By-and-by it
lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.
lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.
Twain - Speeches
I may seem to be flattering the sun, but I do not mean
it so; I am meaning only to be just and fair all around. You speak with
a million voices; no one can reach so many races, so many hearts and
intellects, as you--except Rudyard Kipling, and he cannot do it without
your help. If the Associated Press will adopt and use our simplified
forms, and thus spread them to the ends of the earth, covering the whole
spacious planet with them as with a garden of flowers, our difficulties
are at an end.
Every day of the three hundred and sixty-five the only pages of the
world's countless newspapers that are read by all the human beings and
angels and devils that can read, are these pages that are built out
of Associated Press despatches. And so I beg you, I beseech you--oh,
I implore you to spell them in our simplified forms. Do this daily,
constantly, persistently, for three months--only three months--it is all
I ask. The infallible result? --victory, victory all down the line. For by
that time all eyes here and above and below will have become adjusted to
the change and in love with it, and the present clumsy and ragged forms
will be grotesque to the eye and revolting to the soul. And we shall
be rid of phthisis and phthisic and pneumonia and pneumatics, and
diphtheria and pterodactyl, and all those other insane words which no
man addicted to the simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose
some of the bloom of his piety in the demoralizing attempt. Do not doubt
it. We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change places
with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change
and happy in it. We do not regret our old, yellow fangs and snags and
tushes after we have worn nice, fresh, uniform store teeth a while.
Do I seem to be seeking the good of the world? That is the idea. It is
my public attitude; privately I am merely seeking my own profit. We all
do it, but it is sound and it is virtuous, for no public interest
is anything other or nobler than a massed accumulation of private
interests. In 1883, when the simplified-spelling movement first tried to
make a noise, I was indifferent to it; more--I even irreverently scoffed
at it. What I needed was an object-lesson, you see. It is the only way
to teach some people. Very well, I got it. At that time I was scrambling
along, earning the family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a
word, compound words at single rates, just as it is in the dark present.
I was the property of a magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron
contract. One day there came a note from the editor requiring me to
write ten pages--on this revolting text: "Considerations concerning the
alleged subterranean holophotal extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous
superimbrication of the Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the
unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects. "
Ten pages of that. Each and every word a seventeen-jointed vestibuled
railroad train. Seven cents a word. I saw starvation staring the family
in the face. I went to the editor, and I took a stenographer along so
as to have the interview down in black and white, for no magazine editor
can ever remember any part of a business talk except the part that's got
graft in it for him and the magazine. I said, "Read that text,
Jackson, and let it go on the record; read it out loud. " He read
it: "Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal
extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the
Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its
plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects. "
I said, "You want ten pages of those rumbling, great, long, summer
thunderpeals, and you expect to get them at seven cents a peal? "
He said, "A word's a word, and seven cents is the contract; what are you
going to do about it? "
I said, "Jackson, this is cold-blooded oppression. What's an average
English word? "
He said, "Six letters. "
I said, "Nothing of the kind; that's French, and includes the spaces
between the words; an average English word is four letters and a half.
By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary
and shaved it down till the average is three letters and a half. I can
put one thousand and two hundred words on your page, and there's not
another man alive that can come within two hundred of it. My page is
worth eighty-four dollars to me. It takes exactly as long to fill your
magazine page with long words as it does with short ones-four hours.
Now, then, look at the criminal injustice of this requirement of yours.
I am careful, I am economical of my time and labor. For the family's
sake I've got to be so. So I never write 'metropolis' for seven cents,
because I can get the same money for 'city. ' I never write 'policeman,'
because I can get the same price for 'cop. ' And so on and so on. I never
write 'valetudinarian' at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can
humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents;
I wouldn't do it for fifteen. Examine your obscene text, please; count
the words. "
He counted and said it was twenty-four. I asked him to count the
letters. He made it two hundred and three.
I said, "Now, I hope you see the whole size of your crime. With my
vocabulary I would make sixty words out of those two hundred and five
letters, and get four dollars and twenty cents for it; whereas for your
inhuman twenty-four I would get only one dollar and sixty-eight cents.
Ten pages of these sky-scrapers of yours would pay me only about three
hundred dollars; in my simplified vocabulary the same space and the same
labor would pay me eight hundred and forty dollars. I do not wish to
work upon this scandalous job by the piece. I want to be hired by the
year. " He coldly refused. I said:
"Then for the sake of the family, if you have no feeling for me, you
ought at least to allow me overtime on that word extemporaneousness. "
Again he coldly refused. I seldom say a harsh word to any one, but I
was not master of myself then, and I spoke right out and called him an
anisodactylous plesiosaurian conchyliaceous Ornithorhyncus, and rotten
to the heart with holoaophotal subterranean extemporaneousness. God
forgive me for that wanton crime; he lived only two hours.
From that day to this I have been a devoted and hard-working member
of the heaven-born institution, the International Association for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Authors, and now I am laboring with Carnegie's
Simplified Committee, and with my heart in the work. . . .
Now then, let us look at this mighty question reasonably, rationally,
sanely--yes, and calmly, not excitedly. What is the real function, the
essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely
to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words
of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome
forms? But can we? Yes. I hold in my hand the proof of it. Here is a
letter written by a woman, right out of her heart of hearts. I think she
never saw a spelling-book in her life. The spelling is her own. There
isn't a waste letter in it anywhere. It reduces the fonetics to the last
gasp--it squeezes the surplusage out of every word--there's no spelling
that can begin with it on this planet outside of the White House. And
as for the punctuation, there isn't any. It is all one sentence, eagerly
and breathlessly uttered, without break or pause in it anywhere. The
letter is absolutely genuine--I have the proofs of that in my possession.
I can't stop to spell the words for you, but you can take the letter
presently and comfort your eyes with it. I will read the letter:
"Miss dear freind I took some Close into the armerry and give them to
you to Send too the suffrers out to California and i Hate to treble you
but i got to have one of them Back it was a black oll wolle Shevyott
With a jacket to Mach trimed Kind of Fancy no 38 Burst measure and palsy
menterry acrost the front And the color i woodent Trubble you but it
belonged to my brothers wife and she is Mad about it i thoght she was
willin but she want she says she want done with it and she was going to
Wear it a Spell longer she ant so free harted as what i am and she Has
got more to do with Than i have having a Husband to Work and slave For
her i gels you remember Me I am shot and stout and light complected i
torked with you quite a spell about the suffrars and said it was orful
about that erth quake I shoodent wondar if they had another one rite off
seeine general Condision of the country is Kind of Explossive i hate to
take that Black dress away from the suffrars but i will hunt round And
see if i can get another One if i can i will call to the armerry for
it if you will jest lay it asside so no more at present from your True
freind
"i liked your appearance very Much"
Now you see what simplified spelling can do.
It can convey any fact you need to convey; and it can pour out emotions
like a sewer. I beg you, I beseech you, to adopt our spelling, and print
all your despatches in it.
