I
appreciate
that; I am glad to say this word; people say so much about
me, and they forget those creditors.
me, and they forget those creditors.
Twain - Speeches
Then I began to reflect.
I began to be sorry.
I
wondered what George Washington would have done had he been in my place.
I thought a long time, and then suddenly felt that strange feeling which
comes to a man with a good resolution, and I took up that watermelon and
took it back to its owner. I handed him the watermelon and told him to
reform. He took my lecture much to heart, and, when he gave me a good
one in place of the green melon, I forgave him.
I told him that I would still be a customer of his, and that I cherished
no ill-feeling because of the incident--that would remain green in my
memory.
BUSINESS
The alumni of Eastman College gave their annual banquet,
March 30, 1901, at the Y. M. C. A. Building. Mr. James G.
Cannon, of the Fourth National Bank, made the first speech of
the evening, after which Mr. Clemens was introduced by Mr.
Bailey as the personal friend of Tom Sawyer, who was one of the
types of successful business men.
MR. CANNON has furnished me with texts enough to last as slow a speaker
as myself all the rest of the night. I took exception to the introducing
of Mr. Cannon as a great financier, as if he were the only great
financier present. I am a financier. But my methods are not the same as
Mr. Cannon's.
I cannot say that I have turned out the great business man that I
thought I was when I began life. But I am comparatively young yet, and
may learn. I am rather inclined to believe that what troubled me was
that I got the big-head early in the game. I want to explain to you a
few points of difference between the principles of business as I see
them and those that Mr. Cannon believes in.
He says that the primary rule of business success is loyalty to your
employer. That's all right--as a theory. What is the matter with loyalty
to yourself? As nearly as I can understand Mr. Cannon's methods, there
is one great drawback to them. He wants you to work a great deal.
Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more-restful.
My idea is that the employer should be the busy man, and the employee
the idle one. The employer should be the worried man, and the employee
the happy one. And why not? He gets the salary. My plan is to get
another man to do the work for me. In that there's more repose. What I
want is repose first, last, and all the time.
Mr. Cannon says that there are three cardinal rules of business success;
they are diligence, honesty, and truthfulness. Well, diligence is all
right. Let it go as a theory. Honesty is the best policy--when there is
money in it. But truthfulness is one of the most dangerous--why, this man
is misleading you.
I had an experience to-day with my wife which illustrates this. I was
acknowledging a belated invitation to another dinner for this evening,
which seemed to have been sent about ten days ago. It only reached me
this morning. I was mortified at the discourtesy into which I had been
brought by this delay, and wondered what was being thought of me by
my hosts. As I had accepted your invitation, of course I had to send
regrets to my other friends.
When I started to write this note my wife came up and stood looking
over my shoulder. Women always want to know what is going on. Said she
"Should not that read in the third person? " I conceded that it should,
put aside what I was writing, and commenced over again. That seemed to
satisfy her, and so she sat down and let me proceed. I then--finished my
first note--and so sent what I intended. I never could have done this if
I had let my wife know the truth about it. Here is what I wrote:
TO THE OHIO SOCIETY,--I have at this moment received a most kind
invitation (eleven days old) from Mr. Southard, president; and a
like one (ten days old) from Mr. Bryant, president of the Press
Club. I thank the society cordially for the compliment of these
invitations, although I am booked elsewhere and cannot come.
But, oh, I should like to know the name of the Lightning Express by
which they were forwarded; for I owe a friend a dozen chickens, and
I believe it will be cheaper to send eggs instead, and let them
develop on the road.
Sincerely yours,
Mark TWAIN.
I want to tell you of some of my experiences in business, and then I
will be in a position to lay down one general rule for the guidance
of those who want to succeed in business. My first effort was about
twenty-five years ago. I took hold of an invention--I don't know now
what it was all about, but some one came to me and told me it was a good
thing, and that there was lots of money in it. He persuaded me to invest
$15,000, and I lived up to my beliefs by engaging a man to develop it.
To make a long story short, I sunk $40,000 in it.
Then I took up the publication of a book. I called in a publisher and
said to him: "I want you to publish this book along lines which I shall
lay down. I am the employer, and you are the employee. I am going to
show them some new kinks in the publishing business. And I want you to
draw on me for money as you go along," which he did. He drew on me
for $56,000. Then I asked him to take the book and call it off. But he
refused to do that.
My next venture was with a machine for doing something or other. I knew
less about that than I did about the invention. But I sunk $170,000 in
the business, and I can't for the life of me recollect what it was the
machine was to do.
I was still undismayed. You see, one of the strong points about my
business life was that I never gave up. I undertook to publish General
Grant's book, and made $140,000 in six months. My axiom is, to succeed
in business: avoid my example.
CARNEGIE THE BENEFACTOR
At the dinner given in honor of Andrew Carnegie by the Lotos
Club, March 17, 1909, Mr. Clemens appeared in a white suit from
head to feet. He wore a white double-breasted coat, white
trousers, and white shoes. The only relief was a big black
cigar, which he confidentially informed the company was not
from his usual stack bought at $3 per barrel.
The State of Missouri has for its coat of arms a barrel-head with two
Missourians, one on each side of it, and mark the motto--"United We
Stand, Divided We Fall. " Mr. Carnegie, this evening, has suffered from
compliments. It is interesting to hear what people will say about a man.
Why, at the banquet given by this club in my honor, Mr. Carnegie had
the inspiration for which the club is now honoring him. If Dunfermline
contributed so much to the United States in contributing Mr. Carnegie,
what would have happened if all Scotland had turned out? These
Dunfermline folk have acquired advantages in coming to America.
Doctor McKelway paid the top compliment, the cumulation, when he said of
Mr. Carnegie:
"There is a man who wants to pay more taxes than he is charged. " Richard
Watson Gilder did very well for a poet. He advertised his magazine. He
spoke of hiring Mr. Carnegie--the next thing he will be trying to hire
me.
If I undertook to pay compliments I would do it stronger than any others
have done it, for what Mr. Carnegie wants are strong compliments. Now,
the other side of seventy, I have preserved, as my chiefest virtue,
modesty.
ON POETRY, VERACITY, AND SUICIDE
ADDRESS AT A DINNER OF THE MANHATTAN DICKENS FELLOWSHIP,
NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 7, 1906
This dinner was in commemoration of the ninety-fourth
anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. On an other
occasion Mr. Clemens told the same story with variations and a
different conclusion to the University Settlement Society.
