere 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 loafin' 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. "Pwhat 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 grand-children 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
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; ipecac- a 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 funy 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 killed 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.* 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, long-suffering, 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 of misfortune 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!
* 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.
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 t
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