Now I wish to say just one entirely serious word:
I have reached a time of life, seventy years and a half, where none of
the concerns of this world have much interest for me personally. I think
I can speak dispassionately upon this matter, because in the little
while that I have got to remain here I can get along very well with
these old-fashioned forms, and I don't propose to make any trouble about
it at all. I shall soon be where they won't care how I spell so long as
I keep the Sabbath.
There are eighty-two millions of us people that use this orthography,
and it ought to be simplified in our behalf, but it is kept in its
present condition to satisfy one million people who like to have their
literature in the old form. That looks to me to be rather selfish,
and we keep the forms as they are while we have got one million people
coming in here from foreign countries every year and they have got
to struggle with this orthography of ours, and it keeps them back
and damages their citizenship for years until they learn to spell the
language, if they ever do learn. This is merely sentimental argument.
People say it is the spelling of Chaucer and Spencer and Shakespeare and
a lot of other people who do not know how to spell anyway, and it has
been transmitted to us and we preserved it and wish to preserve it
because of its ancient and hallowed associations.
Now, I don't see that there is any real argument about that. If that
argument is good, then it would be a good argument not to banish the
flies and the cockroaches from hospitals because they have been there so
long that the patients have got used to them and they feel a tenderness
for them on account of the associations. Why, it is like preserving a
cancer in a family because it is a family cancer, and we are bound to it
by the test of affection and reverence and old, mouldy antiquity.
I think that this declaration to improve this orthography of ours is our
family cancer, and I wish we could reconcile ourselves to have it cut
out and let the family cancer go.
Now, you see before you the wreck and ruin of what was once a young
person like yourselves. I am exhausted by the heat of the day. I must
take what is left of this wreck and run out of your presence and carry
it away to my home and spread it out there and sleep the sleep of
the righteous. There is nothing much left of me but my age and my
righteousness, but I leave with you my love and my blessing, and may you
always keep your youth.
BOOKS AND BURGLARS
ADDRESS TO THE REDDING (CONN. ) LIBRARY ASSOCIATION,
OCTOBER 28, 1908
Suppose this library had been in operation a few weeks ago, and the
burglars who happened along and broke into my house--taking a lot of
things they didn't need, and for that matter which I didn't need--had
first made entry into this institution.
Picture them seated here on the floor, poring by the light of their
dark-lanterns over some of the books they found, and thus absorbing
moral truths and getting a moral uplift. The whole course of their
lives would have been changed. As it was, they kept straight on in their
immoral way and were sent to jail.
For all we know, they may next be sent to Congress.
And, speaking of burglars, let us not speak of them too harshly. Now, I
have known so many burglars--not exactly known, but so many of them have
come near me in my various dwelling-places, that I am disposed to allow
them credit for whatever good qualities they possess.
Chief among these, and, indeed, the only one I just now think of, is
their great care while doing business to avoid disturbing people's
sleep.
Noiseless as they may be while at work, however, the effect of their
visitation is to murder sleep later on.
Now we are prepared for these visitors. All sorts of alarm devices have
been put in the house, and the ground for half a mile around it has
been electrified. The burglar who steps within this danger zone will
set loose a bedlam of sounds, and spring into readiness for action our
elaborate system of defences. As for the fate of the trespasser, do not
seek to know that. He will never be heard of more.
AUTHORS' CLUB
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. CLEMENS, LONDON,
JUNE, 1899
Mr. Clemens was introduced by Sir Walter Besant.
It does not embarrass me to hear my books praised so much. It
only pleases and delights me. I have not gone beyond the age when
embarrassment is possible, but I have reached the age when I know how to
conceal it. It is such a satisfaction to me to hear Sir Walter Besant,
who is much more capable than I to judge of my work, deliver a judgment
which is such a contentment to my spirit.
Well, I have thought well of the books myself, but I think more of them
now. It charms me also to hear Sir Spencer Walpole deliver a similar
judgment, and I shall treasure his remarks also. I shall not discount
the praises in any possible way. When I report them to my family they
shall lose nothing. There are, however, certain heredities which come
down to us which our writings of the present day may be traced to. I,
for instance, read the Walpole Letters when I was a boy. I absorbed
them, gathered in their grace, wit, and humor, and put them away to be
used by-and-by. One does that so unconsciously with things one really
likes. I am reminded now of what use those letters have been to me.
They must not claim credit in America for what was really written in
another form so long ago. They must only claim that I trimmed this,
that, and the other, and so changed their appearance as to make them
seem to be original. You now see what modesty I have in stock. But it
has taken long practice to get it there.
But I must not stand here talking. I merely meant to get up and give my
thanks for the pleasant things that preceding speakers have said of me.
I wish also to extend my thanks to the Authors' Club for constituting me
a member, at a reasonable price per year, and for giving me the benefit
of your legal adviser.
I believe you keep a lawyer. I have always kept a lawyer, too, though I
have never made anything out of him. It is service to an author to
have a lawyer. There is something so disagreeable in having a personal
contact with a publisher. So it is better to work through a lawyer--and
lose your case. I understand that the publishers have been meeting
together also like us. I don't know what for, but possibly they are
devising new and mysterious ways for remunerating authors. I only wish
now to thank you for electing me a member of this club--I believe I have
paid my dues--and to thank you again for the pleasant things you have
said of me.
Last February, when Rudyard Kipling was ill in America, the sympathy
which was poured out to him was genuine and sincere, and I believe
that which cost Kipling so much will bring England and America closer
together. I have been proud and pleased to see this growing affection
and respect between the two countries. I hope it will continue to grow,
and, please God, it will continue to grow. I trust we authors will leave
to posterity, if we have nothing else to leave, a friendship between
England and America that will count for much. I will now confess that I
have been engaged for the past eight days in compiling a publication. I
have brought it here to lay at your feet. I do not ask your indulgence
in presenting it, but for your applause.
Here it is: "Since England and America may be joined together in
Kipling, may they not be severed in 'Twain. '"
BOOKSELLERS
Address at banquet on Wednesday evening, May 20, 1908, of the
American Booksellers' Association, which included most of the
leading booksellers of America, held at the rooms of the Aldine
Association, New York.
This annual gathering of booksellers from all over America comes
together ostensibly to eat and drink, but really to discuss business;
therefore I am required to talk shop. I am required to furnish a
statement of the indebtedness under which I lie to you gentlemen for
your help in enabling me to earn my living. For something over forty
years I have acquired my bread by print, beginning with The Innocents
Abroad, followed at intervals of a year or so by Roughing It, Tom
Sawyer, Gilded Age, and so on. For thirty-six years my books were sold
by subscription. You are not interested in those years, but only in the
four which have since followed. The books passed into the hands of my
present publishers at the beginning of 1900, and you then became the
providers of my diet. I think I may say, without flattering you, that
you have done exceedingly well by me. Exceedingly well is not too strong
a phrase, since the official statistics show that in four years you have
sold twice as many volumes of my venerable books as my contract with my
publishers bound you and them to sell in five years. To your sorrow you
are aware that frequently, much too frequently, when a book gets to be
five or ten years old its annual sale shrinks to two or three hundred
copies, and after an added ten or twenty years ceases to sell. But you
sell thousands of my moss-backed old books every year--the youngest of
them being books that range from fifteen to twenty-seven years old, and
the oldest reaching back to thirty-five and forty.