I always had taken an interest in young people who wanted to become
poets. I remember I was particularly interested in one budding poet when
I was a reporter. His name was Butter.
One day he came to me and said, disconsolately, that he was going to
commit suicide--he was tired of life, not being able to express his
thoughts in poetic form. Butter asked me what I thought of the idea.
I said I would; that it was a good idea. "You can do me a friendly turn.
You go off in a private place and do it there, and I'll get it all. You
do it, and I'll do as much for you some time. "
At first he determined to drown himself. Drowning is so nice and clean,
and writes up so well in a newspaper.
But things ne'er do go smoothly in weddings, suicides, or courtships.
Only there at the edge of the water, where Butter was to end himself,
lay a life-preserver--a big round canvas one, which would float after the
scrap-iron was soaked out of it.
Butter wouldn't kill himself with the life-preserver in sight, and so
I had an idea. I took it to a pawnshop, and [soaked] it for a revolver:
The pawnbroker didn't think much of the exchange, but when I explained
the situation he acquiesced. We went up on top of a high building, and
this is what happened to the poet:
He put the revolver to his forehead and blew a tunnel straight through
his head. The tunnel was about the size of your finger. You could look
right through it. The job was complete; there was nothing in it.
Well, after that that man never could write prose, but he could write
poetry. He could write it after he had blown his brains out. There is
lots of that talent all over the country, but the trouble is they don't
develop it.
I am suffering now from the fact that I, who have told the truth a good
many times in my life, have lately received more letters than anybody
else urging me to lead a righteous life. I have more friends who want to
see me develop on a high level than anybody else.
Young John D. Rockefeller, two weeks ago, taught his Bible class all
about veracity, and why it was better that everybody should always keep
a plentiful supply on hand. Some of the letters I have received suggest
that I ought to attend his class and learn, too. Why, I know Mr.
Rockefeller, and he is a good fellow. He is competent in many ways
to teach a Bible class, but when it comes to veracity he is only
thirty-five years old. I'm seventy years old. I have been familiar with
veracity twice as long as he.
And the story about George Washington and his little hatchet has also
been suggested to me in these letters--in a fugitive way, as if I needed
some of George Washington and his hatchet in my constitution. Why, dear
me, they overlook the real point in that story. The point is not the one
that is usually suggested, and you can readily see that.
The point is not that George said to his father, "Yes, father, I cut
down the cheery-tree; I can't tell a lie," but that the little
boy--only seven years old--should have his sagacity developed under such
circumstances. He was a boy wise beyond his years. His conduct then was
a prophecy of later years. Yes, I think he was the most remarkable man
the country ever produced-up to my time, anyway.
Now then, little George realized that circumstantial evidence was
against him. He knew that his father would know from the size of the
chips that no full-grown hatchet cut that tree down, and that no man
would have haggled it so. He knew that his father would send around the
plantation and inquire for a small boy with a hatchet, and he had the
wisdom to come out and confess it. Now, the idea that his father was
overjoyed when he told little George that he would rather have him cut
down, a thousand cheery-trees than tell a lie is all nonsense. What did
he really mean? Why, that he was absolutely astonished that he had a son
who had the chance to tell a lie and didn't.
I admire old George--if that was his name--for his discernment. He knew
when he said that his son couldn't tell a lie that he was stretching it
a good deal. He wouldn't have to go to John D. Rockefeller's Bible class
to find that out. The way the old George Washington story goes down it
doesn't do anybody any good. It only discourages people who can tell a
lie.
WELCOME HOME
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER IN HIS HONOR AT THE LOTOS CLUB,
NOVEMBER 10, 1900
In August, 1895, just before sailing for Australia, Mr. Clemens
issued the following statement:
"It has been reported that I sacrificed, for the benefit of the
creditors, the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer I
was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit.
"This is an error. I intend the lectures, as well as the property, for
the creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brains, and a
merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws of
insolvency and may start free again for himself. But I am not a business
man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise
for less than one hundred cents on a dollar, and its debts are never
outlawed.
"I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing firm whose capital I
furnished. If the firm had prospered I would have expected to collect
two-thirds of the profits. As it is, I expect to pay all the debts. My
partner has no resources, and I do not look for assistance to my wife,
whose contributions in cash from her own means have nearly equalled
the claims of all the creditors combined. She has taken nothing; on
the contrary, she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the
obligations due to the rest of the creditors.
"It is my intention to ask my creditors to accept that as a legal
discharge, and trust to my honor to pay the other fifty per cent. as
fast as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour,
I am confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four
years.
"After which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and
unincumbered start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and South
Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the
United States. "
I thank you all out of my heart for this fraternal welcome, and it seems
almost too fine, almost too magnificent, for a humble Missourian such as
I am, far from his native haunts on the banks of the Mississippi; yet
my modesty is in a degree fortified by observing that I am not the only
Missourian who has been honored here to-night, for I see at this very
table-here is a Missourian [indicating Mr. McKelway], and there is a
Missourian [indicating Mr. Depew], and there is another Missourian--and
Hendrix and Clemens; and last but not least, the greatest Missourian of
them all--here he sits--Tom Reed, who has always concealed his birth till
now. And since I have been away I know what has been happening in his
case: he has deserted politics, and now is leading a creditable life.
He has reformed, and God prosper him; and I judge, by a remark which
he made up-stairs awhile ago, that he had found a new business that is
utterly suited to his make and constitution, and all he is doing now is
that he is around raising the average of personal beauty.
But I am grateful to the president for the kind words which he has said
of me, and it is not for me to say whether these praises were deserved
or not. I prefer to accept them just as they stand, without concerning
myself with the statistics upon which they have been built, but only
with that large matter, that essential matter, the good-fellowship,
the kindliness, the magnanimity, and generosity that prompted their
utterance. Well, many things have happened since I sat here before, and
now that I think of it, the president's reference to the debts which
were left by the bankrupt firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. gives me an
opportunity to say a word which I very much wish to say, not for myself,
but for ninety-five men and women whom I shall always hold in high
esteem and in pleasant remembrance--the creditors of that firm. They
treated me well; they treated me handsomely. There were ninety-six of
them, and by not a finger's weight did ninety-five of them add to the
burden of that time for me. Ninety-five out of the ninety-six--they
didn't indicate by any word or sign that they were anxious about their
money. They treated me well, and I shall not forget it; I could not
forget it if I wanted to. Many of them said, "Don't you worry, don't
you hurry"; that's what they said. Why, if I could have that kind
of creditors always, and that experience, I would recognize it as a
personal loss to be out of debt. I owe those ninety-five creditors a
debt of homage, and I pay it now in such measure as one may pay so
fine a debt in mere words. Yes, they said that very thing. I was not
personally acquainted with ten of them, and yet they said, "Don't you
worry, and don't you hurry. " I know that phrase by heart, and if all the
other music should perish out of the world it would still sing to me.