By the terms of my contract my publishers had to account to me for
50,000 volumes per year for five years, and pay me for them whether they
sold them or not. It is at this point that you gentlemen come in, for
it was your business to unload 250,000 volumes upon the public in five
years if you possibly could. Have you succeeded? Yes, you have--and more.
For in four years, with a year still to spare, you have sold the 250,000
volumes, and 240,000 besides.
Your sales have increased each year. In the first year you sold 90,328;
in the second year, 104,851; in the third, 133,975; in the fourth
year--which was last year--you sold 160,000. The aggregate for the four
years is 500,000 volumes, lacking 11,000.
Of the oldest book, The Innocents Abroad,--now forty years old--you
sold upward of 46,000 copies in the four years; of Roughing It--now
thirty-eight years old, I think--you sold 40,334; of Tom Sawyer, 41,000.
And so on.
And there is one thing that is peculiarly gratifying to me: the Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc is a serious book; I wrote it for love, and
never expected it to sell, but you have pleasantly disappointed me in
that matter. In your hands its sale has increased each year. In 1904 you
sold 1726 copies; in 1905, 2445; in 1906, 5381; and last year, 6574.
"MARK TWAIN'S FIRST APPEARANCE"
On October 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by
his daughter in Norfolk, Conn. , addressed her audience on the
subject of stage-fright. He thanked the people for making
things as easy as possible for his daughter's American debut as
a contralto, and then told of his first experience before the
public.
My heart goes out in sympathy to any one who is making his first
appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct process of
memory I go back forty years, less one month--for I'm older than I look.
I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me
then only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as
a lecturer. I knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the
theatre. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could
not escape. I got to the theatre forty-five minutes before the hour set
for the lecture. My knees were shaking so that I didn't know whether I
could stand up. If there is an awful, horrible malady in the world, it
is stage-fright-and seasickness. They are a pair. I had stage-fright
then for the first and last time. I was only seasick once, too. It
was on a little ship on which there were two hundred other passengers.
I--was--sick. I was so sick that there wasn't any left for those other two
hundred passengers.
It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theatre, and I peeked
through the little peekholes they have in theatre curtains and looked
into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too.
By-and-by it
lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.
I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle
themselves through the audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said
anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were to
pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind lady in a box up
there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the Governor. She was to
watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to
deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into
applause.
At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag
in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to
get started without it. I walked up and down--I was young in those days
and needed the exercise--and talked and talked.
Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a
moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my
hearers. When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected.
They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I happened to glance
up at the box where the Governor's wife was--you know what happened.
Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-fright left me,
never to return. I know if I was going to be hanged I could get up
and make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my
feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for
her for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her
first appearance. And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her
singing, which is, by-the-way, hereditary.
MORALS AND MEMORY
Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor at a reception held at
Barnard College (Columbia University), March 7, 1906, by the
Barnard Union. One of the young ladies presented Mr. Clemens,
and thanked him for his amiability in coming to make them an
address. She closed with the expression of the great joy it
gave her fellow-collegians, "because we all love you. "
If any one here loves me, she has my sincere thanks. Nay, if any one
here is so good as to love me--why, I'll be a brother to her. She shall
have my sincere, warm, unsullied affection. When I was coming up in the
car with the very kind young lady who was delegated to show me the way,
she asked me what I was going to talk about. And I said I wasn't sure. I
said I had some illustrations, and I was going to bring them in. I
said I was certain to give those illustrations, but that I hadn't the
faintest notion what they were going to illustrate.
Now, I've been thinking it over in this forest glade [indicating the
woods of Arcady on the scene setting], and I've decided to work them in
with something about morals and the caprices of memory. That seems to
me to be a pretty good subject. You see, everybody has a memory and it's
pretty sure to have caprices. And, of course, everybody has morals.
It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like
to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any
day. "Give them to others"--that's my motto. Then you never have any
use for them when you're left without. Now, speaking of the caprices of
memory in general, and of mine in particular, it's strange to think
of all the tricks this little mental process plays on us. Here
we're endowed with a faculty of mind that ought to be more supremely
serviceable to us than them all. And what happens? This memory of ours
stores up a perfect record of the most useless facts and anecdotes and
experiences. And all the things that we ought to know--that we need
to know--that we'd profit by knowing--it casts aside with the careless
indifference of a girl refusing her true lover. It's terrible to think
of this phenomenon. I tremble in all my members when I consider all
the really valuable things that I've forgotten in seventy years--when I
meditate upon the caprices of my memory.
There's a bird out in California that is one perfect symbol of the
human memory. I've forgotten the bird's name (just because it would be
valuable for me to know it--to recall it to your own minds, perhaps).
But this fool of a creature goes around collecting the most ridiculous
things you can imagine and storing them up. He never selects a thing
that could ever prove of the slightest help to him; but he goes
about gathering iron forks, and spoons, and tin cans, and broken
mouse-traps--all sorts of rubbish that is difficult for him to carry and
yet be any use when he gets it. Why, that bird will go by a gold watch
to bring back one of those patent cake-pans.
Now, my mind is just like that, and my mind isn't very different from
yours--and so our minds are just like that bird. We pass by what would be
of inestimable value to us, and pack our memories with the most
trivial odds and ends that never by any chance, under any circumstances
whatsoever, could be of the slightest use to any one.
Now, things that I have remembered are constantly popping into my head.
And I am repeatedly startled by the vividness with which they recur
to me after the lapse of years and their utter uselessness in being
remembered at all.
I was thinking over some on my way up here. They were the illustrations
I spoke about to the young lady on the way up. And I've come to the
conclusion, curious though it is, that I can use every one of these
freaks of memory to teach you all a lesson. I'm convinced that each one
has its moral. And I think it's my duty to hand the moral on to you.
Now, I recall that when I was a boy I was a good boy--I was a very good
boy. Why, I was the best boy in my school. I was the best boy in that
little Mississippi town where I lived. The population was only about
twenty million. You may not believe it, but I was the best boy in that
State--and in the United States, for that matter.
But I don't know why I never heard any one say that but myself. I always
recognized it. But even those nearest and dearest to me couldn't seem to
see it. My mother, especially, seemed to think there was something wrong
with that estimate. And she never got over that prejudice.
Now, when my mother got to be eighty-five years old her memory failed
her. She forgot little threads that hold life's patches of meaning
together. She was living out West then, and I went on to visit her.
I hadn't seen my mother in a year or so. And when I got there she knew
my face; knew I was married; knew I had a family, and that I was living
with them. But she couldn't, for the life of her, tell my name or who I
was. So I told her I was her boy.
"But you don't live with me," she said.
"No," said I, "I'm living in Rochester. "
"What are you doing there? "
"Going to school. "
"Large school? "
"Very large. "
"All boys? "
"All boys. "
"And how do you stand? " said my mother.
"I'm the best boy in that school," I answered.
"Well," said my mother, with a return of her old fire, "I'd like to know
what the other boys are like. "
Now, one point in this story is the fact that my mother's mind went back
to my school days, and remembered my little youthful self-prejudice when
she'd forgotten everything else about me.
The other point is the moral. There's one there that you will find if
you search for it.
Now, here's something else I remember. It's about the first time I ever
stole a watermelon. "Stole" is a strong word. Stole? Stole? No, I don't
mean that. It was the first time I ever withdrew a watermelon. It was
the first time I ever extracted a watermelon. That is exactly the word I
want--"extracted. " It is definite. It is precise. It perfectly conveys my
idea. Its use in dentistry connotes the delicate shade of meaning I am
looking for. You know we never extract our own teeth.
And it was not my watermelon that I extracted. I extracted that
watermelon from a farmer's wagon while he was inside negotiating with
another customer. I carried that watermelon to one of the secluded
recesses of the lumber-yard, and there I broke it open.
It was a green watermelon.
Well, do you know when I saw that I began to feel sorry--sorry--sorry. It
seemed to me that I had done wrong. I reflected deeply. I reflected that
I was young--I think I was just eleven. But I knew that though immature
I did not lack moral advancement. I knew what a boy ought to do who had
extracted a watermelon--like that.
I considered George Washington, and what action he would have taken
under similar circumstances. Then I knew there was just one thing to
make me feel right inside, and that was--Restitution.
So I said to myself: "I will do that. I will take that green watermelon
back where I got it from. " And the minute I had said it I felt
that great moral uplift that comes to you when you've made a noble
resolution.
So I gathered up the biggest fragments, and I carried them back to the
farmer's wagon, and I restored the watermelon--what was left of it. And I
made him give me a good one in place of it, too.
And I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself going around working
off his worthless, old, green watermelons on trusting purchasers who had
to rely on him. How could they tell from the outside whether the melons
were good or not? That was his business. And if he didn't reform, I told
him I'd see that he didn't get any more of my trade--nor anybody else's I
knew, if I could help it.
You know that man was as contrite as a revivalist's last convert. He
said he was all broken up to think I'd gotten a green watermelon.
He promised that he would never carry another green watermelon if he
starved for it. And he drove off--a better man.
Now, do you see what I did for that man? He was on a downward path, and
I rescued him. But all I got out of it was a watermelon.
Yet I'd rather have that memory--just that memory of the good I did for
that depraved farmer--than all the material gain you can think of. Look
at the lesson he got! I never got anything like that from it. But
I ought to be satisfied: I was only eleven years old, but I secured
everlasting benefit to other people.
The moral in this is perfectly clear, and I think there's one in the
next memory I'm going to tell you about.
To go back to my childhood, there's another little incident that comes
to me from which you can draw even another moral. It's about one of the
times I went fishing. You see, in our house there was a sort of family
prejudice against going fishing if you hadn't permission. But it would
frequently be bad judgment to ask. So I went fishing secretly, as it
were--way up the Mississippi. It was an exquisitely happy trip, I recall,
with a very pleasant sensation.
Well, while I was away there was a tragedy in our town. A stranger,
stopping over on his way East from California; was stabbed to death in
an unseemly brawl.
Now, my father was justice of the peace, and because he was justice
of the peace he was coroner; and since he was coroner he was also
constable; and being constable he was sheriff; and out of consideration
for his holding the office of sheriff he was likewise county clerk and a
dozen other officials I don't think of just this minute.
I thought he had power of life or death, only he didn't use it over
other boys. He was sort of an austere man. Somehow I didn't like being
round him when I'd done anything he disapproved of. So that's the reason
I wasn't often around.
Well, when this gentleman got knifed they communicated with the proper
authority, the coroner, and they laid the corpse out in the coroner's
office--our front sitting-room--in preparation for the inquest the next
morning.
About 9 or 10 o'clock I got back from fishing. It was a little too late
for me to be received by my folks, so I took my shoes off and slipped
noiselessly up the back way to the sitting-room. I was very tired, and I
didn't wish to disturb my people. So I groped my way to the sofa and lay
down.
Now, I didn't know anything of what had happened during my absence.
But I was sort of nervous on my own account-afraid of being caught, and
rather dubious about the morning affair. And I had been lying there
a few moments when my eyes gradually got used to the darkness, and I
became aware of something on the other side of the room.
It was something foreign to the apartment. It had an uncanny appearance.
And I sat up looking very hard, and wondering what in heaven this long,
formless, vicious-looking thing might be.
First I thought I'd go and see. Then I thought, "Never mind that. "
Mind you, I had no cowardly sensations whatever, but it didn't seem
exactly prudent to investigate. But I somehow couldn't keep my eyes off
the thing. And the more I looked at it the more disagreeably it grew on
me. But I was resolved to play the man. So I decided to turn over and
count a hundred, and let the patch of moonlight creep up and show me
what the dickens it was.
I turned over and tried to count, but I couldn't keep my mind on it. I
kept thinking of that grewsome mass. I was losing count all the time,
and going back and beginning over again. Oh no; I wasn't frightened--just
annoyed. But by the time I'd gotten to the century mark I turned
cautiously over and opened my eyes with great fortitude.
The moonlight revealed to me a marble-white human hand. Well, maybe I
wasn't embarrassed! But then that changed to a creepy feeling again,
and I thought I'd try the counting again. I don't know how many hours or
weeks it was that I lay there counting hard. But the moonlight crept up
that white arm, and it showed me a lead face and a terrible wound over
the heart.
I could scarcely say that I was terror-stricken or anything like that.
But somehow his eyes interested me so that I went right out of the
window. I didn't need the sash. But it seemed easier to take it than
leave it behind.
Now, let that teach you a lesson--I don't know just what it is. But at
seventy years old I find that memory of peculiar value to me. I have
been unconsciously guided by it all these years. Things that seemed
pigeon-holed and remote are a perpetual influence. Yes, you're taught in
so many ways. And you're so felicitously taught when you don't know it.
Here's something else that taught me a good deal.
When I was seventeen I was very bashful, and a sixteen-year-old girl
came to stay a week with us. She was a peach, and I was seized with a
happiness not of this world.
One evening my mother suggested that, to entertain her, I take her
to the theatre. I didn't really like to, because I was seventeen and
sensitive about appearing in the streets with a girl. I couldn't see my
way to enjoying my delight in public. But we went.
I didn't feel very happy. I couldn't seem to keep my mind on the play.
I became conscious, after a while, that that was due less to my lovely
company than my boots.
it so; I am meaning only to be just and fair all around. You speak with
a million voices; no one can reach so many races, so many hearts and
intellects, as you--except Rudyard Kipling, and he cannot do it without
your help. If the Associated Press will adopt and use our simplified
forms, and thus spread them to the ends of the earth, covering the whole
spacious planet with them as with a garden of flowers, our difficulties
are at an end.