I appreciate that; I am glad to say this word; people say so much about
me, and they forget those creditors. They were handsomer than I was--or
Tom Reed.
Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have been
absent; you have done lots of things, some that are well worth
remembering, too. Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have gone,
and that is rare in history--a righteous war is so rare that it is almost
unknown in history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and
we joined her to those three or four nations that exist on this earth;
and we started out to set those poor Filipinos free, too, and why, why,
why that most righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I
suppose I never shall know.
But we have made a most creditable record in China in these days--our
sound and level-headed administration has made a most creditable record
over there, and there are some of the Powers that cannot say that by any
means. The Yellow Terror is threatening this world to-day. It is looming
vast and ominous on that distant horizon. I do not know what is going to
be the result of that Yellow Terror, but our government has had no hand
in evoking it, and let's be happy in that and proud of it.
We have nursed free silver, we watched by its cradle; we have done the
best we could to raise that child, but those pestiferous Republicans
have--well, they keep giving it the measles every chance they get, and we
never shall raise that child. Well, that's no matter--there's plenty of
other things to do, and we must think of something else. Well, we have
tried a President four years, criticised him and found fault with him
the whole time, and turned around a day or two ago with votes enough
to spare to elect another. O consistency! consistency! thy name--I don't
know what thy name is--Thompson will do--any name will do--but you see
there is the fact, there is the consistency. Then we have tried for
governor an illustrious Rough Rider, and we liked him so much in that
great office that now we have made him Vice-President--not in order
that that office shall give him distinction, but that he may confer
distinction upon that office. And it's needed, too--it's needed. And now,
for a while anyway, we shall not be stammering and embarrassed when a
stranger asks us, "What is the name of the Vice-President? " This one is
known; this one is pretty well known, pretty widely known, and in some
quarters favorably. I am not accustomed to dealing in these fulsome
compliments, and I am probably overdoing it a little; but--well, my old
affectionate admiration for Governor Roosevelt has probably betrayed me
into the complimentary excess; but I know him, and you know him; and
if you give him rope enough--I mean if--oh yes, he will justify that
compliment; leave it just as it is. And now we have put in his place
Mr. Odell, another Rough Rider, I suppose; all the fat things go to that
profession now. Why, I could have been a Rough Rider myself if I had
known that this political Klondike was going to open up, and I would
have been a Rough Rider if I could have gone to war on an automobile but
not on a horse! No, I know the horse too well; I have known the horse
in war and in peace, and there is no place where a horse is comfortable.
The horse has too many caprices, and he is too much given to initiative.
He invents too many new ideas. No, I don't want anything to do with a
horse.
And then we have taken Chauncey Depew out of a useful and active
life and made him a Senator--embalmed him, corked him up. And I am not
grieving. That man has said many a true thing about me in his time, and
I always said something would happen to him. Look at that [pointing to
Mr. Depew] gilded mummy! He has made my life a sorrow to me at many a
banquet on both sides of the ocean, and now he has got it. Perish the
hand that pulls that cork!
All these things have happened, all these things have come to pass,
while I have been away, and it just shows how little a Mugwump can be
missed in a cold, unfeeling world, even when he is the last one that is
left--a GRAND OLD PARTY all by himself. And there is another thing
that has happened, perhaps the most imposing event of them all: the
institution called the Daughters of the--Crown--the Daughters of the Royal
Crown--has established itself and gone into business. Now, there's an
American idea for you; there's an idea born of God knows what kind of
specialized insanity, but not softening of the brain--you cannot soften
a thing that doesn't exist--the Daughters of the Royal Crown! Nobody
eligible but American descendants of Charles II. Dear me, how the fancy
product of that old harem still holds out!
Well, I am truly glad to foregather with you again, and partake of the
bread and salt of this hospitable house once more. Seven years ago, when
I was your guest here, when I was old and despondent, you gave me the
grip and the word that lift a man up and make him glad to be alive; and
now I come back from my exile young again, fresh and alive, and ready to
begin life once more, and your welcome puts the finishing touch upon my
restored youth and makes it real to me, and not a gracious dream that
must vanish with the morning. I thank you.
AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH
The steamship St. Paul was to have been launched from Cramp's
shipyard in Philadelphia on March 25, 1895. After the
launching a luncheon was to have been given, at which Mr.
Clemens was to make a speech. Just before the final word was
given a reporter asked Mr. Clemens for a copy of his speech to
be delivered at the luncheon. To facilitate the work of the
reporter he loaned him a typewritten copy of the speech. It
happened, however, that when the blocks were knocked away the
big ship refused to budge, and no amount of labor could move
her an inch. She had stuck fast upon the ways. As a result,
the launching was postponed for a week or two; but in the mean
time Mr. Clemens had gone to Europe. Years after a reporter
called on Mr. Clemens and submitted the manuscript of the
speech, which was as follows:
Day after to-morrow I sail for England in a ship of this line, the
Paris. It will be my fourteenth crossing in three years and a half.
Therefore, my presence here, as you see, is quite natural, quite
commercial. I am interested in ships. They interest me more now than
hotels do. When a new ship is launched I feel a desire to go and see if
she will be good quarters for me to live in, particularly if she
belongs to this line, for it is by this line that I have done most of my
ferrying.
People wonder why I go so much. Well, I go partly for my health, partly
to familiarize myself with the road. I have gone over the same road so
many times now that I know all the whales that belong along the route,
and latterly it is an embarrassment to me to meet them, for they do not
look glad to see me, but annoyed, and they seem to say: "Here is this
old derelict again. "
Earlier in life this would have pained me and made me ashamed, but I am
older now, and when I am behaving myself, and doing right, I do not care
for a whale's opinion about me. When we are young we generally estimate
an opinion by the size of the person that holds it, but later we find
that that is an uncertain rule, for we realize that there are times when
a hornet's opinion disturbs us more than an emperor's.