Every day of the three hundred and sixty-five the only pages of the
world's countless newspapers that are read by all the human beings and
angels and devils that can read, are these pages that are built out
of Associated Press despatches. And so I beg you, I beseech you--oh,
I implore you to spell them in our simplified forms. Do this daily,
constantly, persistently, for three months--only three months--it is all
I ask. The infallible result? --victory, victory all down the line. For by
that time all eyes here and above and below will have become adjusted to
the change and in love with it, and the present clumsy and ragged forms
will be grotesque to the eye and revolting to the soul. And we shall
be rid of phthisis and phthisic and pneumonia and pneumatics, and
diphtheria and pterodactyl, and all those other insane words which no
man addicted to the simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose
some of the bloom of his piety in the demoralizing attempt. Do not doubt
it. We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change places
with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change
and happy in it. We do not regret our old, yellow fangs and snags and
tushes after we have worn nice, fresh, uniform store teeth a while.
Do I seem to be seeking the good of the world? That is the idea. It is
my public attitude; privately I am merely seeking my own profit. We all
do it, but it is sound and it is virtuous, for no public interest
is anything other or nobler than a massed accumulation of private
interests. In 1883, when the simplified-spelling movement first tried to
make a noise, I was indifferent to it; more--I even irreverently scoffed
at it. What I needed was an object-lesson, you see. It is the only way
to teach some people. Very well, I got it. At that time I was scrambling
along, earning the family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a
word, compound words at single rates, just as it is in the dark present.
I was the property of a magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron
contract. One day there came a note from the editor requiring me to
write ten pages--on this revolting text: "Considerations concerning the
alleged subterranean holophotal extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous
superimbrication of the Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the
unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects. "
Ten pages of that. Each and every word a seventeen-jointed vestibuled
railroad train. Seven cents a word. I saw starvation staring the family
in the face. I went to the editor, and I took a stenographer along so
as to have the interview down in black and white, for no magazine editor
can ever remember any part of a business talk except the part that's got
graft in it for him and the magazine. I said, "Read that text,
Jackson, and let it go on the record; read it out loud. " He read
it: "Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal
extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the
Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its
plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects. "
I said, "You want ten pages of those rumbling, great, long, summer
thunderpeals, and you expect to get them at seven cents a peal? "
He said, "A word's a word, and seven cents is the contract; what are you
going to do about it? "
I said, "Jackson, this is cold-blooded oppression. What's an average
English word? "
He said, "Six letters. "
I said, "Nothing of the kind; that's French, and includes the spaces
between the words; an average English word is four letters and a half.
By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary
and shaved it down till the average is three letters and a half. I can
put one thousand and two hundred words on your page, and there's not
another man alive that can come within two hundred of it. My page is
worth eighty-four dollars to me. It takes exactly as long to fill your
magazine page with long words as it does with short ones-four hours.
Now, then, look at the criminal injustice of this requirement of yours.
I am careful, I am economical of my time and labor. For the family's
sake I've got to be so. So I never write 'metropolis' for seven cents,
because I can get the same money for 'city. ' I never write 'policeman,'
because I can get the same price for 'cop. ' And so on and so on. I never
write 'valetudinarian' at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can
humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents;
I wouldn't do it for fifteen. Examine your obscene text, please; count
the words. "
He counted and said it was twenty-four. I asked him to count the
letters. He made it two hundred and three.
I said, "Now, I hope you see the whole size of your crime. With my
vocabulary I would make sixty words out of those two hundred and five
letters, and get four dollars and twenty cents for it; whereas for your
inhuman twenty-four I would get only one dollar and sixty-eight cents.
Ten pages of these sky-scrapers of yours would pay me only about three
hundred dollars; in my simplified vocabulary the same space and the same
labor would pay me eight hundred and forty dollars. I do not wish to
work upon this scandalous job by the piece. I want to be hired by the
year. " He coldly refused. I said:
"Then for the sake of the family, if you have no feeling for me, you
ought at least to allow me overtime on that word extemporaneousness. "
Again he coldly refused. I seldom say a harsh word to any one, but I
was not master of myself then, and I spoke right out and called him an
anisodactylous plesiosaurian conchyliaceous Ornithorhyncus, and rotten
to the heart with holoaophotal subterranean extemporaneousness. God
forgive me for that wanton crime; he lived only two hours.
From that day to this I have been a devoted and hard-working member
of the heaven-born institution, the International Association for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Authors, and now I am laboring with Carnegie's
Simplified Committee, and with my heart in the work. . . .
Now then, let us look at this mighty question reasonably, rationally,
sanely--yes, and calmly, not excitedly. What is the real function, the
essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely
to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words
of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome
forms? But can we? Yes. I hold in my hand the proof of it. Here is a
letter written by a woman, right out of her heart of hearts. I think she
never saw a spelling-book in her life. The spelling is her own. There
isn't a waste letter in it anywhere. It reduces the fonetics to the last
gasp--it squeezes the surplusage out of every word--there's no spelling
that can begin with it on this planet outside of the White House. And
as for the punctuation, there isn't any. It is all one sentence, eagerly
and breathlessly uttered, without break or pause in it anywhere. The
letter is absolutely genuine--I have the proofs of that in my possession.
I can't stop to spell the words for you, but you can take the letter
presently and comfort your eyes with it. I will read the letter:
"Miss dear freind I took some Close into the armerry and give them to
you to Send too the suffrers out to California and i Hate to treble you
but i got to have one of them Back it was a black oll wolle Shevyott
With a jacket to Mach trimed Kind of Fancy no 38 Burst measure and palsy
menterry acrost the front And the color i woodent Trubble you but it
belonged to my brothers wife and she is Mad about it i thoght she was
willin but she want she says she want done with it and she was going to
Wear it a Spell longer she ant so free harted as what i am and she Has
got more to do with Than i have having a Husband to Work and slave For
her i gels you remember Me I am shot and stout and light complected i
torked with you quite a spell about the suffrars and said it was orful
about that erth quake I shoodent wondar if they had another one rite off
seeine general Condision of the country is Kind of Explossive i hate to
take that Black dress away from the suffrars but i will hunt round And
see if i can get another One if i can i will call to the armerry for
it if you will jest lay it asside so no more at present from your True
freind
"i liked your appearance very Much"
Now you see what simplified spelling can do.
It can convey any fact you need to convey; and it can pour out emotions
like a sewer. I beg you, I beseech you, to adopt our spelling, and print
all your despatches in it.
Now I wish to say just one entirely serious word:
I have reached a time of life, seventy years and a half, where none of
the concerns of this world have much interest for me personally. I think
I can speak dispassionately upon this matter, because in the little
while that I have got to remain here I can get along very well with
these old-fashioned forms, and I don't propose to make any trouble about
it at all. I shall soon be where they won't care how I spell so long as
I keep the Sabbath.
There are eighty-two millions of us people that use this orthography,
and it ought to be simplified in our behalf, but it is kept in its
present condition to satisfy one million people who like to have their
literature in the old form. That looks to me to be rather selfish,
and we keep the forms as they are while we have got one million people
coming in here from foreign countries every year and they have got
to struggle with this orthography of ours, and it keeps them back
and damages their citizenship for years until they learn to spell the
language, if they ever do learn. This is merely sentimental argument.
People say it is the spelling of Chaucer and Spencer and Shakespeare and
a lot of other people who do not know how to spell anyway, and it has
been transmitted to us and we preserved it and wish to preserve it
because of its ancient and hallowed associations.
Now, I don't see that there is any real argument about that. If that
argument is good, then it would be a good argument not to banish the
flies and the cockroaches from hospitals because they have been there so
long that the patients have got used to them and they feel a tenderness
for them on account of the associations. Why, it is like preserving a
cancer in a family because it is a family cancer, and we are bound to it
by the test of affection and reverence and old, mouldy antiquity.
I think that this declaration to improve this orthography of ours is our
family cancer, and I wish we could reconcile ourselves to have it cut
out and let the family cancer go.
Now, you see before you the wreck and ruin of what was once a young
person like yourselves. I am exhausted by the heat of the day. I must
take what is left of this wreck and run out of your presence and carry
it away to my home and spread it out there and sleep the sleep of
the righteous. There is nothing much left of me but my age and my
righteousness, but I leave with you my love and my blessing, and may you
always keep your youth.
BOOKS AND BURGLARS
ADDRESS TO THE REDDING (CONN. ) LIBRARY ASSOCIATION,
OCTOBER 28, 1908
Suppose this library had been in operation a few weeks ago, and the
burglars who happened along and broke into my house--taking a lot of
things they didn't need, and for that matter which I didn't need--had
first made entry into this institution.
Picture them seated here on the floor, poring by the light of their
dark-lanterns over some of the books they found, and thus absorbing
moral truths and getting a moral uplift. The whole course of their
lives would have been changed. As it was, they kept straight on in their
immoral way and were sent to jail.
For all we know, they may next be sent to Congress.
And, speaking of burglars, let us not speak of them too harshly. Now, I
have known so many burglars--not exactly known, but so many of them have
come near me in my various dwelling-places, that I am disposed to allow
them credit for whatever good qualities they possess.
Chief among these, and, indeed, the only one I just now think of, is
their great care while doing business to avoid disturbing people's
sleep.
Noiseless as they may be while at work, however, the effect of their
visitation is to murder sleep later on.
Now we are prepared for these visitors. All sorts of alarm devices have
been put in the house, and the ground for half a mile around it has
been electrified. The burglar who steps within this danger zone will
set loose a bedlam of sounds, and spring into readiness for action our
elaborate system of defences. As for the fate of the trespasser, do not
seek to know that. He will never be heard of more.
AUTHORS' CLUB
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. CLEMENS, LONDON,
JUNE, 1899
Mr. Clemens was introduced by Sir Walter Besant.
It does not embarrass me to hear my books praised so much. It
only pleases and delights me. I have not gone beyond the age when
embarrassment is possible, but I have reached the age when I know how to
conceal it. It is such a satisfaction to me to hear Sir Walter Besant,
who is much more capable than I to judge of my work, deliver a judgment
which is such a contentment to my spirit.
Well, I have thought well of the books myself, but I think more of them
now. It charms me also to hear Sir Spencer Walpole deliver a similar
judgment, and I shall treasure his remarks also. I shall not discount
the praises in any possible way. When I report them to my family they
shall lose nothing. There are, however, certain heredities which come
down to us which our writings of the present day may be traced to. I,
for instance, read the Walpole Letters when I was a boy. I absorbed
them, gathered in their grace, wit, and humor, and put them away to be
used by-and-by. One does that so unconsciously with things one really
likes. I am reminded now of what use those letters have been to me.
They must not claim credit in America for what was really written in
another form so long ago. They must only claim that I trimmed this,
that, and the other, and so changed their appearance as to make them
seem to be original. You now see what modesty I have in stock. But it
has taken long practice to get it there.
But I must not stand here talking. I merely meant to get up and give my
thanks for the pleasant things that preceding speakers have said of me.
I wish also to extend my thanks to the Authors' Club for constituting me
a member, at a reasonable price per year, and for giving me the benefit
of your legal adviser.
I believe you keep a lawyer. I have always kept a lawyer, too, though I
have never made anything out of him. It is service to an author to
have a lawyer. There is something so disagreeable in having a personal
contact with a publisher. So it is better to work through a lawyer--and
lose your case. I understand that the publishers have been meeting
together also like us. I don't know what for, but possibly they are
devising new and mysterious ways for remunerating authors. I only wish
now to thank you for electing me a member of this club--I believe I have
paid my dues--and to thank you again for the pleasant things you have
said of me.
Last February, when Rudyard Kipling was ill in America, the sympathy
which was poured out to him was genuine and sincere, and I believe
that which cost Kipling so much will bring England and America closer
together. I have been proud and pleased to see this growing affection
and respect between the two countries. I hope it will continue to grow,
and, please God, it will continue to grow. I trust we authors will leave
to posterity, if we have nothing else to leave, a friendship between
England and America that will count for much. I will now confess that I
have been engaged for the past eight days in compiling a publication. I
have brought it here to lay at your feet. I do not ask your indulgence
in presenting it, but for your applause.
Here it is: "Since England and America may be joined together in
Kipling, may they not be severed in 'Twain. '"
BOOKSELLERS
Address at banquet on Wednesday evening, May 20, 1908, of the
American Booksellers' Association, which included most of the
leading booksellers of America, held at the rooms of the Aldine
Association, New York.
This annual gathering of booksellers from all over America comes
together ostensibly to eat and drink, but really to discuss business;
therefore I am required to talk shop. I am required to furnish a
statement of the indebtedness under which I lie to you gentlemen for
your help in enabling me to earn my living. For something over forty
years I have acquired my bread by print, beginning with The Innocents
Abroad, followed at intervals of a year or so by Roughing It, Tom
Sawyer, Gilded Age, and so on. For thirty-six years my books were sold
by subscription. You are not interested in those years, but only in the
four which have since followed. The books passed into the hands of my
present publishers at the beginning of 1900, and you then became the
providers of my diet. I think I may say, without flattering you, that
you have done exceedingly well by me. Exceedingly well is not too strong
a phrase, since the official statistics show that in four years you have
sold twice as many volumes of my venerable books as my contract with my
publishers bound you and them to sell in five years. To your sorrow you
are aware that frequently, much too frequently, when a book gets to be
five or ten years old its annual sale shrinks to two or three hundred
copies, and after an added ten or twenty years ceases to sell. But you
sell thousands of my moss-backed old books every year--the youngest of
them being books that range from fifteen to twenty-seven years old, and
the oldest reaching back to thirty-five and forty.