I do not mean that I care nothing at all for a whale's opinion, for that
would be going to too great a length. Of course, it is better to have
the good opinion of a whale than his disapproval; but my position is
that if you cannot have a whale's good opinion, except at some sacrifice
of principle or personal dignity, it is better to try to live without
it. That is my idea about whales.
Yes, I have gone over that same route so often that I know my way
without a compass, just by the waves. I know all the large waves and a
good many of the small ones. Also the sunsets. I know every sunset and
where it belongs just by its color. Necessarily, then, I do not make the
passage now for scenery. That is all gone by.
What I prize most is safety, and in the second place swift transit
and handiness. These are best furnished, by the American line, whose
watertight compartments have no passage through them; no doors to be
left open, and consequently no way for water to get from one of them to
another in time of collision. If you nullify the peril which collisions
threaten you with, you nullify the only very serious peril which attends
voyages in the great liners of our day, and makes voyaging safer than
staying at home.
When the Paris was half-torn to pieces some years ago, enough of the
Atlantic ebbed and flowed through one end of her, during her long agony,
to sink the fleets of the world if distributed among them; but she
floated in perfect safety, and no life was lost. In time of collision
the rock of Gibraltar is not safer than the Paris and other great ships
of this line. This seems to be the only great line in the world that
takes a passenger from metropolis to metropolis without the intervention
of tugs and barges or bridges--takes him through without breaking bulk,
so to speak.
On the English side he lands at a dock; on the dock a special train is
waiting; in an hour and three-quarters he is in London. Nothing could
be handier. If your journey were from a sand-pit on our side to a
lighthouse on the other, you could make it quicker by other lines, but
that is not the case. The journey is from the city of New York to the
city of London, and no line can do that journey quicker than this one,
nor anywhere near as conveniently and handily. And when the passenger
lands on our side he lands on the American side of the river, not in
the provinces. As a very learned man said on the last voyage (he is head
quartermaster of the New York land garboard streak of the middle watch),
"When we land a passenger on the American side there's nothing betwix
him and his hotel but hell and the hackman. "
I am glad, with you and the nation, to welcome the new ship. She is
another pride, another consolation, for a great country whose mighty
fleets have all vanished, and which has almost forgotten what it is to
fly its flag to sea. I am not sure as to which St. Paul she is named
for. Some think it is the one that is on the upper Mississippi, but the
head quartermaster told me it was the one that killed Goliath. But it is
not important. No matter which it is, let us give her hearty welcome and
godspeed.
SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY
AT THE METROPOLITAN CLUB, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 28, 1902
Address at a dinner given in honor of Mr. Clemens by Colonel
Harvey, President of Harper & Brothers.
I think I ought to be allowed to talk as long as I want to, for the
reason that I have cancelled all my winter's engagements of every kind,
for good and sufficient reasons, and am making no new engagements for
this winter, and, therefore, this is the only chance I shall have to
disembowel my skull for a year--close the mouth in that portrait for
a year. I want to offer thanks and homage to the chairman for this
innovation which he has introduced here, which is an improvement, as
I consider it, on the old-fashioned style of conducting occasions like
this. That was bad that was a bad, bad, bad arrangement. Under that old
custom the chairman got up and made a speech, he introduced the prisoner
at the bar, and covered him all over with compliments, nothing but
compliments, not a thing but compliments, never a slur, and sat down
and left that man to get up and talk without a text. You cannot talk on
compliments; that is not a text. No modest person, and I was born one,
can talk on compliments. A man gets up and is filled to the eyes with
happy emotions, but his tongue is tied; he has nothing to say; he is in
the condition of Doctor Rice's friend who came home drunk and explained
it to his wife, and his wife said to him, "John, when you have drunk all
the whiskey you want, you ought to ask for sarsaparilla. " He said, "Yes,
but when I have drunk all the whiskey I want I can't say sarsaparilla. "
And so I think it is much better to leave a man unmolested until the
testimony and pleadings are all in. Otherwise he is dumb--he is at the
sarsaparilla stage.
Before I get to the higgledy-piggledy point, as Mr. Howells suggested
I do, I want to thank you, gentlemen, for this very high honor you are
doing me, and I am quite competent to estimate it at its value. I see
around me captains of all the illustrious industries, most distinguished
men; there are more than fifty here, and I believe I know thirty-nine of
them well. I could probably borrow money from--from the others, anyway.
It is a proud thing to me, indeed, to see such a distinguished company
gather here on such an occasion as this, when there is no foreign
prince to be feted--when you have come here not to do honor to hereditary
privilege and ancient lineage, but to do reverence to mere moral
excellence and elemental veracity-and, dear me, how old it seems to make
me! I look around me and I see three or four persons I have known so
many, many years. I have known Mr. Secretary Hay--John Hay, as the nation
and the rest of his friends love to call him--I have known John Hay and
Tom Reed and the Reverend Twichell close upon thirty-six years. Close
upon thirty-six years I have known those venerable men. I have known Mr.
Howells nearly thirty-four years, and I knew Chauncey Depew before
he could walk straight, and before he learned to tell the truth.
Twenty-seven years ago, I heard him make the most noble and eloquent and
beautiful speech that has ever fallen from even his capable lips. Tom
Reed said that my principal defect was inaccuracy of statement. Well,
suppose that that is true. What's the use of telling the truth all the
time? I never tell the truth about Tom Reed--but that is his defect,
truth; he speaks the truth always. Tom Reed has a good heart, and he
has a good intellect, but he hasn't any judgment. Why, when Tom Reed
was invited to lecture to the Ladies' Society for the Procreation
or Procrastination, or something, of morals, I don't know what
it was--advancement, I suppose, of pure morals--he had the immortal
indiscretion to begin by saying that some of us can't be optimists, but
by judiciously utilizing the opportunities that Providence puts in our
way we can all be bigamists. You perceive his limitations. Anything he
has in his mind he states, if he thinks it is true. Well, that was true,
but that was no place to say it--so they fired him out.