By the terms of my contract my publishers had to account to me for
50,000 volumes per year for five years, and pay me for them whether they
sold them or not. It is at this point that you gentlemen come in, for
it was your business to unload 250,000 volumes upon the public in five
years if you possibly could. Have you succeeded? Yes, you have--and more.
For in four years, with a year still to spare, you have sold the 250,000
volumes, and 240,000 besides.
Your sales have increased each year. In the first year you sold 90,328;
in the second year, 104,851; in the third, 133,975; in the fourth
year--which was last year--you sold 160,000. The aggregate for the four
years is 500,000 volumes, lacking 11,000.
Of the oldest book, The Innocents Abroad,--now forty years old--you
sold upward of 46,000 copies in the four years; of Roughing It--now
thirty-eight years old, I think--you sold 40,334; of Tom Sawyer, 41,000.
And so on.
And there is one thing that is peculiarly gratifying to me: the Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc is a serious book; I wrote it for love, and
never expected it to sell, but you have pleasantly disappointed me in
that matter. In your hands its sale has increased each year. In 1904 you
sold 1726 copies; in 1905, 2445; in 1906, 5381; and last year, 6574.
"MARK TWAIN'S FIRST APPEARANCE"
On October 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by
his daughter in Norfolk, Conn. , addressed her audience on the
subject of stage-fright. He thanked the people for making
things as easy as possible for his daughter's American debut as
a contralto, and then told of his first experience before the
public.
My heart goes out in sympathy to any one who is making his first
appearance before an audience of human beings. By a direct process of
memory I go back forty years, less one month--for I'm older than I look.
I recall the occasion of my first appearance. San Francisco knew me
then only as a reporter, and I was to make my bow to San Francisco as
a lecturer. I knew that nothing short of compulsion would get me to the
theatre. So I bound myself by a hard-and-fast contract so that I could
not escape. I got to the theatre forty-five minutes before the hour set
for the lecture. My knees were shaking so that I didn't know whether I
could stand up. If there is an awful, horrible malady in the world, it
is stage-fright-and seasickness. They are a pair. I had stage-fright
then for the first and last time. I was only seasick once, too. It
was on a little ship on which there were two hundred other passengers.
I--was--sick. I was so sick that there wasn't any left for those other two
hundred passengers.
It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theatre, and I peeked
through the little peekholes they have in theatre curtains and looked
into the big auditorium. That was dark and empty, too.
By-and-by it
lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.
I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle
themselves through the audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said
anything they could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were to
pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind lady in a box up
there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the Governor. She was to
watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to
deliver a gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into
applause.
At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag
in front of me where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to
get started without it. I walked up and down--I was young in those days
and needed the exercise--and talked and talked.
Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a
moving, pathetic part which was to get at the hearts and souls of my
hearers. When I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected.
They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I happened to glance
up at the box where the Governor's wife was--you know what happened.
Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-fright left me,
never to return. I know if I was going to be hanged I could get up
and make a good showing, and I intend to. But I shall never forget my
feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here to thank you for
her for helping my daughter, by your kindness, to live through her
first appearance. And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her
singing, which is, by-the-way, hereditary.
MORALS AND MEMORY
Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor at a reception held at
Barnard College (Columbia University), March 7, 1906, by the
Barnard Union. One of the young ladies presented Mr. Clemens,
and thanked him for his amiability in coming to make them an
address. She closed with the expression of the great joy it
gave her fellow-collegians, "because we all love you. "
If any one here loves me, she has my sincere thanks. Nay, if any one
here is so good as to love me--why, I'll be a brother to her. She shall
have my sincere, warm, unsullied affection. When I was coming up in the
car with the very kind young lady who was delegated to show me the way,
she asked me what I was going to talk about. And I said I wasn't sure. I
said I had some illustrations, and I was going to bring them in. I
said I was certain to give those illustrations, but that I hadn't the
faintest notion what they were going to illustrate.
Now, I've been thinking it over in this forest glade [indicating the
woods of Arcady on the scene setting], and I've decided to work them in
with something about morals and the caprices of memory. That seems to
me to be a pretty good subject. You see, everybody has a memory and it's
pretty sure to have caprices. And, of course, everybody has morals.
It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like
to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any
day. "Give them to others"--that's my motto. Then you never have any
use for them when you're left without. Now, speaking of the caprices of
memory in general, and of mine in particular, it's strange to think
of all the tricks this little mental process plays on us. Here
we're endowed with a faculty of mind that ought to be more supremely
serviceable to us than them all. And what happens? This memory of ours
stores up a perfect record of the most useless facts and anecdotes and
experiences. And all the things that we ought to know--that we need
to know--that we'd profit by knowing--it casts aside with the careless
indifference of a girl refusing her true lover. It's terrible to think
of this phenomenon. I tremble in all my members when I consider all
the really valuable things that I've forgotten in seventy years--when I
meditate upon the caprices of my memory.
There's a bird out in California that is one perfect symbol of the
human memory. I've forgotten the bird's name (just because it would be
valuable for me to know it--to recall it to your own minds, perhaps).
But this fool of a creature goes around collecting the most ridiculous
things you can imagine and storing them up. He never selects a thing
that could ever prove of the slightest help to him; but he goes
about gathering iron forks, and spoons, and tin cans, and broken
mouse-traps--all sorts of rubbish that is difficult for him to carry and
yet be any use when he gets it. Why, that bird will go by a gold watch
to bring back one of those patent cake-pans.
Now, my mind is just like that, and my mind isn't very different from
yours--and so our minds are just like that bird. We pass by what would be
of inestimable value to us, and pack our memories with the most
trivial odds and ends that never by any chance, under any circumstances
whatsoever, could be of the slightest use to any one.
Now, things that I have remembered are constantly popping into my head.
And I am repeatedly startled by the vividness with which they recur
to me after the lapse of years and their utter uselessness in being
remembered at all.
I was thinking over some on my way up here. They were the illustrations
I spoke about to the young lady on the way up. And I've come to the
conclusion, curious though it is, that I can use every one of these
freaks of memory to teach you all a lesson. I'm convinced that each one
has its moral. And I think it's my duty to hand the moral on to you.
Now, I recall that when I was a boy I was a good boy--I was a very good
boy. Why, I was the best boy in my school. I was the best boy in that
little Mississippi town where I lived. The population was only about
twenty million. You may not believe it, but I was the best boy in that
State--and in the United States, for that matter.
But I don't know why I never heard any one say that but myself. I always
recognized it. But even those nearest and dearest to me couldn't seem to
see it. My mother, especially, seemed to think there was something wrong
with that estimate. And she never got over that prejudice.
Now, when my mother got to be eighty-five years old her memory failed
her. She forgot little threads that hold life's patches of meaning
together. She was living out West then, and I went on to visit her.