A lot of accounts have been settled here tonight for me; I have held
grudges against some of these people, but they have all been wiped out
by the very handsome compliments that have been paid me. Even Wayne
MacVeagh--I have had a grudge against him many years. The first time I
saw Wayne MacVeagh was at a private dinner-party at Charles A. Dana's,
and when I got there he was clattering along, and I tried to get a
word in here and there; but you know what Wayne MacVeagh is when he is
started, and I could not get in five words to his one--or one word to his
five. I struggled along and struggled along, and--well, I wanted to tell
and I was trying to tell a dream I had had the night before, and it was
a remarkable dream, a dream worth people's while to listen to, a dream
recounting Sam Jones the revivalist's reception in heaven. I was on a
train, and was approaching the celestial way-station--I had a through
ticket--and I noticed a man sitting alongside of me asleep, and he
had his ticket in his hat. He was the remains of the Archbishop of
Canterbury; I recognized him by his photograph. I had nothing against
him, so I took his ticket and let him have mine. He didn't object--he
wasn't in a condition to object--and presently when the train stopped
at the heavenly station--well, I got off, and he went on by request--but
there they all were, the angels, you know, millions of them, every one
with a torch; they had arranged for a torch-light procession; they were
expecting the Archbishop, and when I got off they started to raise
a shout, but it didn't materialize. I don't know whether they were
disappointed. I suppose they had a lot of superstitious ideas about the
Archbishop and what he should look like, and I didn't fill the bill, and
I was trying to explain to Saint Peter, and was doing it in the German
tongue, because I didn't want to be too explicit. Well, I found it was
no use, I couldn't get along, for Wayne MacVeagh was occupying the whole
place, and I said to Mr. Dana, "What is the matter with that man? Who is
that man with the long tongue? What's the trouble with him, that long,
lank cadaver, old oil-derrick out of a job--who is that? " "Well, now,"
Mr. Dana said, "you don't want to meddle with him; you had better keep
quiet; just keep quiet, because that's a bad man. Talk! He was born to
talk. Don't let him get out with you; he'll skin you. " I said, "I have
been skinned, skinned, and skinned for years, there is nothing left. "
He said, "Oh, you'll find there is; that man is the very seed and
inspiration of that proverb which says, 'No matter how close you skin an
onion, a clever man can always peel it again. '" Well, I reflected and
I quieted down. That would never occur to Tom Reed. He's got no
discretion. Well, MacVeagh is just the same man; he hasn't changed a bit
in all those years; he has been peeling Mr. Mitchell lately. That's the
kind of man he is.
Mr. Howells--that poem of his is admirable; that's the way to treat a
person. Howells has a peculiar gift for seeing the merits of people,
and he has always exhibited them in my favor. Howells has never written
anything about me that I couldn't read six or seven times a day; he is
always just and always fair; he has written more appreciatively of
me than any one in this world, and published it in the North American
Review. He did me the justice to say that my intentions--he italicized
that--that my intentions were always good, that I wounded people's
conventions rather than their convictions. Now, I wouldn't want anything
handsomer than that said of me. I would rather wait, with anything harsh
I might have to say, till the convictions become conventions. Bangs has
traced me all the way down. He can't find that honest man, but I will
look for him in the looking-glass when I get home. It was intimated by
the Colonel that it is New England that makes New York and builds up
this country and makes it great, overlooking the fact that there's a
lot of people here who came from elsewhere, like John Hay from away
out West, and Howells from Ohio, and St. Clair McKelway and me
from Missouri, and we are doing what we can to build up New York a
little-elevate it. Why, when I was living in that village of Hannibal,
Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, and Hay up in the town of
Warsaw, also on the banks of the Mississippi River it is an emotional
bit of the Mississippi, and when it is low water you have to climb up
to it on a ladder, and when it floods you have to hunt for it; with a
deep-sea lead--but it is a great and beautiful country. In that old time
it was a paradise for simplicity--it was a simple, simple life, cheap but
comfortable, and full of sweetness, and there was nothing of this rage
of modern civilization there at all. It was a delectable land. I went
out there last June, and I met in that town of Hannibal a schoolmate of
mine, John Briggs, whom I had not seen for more than fifty years. I tell
you, that was a meeting! That pal whom I had known as a little boy long
ago, and knew now as a stately man three or four inches over six feet
and browned by exposure to many climes, he was back there to see that
old place again. We spent a whole afternoon going about here and there
and yonder, and hunting up the scenes and talking of the crimes which
we had committed so long ago. It was a heartbreaking delight, full of
pathos, laughter, and tears, all mixed together; and we called the roll
of the boys and girls that we picnicked and sweethearted with so many
years ago, and there were hardly half a dozen of them left; the rest
were in their graves; and we went up there on the summit of that hill,
a treasured place in my memory, the summit of Holiday's Hill, and looked
out again over that magnificent panorama of the Mississippi River,
sweeping along league after league, a level green paradise on one side,
and retreating capes and promontories as far as you could see on the
other, fading away in the soft, rich lights of the remote distance. I
recognized then that I was seeing now the most enchanting river view
the planet could furnish. I never knew it when I was a boy; it took an
educated eye that had travelled over the globe to know and appreciate
it; and John said, "Can you point out the place where Bear Creek used to
be before the railroad came? " I said, "Yes, it ran along yonder. " "And
can you point out the swimming-hole? " "Yes, out there. " And he said,
"Can you point out the place where we stole the skiff? " Well, I didn't
know which one he meant. Such a wilderness of events had intervened
since that day, more than fifty years ago, it took me more than five
minutes to call back that little incident, and then I did call it back;
it was a white skiff, and we painted it red to allay suspicion. And the
saddest, saddest man came along--a stranger he was--and he looked that red
skiff over so pathetically, and he said: "Well, if it weren't for the
complexion I'd know whose skiff that was. " He said it in that pleading
way, you know, that appeals for sympathy and suggestion; we were full of
sympathy for him, but we weren't in any condition to offer suggestions.
I can see him yet as he turned away with that same sad look on his face
and vanished out of history forever. I wonder what became of that man.
I know what became of the skiff. Well, it was a beautiful life, a lovely
life. There was no crime. Merely little things like pillaging orchards
and watermelon-patches and breaking the Sabbath--we didn't break the
Sabbath often enough to signify--once a week perhaps. But we were good
boys, good Presbyterian boys, all Presbyterian boys, and loyal and
all that; anyway, we were good Presbyterian boys when the weather was
doubtful; when it was fair, we did wander a little from the fold.
Look at John Hay and me. There we were in obscurity, and look where
we are now. Consider the ladder which he has climbed, the illustrious
vocations he has served--and vocations is the right word; he has in all
those vocations acquitted himself with high credit and honor to his
country and to the mother that bore him. Scholar, soldier, diplomat,
poet, historian--now, see where we are. He is Secretary of State and I am
a gentleman. It could not happen in any other country. Our institutions
give men the positions that of right belong to them through merit;
all you men have won your places, not by heredities, and not by family
influence or extraneous help, but only by the natural gifts God gave you
at your birth, made effective by your own energies; this is the country
to live in.
Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is present; the
larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; that is my wife,
and she has a good many personal friends here, and I think it won't
distress any one of them to know that, although she is going to
be confined to that bed for many months to come from that nervous
prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along very
well--and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of her. I knew
her for the first time just in the same year that I first knew John Hay
and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell--thirty-six years ago--and she has been the
best friend I have ever had, and that is saying a good deal; she
has reared me--she and Twichell together--and what I am I owe to them.
Twichell--why, it is such a pleasure to look upon Twichell's face!
wondered what George Washington would have done had he been in my place.
I thought a long time, and then suddenly felt that strange feeling which
comes to a man with a good resolution, and I took up that watermelon and
took it back to its owner. I handed him the watermelon and told him to
reform. He took my lecture much to heart, and, when he gave me a good
one in place of the green melon, I forgave him.
I told him that I would still be a customer of his, and that I cherished
no ill-feeling because of the incident--that would remain green in my
memory.
BUSINESS
The alumni of Eastman College gave their annual banquet,
March 30, 1901, at the Y. M. C. A. Building. Mr. James G.
Cannon, of the Fourth National Bank, made the first speech of
the evening, after which Mr. Clemens was introduced by Mr.
Bailey as the personal friend of Tom Sawyer, who was one of the
types of successful business men.
MR. CANNON has furnished me with texts enough to last as slow a speaker
as myself all the rest of the night. I took exception to the introducing
of Mr. Cannon as a great financier, as if he were the only great
financier present. I am a financier. But my methods are not the same as
Mr. Cannon's.
I cannot say that I have turned out the great business man that I
thought I was when I began life. But I am comparatively young yet, and
may learn. I am rather inclined to believe that what troubled me was
that I got the big-head early in the game. I want to explain to you a
few points of difference between the principles of business as I see
them and those that Mr. Cannon believes in.
He says that the primary rule of business success is loyalty to your
employer. That's all right--as a theory. What is the matter with loyalty
to yourself? As nearly as I can understand Mr. Cannon's methods, there
is one great drawback to them. He wants you to work a great deal.
Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more-restful.
My idea is that the employer should be the busy man, and the employee
the idle one. The employer should be the worried man, and the employee
the happy one. And why not? He gets the salary. My plan is to get
another man to do the work for me. In that there's more repose. What I
want is repose first, last, and all the time.
Mr. Cannon says that there are three cardinal rules of business success;
they are diligence, honesty, and truthfulness. Well, diligence is all
right. Let it go as a theory. Honesty is the best policy--when there is
money in it. But truthfulness is one of the most dangerous--why, this man
is misleading you.
I had an experience to-day with my wife which illustrates this. I was
acknowledging a belated invitation to another dinner for this evening,
which seemed to have been sent about ten days ago. It only reached me
this morning. I was mortified at the discourtesy into which I had been
brought by this delay, and wondered what was being thought of me by
my hosts. As I had accepted your invitation, of course I had to send
regrets to my other friends.
When I started to write this note my wife came up and stood looking
over my shoulder. Women always want to know what is going on. Said she
"Should not that read in the third person? " I conceded that it should,
put aside what I was writing, and commenced over again. That seemed to
satisfy her, and so she sat down and let me proceed. I then--finished my
first note--and so sent what I intended. I never could have done this if
I had let my wife know the truth about it. Here is what I wrote:
TO THE OHIO SOCIETY,--I have at this moment received a most kind
invitation (eleven days old) from Mr. Southard, president; and a
like one (ten days old) from Mr. Bryant, president of the Press
Club. I thank the society cordially for the compliment of these
invitations, although I am booked elsewhere and cannot come.
But, oh, I should like to know the name of the Lightning Express by
which they were forwarded; for I owe a friend a dozen chickens, and
I believe it will be cheaper to send eggs instead, and let them
develop on the road.
Sincerely yours,
Mark TWAIN.
I want to tell you of some of my experiences in business, and then I
will be in a position to lay down one general rule for the guidance
of those who want to succeed in business. My first effort was about
twenty-five years ago. I took hold of an invention--I don't know now
what it was all about, but some one came to me and told me it was a good
thing, and that there was lots of money in it. He persuaded me to invest
$15,000, and I lived up to my beliefs by engaging a man to develop it.
To make a long story short, I sunk $40,000 in it.
Then I took up the publication of a book. I called in a publisher and
said to him: "I want you to publish this book along lines which I shall
lay down. I am the employer, and you are the employee. I am going to
show them some new kinks in the publishing business. And I want you to
draw on me for money as you go along," which he did. He drew on me
for $56,000. Then I asked him to take the book and call it off. But he
refused to do that.
My next venture was with a machine for doing something or other. I knew
less about that than I did about the invention. But I sunk $170,000 in
the business, and I can't for the life of me recollect what it was the
machine was to do.
I was still undismayed. You see, one of the strong points about my
business life was that I never gave up. I undertook to publish General
Grant's book, and made $140,000 in six months. My axiom is, to succeed
in business: avoid my example.
CARNEGIE THE BENEFACTOR
At the dinner given in honor of Andrew Carnegie by the Lotos
Club, March 17, 1909, Mr. Clemens appeared in a white suit from
head to feet. He wore a white double-breasted coat, white
trousers, and white shoes. The only relief was a big black
cigar, which he confidentially informed the company was not
from his usual stack bought at $3 per barrel.
The State of Missouri has for its coat of arms a barrel-head with two
Missourians, one on each side of it, and mark the motto--"United We
Stand, Divided We Fall. " Mr. Carnegie, this evening, has suffered from
compliments. It is interesting to hear what people will say about a man.
Why, at the banquet given by this club in my honor, Mr. Carnegie had
the inspiration for which the club is now honoring him. If Dunfermline
contributed so much to the United States in contributing Mr. Carnegie,
what would have happened if all Scotland had turned out? These
Dunfermline folk have acquired advantages in coming to America.
Doctor McKelway paid the top compliment, the cumulation, when he said of
Mr. Carnegie:
"There is a man who wants to pay more taxes than he is charged. " Richard
Watson Gilder did very well for a poet. He advertised his magazine. He
spoke of hiring Mr. Carnegie--the next thing he will be trying to hire
me.