I hadn't seen my mother in a year or so. And when I got there she knew
my face; knew I was married; knew I had a family, and that I was living
with them. But she couldn't, for the life of her, tell my name or who I
was. So I told her I was her boy.
"But you don't live with me," she said.
"No," said I, "I'm living in Rochester. "
"What are you doing there? "
"Going to school. "
"Large school? "
"Very large. "
"All boys? "
"All boys. "
"And how do you stand? " said my mother.
"I'm the best boy in that school," I answered.
"Well," said my mother, with a return of her old fire, "I'd like to know
what the other boys are like. "
Now, one point in this story is the fact that my mother's mind went back
to my school days, and remembered my little youthful self-prejudice when
she'd forgotten everything else about me.
The other point is the moral. There's one there that you will find if
you search for it.
Now, here's something else I remember. It's about the first time I ever
stole a watermelon. "Stole" is a strong word. Stole? Stole? No, I don't
mean that. It was the first time I ever withdrew a watermelon. It was
the first time I ever extracted a watermelon. That is exactly the word I
want--"extracted. " It is definite. It is precise. It perfectly conveys my
idea. Its use in dentistry connotes the delicate shade of meaning I am
looking for. You know we never extract our own teeth.
And it was not my watermelon that I extracted. I extracted that
watermelon from a farmer's wagon while he was inside negotiating with
another customer. I carried that watermelon to one of the secluded
recesses of the lumber-yard, and there I broke it open.
It was a green watermelon.
Well, do you know when I saw that I began to feel sorry--sorry--sorry. It
seemed to me that I had done wrong. I reflected deeply. I reflected that
I was young--I think I was just eleven. But I knew that though immature
I did not lack moral advancement. I knew what a boy ought to do who had
extracted a watermelon--like that.
I considered George Washington, and what action he would have taken
under similar circumstances. Then I knew there was just one thing to
make me feel right inside, and that was--Restitution.
So I said to myself: "I will do that. I will take that green watermelon
back where I got it from. " And the minute I had said it I felt
that great moral uplift that comes to you when you've made a noble
resolution.
So I gathered up the biggest fragments, and I carried them back to the
farmer's wagon, and I restored the watermelon--what was left of it. And I
made him give me a good one in place of it, too.
And I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself going around working
off his worthless, old, green watermelons on trusting purchasers who had
to rely on him. How could they tell from the outside whether the melons
were good or not? That was his business. And if he didn't reform, I told
him I'd see that he didn't get any more of my trade--nor anybody else's I
knew, if I could help it.
You know that man was as contrite as a revivalist's last convert. He
said he was all broken up to think I'd gotten a green watermelon.
He promised that he would never carry another green watermelon if he
starved for it. And he drove off--a better man.
Now, do you see what I did for that man? He was on a downward path, and
I rescued him. But all I got out of it was a watermelon.
Yet I'd rather have that memory--just that memory of the good I did for
that depraved farmer--than all the material gain you can think of. Look
at the lesson he got! I never got anything like that from it. But
I ought to be satisfied: I was only eleven years old, but I secured
everlasting benefit to other people.
The moral in this is perfectly clear, and I think there's one in the
next memory I'm going to tell you about.
To go back to my childhood, there's another little incident that comes
to me from which you can draw even another moral. It's about one of the
times I went fishing. You see, in our house there was a sort of family
prejudice against going fishing if you hadn't permission. But it would
frequently be bad judgment to ask. So I went fishing secretly, as it
were--way up the Mississippi. It was an exquisitely happy trip, I recall,
with a very pleasant sensation.
Well, while I was away there was a tragedy in our town. A stranger,
stopping over on his way East from California; was stabbed to death in
an unseemly brawl.
Now, my father was justice of the peace, and because he was justice
of the peace he was coroner; and since he was coroner he was also
constable; and being constable he was sheriff; and out of consideration
for his holding the office of sheriff he was likewise county clerk and a
dozen other officials I don't think of just this minute.
I thought he had power of life or death, only he didn't use it over
other boys. He was sort of an austere man. Somehow I didn't like being
round him when I'd done anything he disapproved of. So that's the reason
I wasn't often around.
Well, when this gentleman got knifed they communicated with the proper
authority, the coroner, and they laid the corpse out in the coroner's
office--our front sitting-room--in preparation for the inquest the next
morning.
About 9 or 10 o'clock I got back from fishing. It was a little too late
for me to be received by my folks, so I took my shoes off and slipped
noiselessly up the back way to the sitting-room. I was very tired, and I
didn't wish to disturb my people. So I groped my way to the sofa and lay
down.
Now, I didn't know anything of what had happened during my absence.
But I was sort of nervous on my own account-afraid of being caught, and
rather dubious about the morning affair. And I had been lying there
a few moments when my eyes gradually got used to the darkness, and I
became aware of something on the other side of the room.
It was something foreign to the apartment. It had an uncanny appearance.
And I sat up looking very hard, and wondering what in heaven this long,
formless, vicious-looking thing might be.
First I thought I'd go and see. Then I thought, "Never mind that. "
Mind you, I had no cowardly sensations whatever, but it didn't seem
exactly prudent to investigate. But I somehow couldn't keep my eyes off
the thing. And the more I looked at it the more disagreeably it grew on
me. But I was resolved to play the man. So I decided to turn over and
count a hundred, and let the patch of moonlight creep up and show me
what the dickens it was.
I turned over and tried to count, but I couldn't keep my mind on it. I
kept thinking of that grewsome mass. I was losing count all the time,
and going back and beginning over again. Oh no; I wasn't frightened--just
annoyed. But by the time I'd gotten to the century mark I turned
cautiously over and opened my eyes with great fortitude.
The moonlight revealed to me a marble-white human hand. Well, maybe I
wasn't embarrassed! But then that changed to a creepy feeling again,
and I thought I'd try the counting again. I don't know how many hours or
weeks it was that I lay there counting hard. But the moonlight crept up
that white arm, and it showed me a lead face and a terrible wound over
the heart.
I could scarcely say that I was terror-stricken or anything like that.
But somehow his eyes interested me so that I went right out of the
window. I didn't need the sash. But it seemed easier to take it than
leave it behind.
Now, let that teach you a lesson--I don't know just what it is. But at
seventy years old I find that memory of peculiar value to me. I have
been unconsciously guided by it all these years. Things that seemed
pigeon-holed and remote are a perpetual influence. Yes, you're taught in
so many ways. And you're so felicitously taught when you don't know it.
Here's something else that taught me a good deal.
When I was seventeen I was very bashful, and a sixteen-year-old girl
came to stay a week with us. She was a peach, and I was seized with a
happiness not of this world.
One evening my mother suggested that, to entertain her, I take her
to the theatre. I didn't really like to, because I was seventeen and
sensitive about appearing in the streets with a girl. I couldn't see my
way to enjoying my delight in public. But we went.
I didn't feel very happy. I couldn't seem to keep my mind on the play.
I became conscious, after a while, that that was due less to my lovely
company than my boots.