If I undertook to pay compliments I would do it stronger than any others
have done it, for what Mr. Carnegie wants are strong compliments. Now,
the other side of seventy, I have preserved, as my chiefest virtue,
modesty.
ON POETRY, VERACITY, AND SUICIDE
ADDRESS AT A DINNER OF THE MANHATTAN DICKENS FELLOWSHIP,
NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 7, 1906
This dinner was in commemoration of the ninety-fourth
anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. On an other
occasion Mr. Clemens told the same story with variations and a
different conclusion to the University Settlement Society.
I always had taken an interest in young people who wanted to become
poets. I remember I was particularly interested in one budding poet when
I was a reporter. His name was Butter.
One day he came to me and said, disconsolately, that he was going to
commit suicide--he was tired of life, not being able to express his
thoughts in poetic form. Butter asked me what I thought of the idea.
I said I would; that it was a good idea. "You can do me a friendly turn.
You go off in a private place and do it there, and I'll get it all. You
do it, and I'll do as much for you some time. "
At first he determined to drown himself. Drowning is so nice and clean,
and writes up so well in a newspaper.
But things ne'er do go smoothly in weddings, suicides, or courtships.
Only there at the edge of the water, where Butter was to end himself,
lay a life-preserver--a big round canvas one, which would float after the
scrap-iron was soaked out of it.
Butter wouldn't kill himself with the life-preserver in sight, and so
I had an idea. I took it to a pawnshop, and [soaked] it for a revolver:
The pawnbroker didn't think much of the exchange, but when I explained
the situation he acquiesced. We went up on top of a high building, and
this is what happened to the poet:
He put the revolver to his forehead and blew a tunnel straight through
his head. The tunnel was about the size of your finger. You could look
right through it. The job was complete; there was nothing in it.
Well, after that that man never could write prose, but he could write
poetry. He could write it after he had blown his brains out. There is
lots of that talent all over the country, but the trouble is they don't
develop it.
I am suffering now from the fact that I, who have told the truth a good
many times in my life, have lately received more letters than anybody
else urging me to lead a righteous life. I have more friends who want to
see me develop on a high level than anybody else.
Young John D. Rockefeller, two weeks ago, taught his Bible class all
about veracity, and why it was better that everybody should always keep
a plentiful supply on hand. Some of the letters I have received suggest
that I ought to attend his class and learn, too. Why, I know Mr.
Rockefeller, and he is a good fellow. He is competent in many ways
to teach a Bible class, but when it comes to veracity he is only
thirty-five years old. I'm seventy years old. I have been familiar with
veracity twice as long as he.
And the story about George Washington and his little hatchet has also
been suggested to me in these letters--in a fugitive way, as if I needed
some of George Washington and his hatchet in my constitution. Why, dear
me, they overlook the real point in that story. The point is not the one
that is usually suggested, and you can readily see that.
The point is not that George said to his father, "Yes, father, I cut
down the cheery-tree; I can't tell a lie," but that the little
boy--only seven years old--should have his sagacity developed under such
circumstances. He was a boy wise beyond his years. His conduct then was
a prophecy of later years. Yes, I think he was the most remarkable man
the country ever produced-up to my time, anyway.
Now then, little George realized that circumstantial evidence was
against him. He knew that his father would know from the size of the
chips that no full-grown hatchet cut that tree down, and that no man
would have haggled it so. He knew that his father would send around the
plantation and inquire for a small boy with a hatchet, and he had the
wisdom to come out and confess it. Now, the idea that his father was
overjoyed when he told little George that he would rather have him cut
down, a thousand cheery-trees than tell a lie is all nonsense. What did
he really mean? Why, that he was absolutely astonished that he had a son
who had the chance to tell a lie and didn't.
I admire old George--if that was his name--for his discernment. He knew
when he said that his son couldn't tell a lie that he was stretching it
a good deal. He wouldn't have to go to John D. Rockefeller's Bible class
to find that out. The way the old George Washington story goes down it
doesn't do anybody any good. It only discourages people who can tell a
lie.
WELCOME HOME
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER IN HIS HONOR AT THE LOTOS CLUB,
NOVEMBER 10, 1900
In August, 1895, just before sailing for Australia, Mr. Clemens
issued the following statement:
"It has been reported that I sacrificed, for the benefit of the
creditors, the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer I
was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit.
"This is an error. I intend the lectures, as well as the property, for
the creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brains, and a
merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws of
insolvency and may start free again for himself. But I am not a business
man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise
for less than one hundred cents on a dollar, and its debts are never
outlawed.
"I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing firm whose capital I
furnished. If the firm had prospered I would have expected to collect
two-thirds of the profits. As it is, I expect to pay all the debts. My
partner has no resources, and I do not look for assistance to my wife,
whose contributions in cash from her own means have nearly equalled
the claims of all the creditors combined. She has taken nothing; on
the contrary, she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the
obligations due to the rest of the creditors.
"It is my intention to ask my creditors to accept that as a legal
discharge, and trust to my honor to pay the other fifty per cent. as
fast as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour,
I am confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four
years.
"After which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and
unincumbered start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and South
Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the
United States. "
I thank you all out of my heart for this fraternal welcome, and it seems
almost too fine, almost too magnificent, for a humble Missourian such as
I am, far from his native haunts on the banks of the Mississippi; yet
my modesty is in a degree fortified by observing that I am not the only
Missourian who has been honored here to-night, for I see at this very
table-here is a Missourian [indicating Mr. McKelway], and there is a
Missourian [indicating Mr. Depew], and there is another Missourian--and
Hendrix and Clemens; and last but not least, the greatest Missourian of
them all--here he sits--Tom Reed, who has always concealed his birth till
now. And since I have been away I know what has been happening in his
case: he has deserted politics, and now is leading a creditable life.
He has reformed, and God prosper him; and I judge, by a remark which
he made up-stairs awhile ago, that he had found a new business that is
utterly suited to his make and constitution, and all he is doing now is
that he is around raising the average of personal beauty.
But I am grateful to the president for the kind words which he has said
of me, and it is not for me to say whether these praises were deserved
or not. I prefer to accept them just as they stand, without concerning
myself with the statistics upon which they have been built, but only
with that large matter, that essential matter, the good-fellowship,
the kindliness, the magnanimity, and generosity that prompted their
utterance. Well, many things have happened since I sat here before, and
now that I think of it, the president's reference to the debts which
were left by the bankrupt firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. gives me an
opportunity to say a word which I very much wish to say, not for myself,
but for ninety-five men and women whom I shall always hold in high
esteem and in pleasant remembrance--the creditors of that firm. They
treated me well; they treated me handsomely. There were ninety-six of
them, and by not a finger's weight did ninety-five of them add to the
burden of that time for me. Ninety-five out of the ninety-six--they
didn't indicate by any word or sign that they were anxious about their
money. They treated me well, and I shall not forget it; I could not
forget it if I wanted to. Many of them said, "Don't you worry, don't
you hurry"; that's what they said. Why, if I could have that kind
of creditors always, and that experience, I would recognize it as a
personal loss to be out of debt. I owe those ninety-five creditors a
debt of homage, and I pay it now in such measure as one may pay so
fine a debt in mere words. Yes, they said that very thing. I was not
personally acquainted with ten of them, and yet they said, "Don't you
worry, and don't you hurry. " I know that phrase by heart, and if all the
other music should perish out of the world it would still sing to me.
I appreciate that; I am glad to say this word; people say so much about
me, and they forget those creditors. They were handsomer than I was--or
Tom Reed.
Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have been
absent; you have done lots of things, some that are well worth
remembering, too. Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have gone,
and that is rare in history--a righteous war is so rare that it is almost
unknown in history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and
we joined her to those three or four nations that exist on this earth;
and we started out to set those poor Filipinos free, too, and why, why,
why that most righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I
suppose I never shall know.
But we have made a most creditable record in China in these days--our
sound and level-headed administration has made a most creditable record
over there, and there are some of the Powers that cannot say that by any
means. The Yellow Terror is threatening this world to-day. It is looming
vast and ominous on that distant horizon. I do not know what is going to
be the result of that Yellow Terror, but our government has had no hand
in evoking it, and let's be happy in that and proud of it.
We have nursed free silver, we watched by its cradle; we have done the
best we could to raise that child, but those pestiferous Republicans
have--well, they keep giving it the measles every chance they get, and we
never shall raise that child. Well, that's no matter--there's plenty of
other things to do, and we must think of something else. Well, we have
tried a President four years, criticised him and found fault with him
the whole time, and turned around a day or two ago with votes enough
to spare to elect another. O consistency! consistency! thy name--I don't
know what thy name is--Thompson will do--any name will do--but you see
there is the fact, there is the consistency. Then we have tried for
governor an illustrious Rough Rider, and we liked him so much in that
great office that now we have made him Vice-President--not in order
that that office shall give him distinction, but that he may confer
distinction upon that office. And it's needed, too--it's needed. And now,
for a while anyway, we shall not be stammering and embarrassed when a
stranger asks us, "What is the name of the Vice-President? " This one is
known; this one is pretty well known, pretty widely known, and in some
quarters favorably. I am not accustomed to dealing in these fulsome
compliments, and I am probably overdoing it a little; but--well, my old
affectionate admiration for Governor Roosevelt has probably betrayed me
into the complimentary excess; but I know him, and you know him; and
if you give him rope enough--I mean if--oh yes, he will justify that
compliment; leave it just as it is. And now we have put in his place
Mr. Odell, another Rough Rider, I suppose; all the fat things go to that
profession now. Why, I could have been a Rough Rider myself if I had
known that this political Klondike was going to open up, and I would
have been a Rough Rider if I could have gone to war on an automobile but
not on a horse! No, I know the horse too well; I have known the horse
in war and in peace, and there is no place where a horse is comfortable.
The horse has too many caprices, and he is too much given to initiative.
He invents too many new ideas. No, I don't want anything to do with a
horse.
And then we have taken Chauncey Depew out of a useful and active
life and made him a Senator--embalmed him, corked him up. And I am not
grieving. That man has said many a true thing about me in his time, and
I always said something would happen to him. Look at that [pointing to
Mr. Depew] gilded mummy! He has made my life a sorrow to me at many a
banquet on both sides of the ocean, and now he has got it. Perish the
hand that pulls that cork!
All these things have happened, all these things have come to pass,
while I have been away, and it just shows how little a Mugwump can be
missed in a cold, unfeeling world, even when he is the last one that is
left--a GRAND OLD PARTY all by himself. And there is another thing
that has happened, perhaps the most imposing event of them all: the
institution called the Daughters of the--Crown--the Daughters of the Royal
Crown--has established itself and gone into business. Now, there's an
American idea for you; there's an idea born of God knows what kind of
specialized insanity, but not softening of the brain--you cannot soften
a thing that doesn't exist--the Daughters of the Royal Crown! Nobody
eligible but American descendants of Charles II. Dear me, how the fancy
product of that old harem still holds out!
Well, I am truly glad to foregather with you again, and partake of the
bread and salt of this hospitable house once more. Seven years ago, when
I was your guest here, when I was old and despondent, you gave me the
grip and the word that lift a man up and make him glad to be alive; and
now I come back from my exile young again, fresh and alive, and ready to
begin life once more, and your welcome puts the finishing touch upon my
restored youth and makes it real to me, and not a gracious dream that
must vanish with the morning. I thank you.
AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH
The steamship St. Paul was to have been launched from Cramp's
shipyard in Philadelphia on March 25, 1895. After the
launching a luncheon was to have been given, at which Mr.
Clemens was to make a speech. Just before the final word was
given a reporter asked Mr. Clemens for a copy of his speech to
be delivered at the luncheon. To facilitate the work of the
reporter he loaned him a typewritten copy of the speech. It
happened, however, that when the blocks were knocked away the
big ship refused to budge, and no amount of labor could move
her an inch. She had stuck fast upon the ways. As a result,
the launching was postponed for a week or two; but in the mean
time Mr. Clemens had gone to Europe. Years after a reporter
called on Mr. Clemens and submitted the manuscript of the
speech, which was as follows:
Day after to-morrow I sail for England in a ship of this line, the
Paris. It will be my fourteenth crossing in three years and a half.
Therefore, my presence here, as you see, is quite natural, quite
commercial. I am interested in ships. They interest me more now than
hotels do. When a new ship is launched I feel a desire to go and see if
she will be good quarters for me to live in, particularly if she
belongs to this line, for it is by this line that I have done most of my
ferrying.
People wonder why I go so much. Well, I go partly for my health, partly
to familiarize myself with the road. I have gone over the same road so
many times now that I know all the whales that belong along the route,
and latterly it is an embarrassment to me to meet them, for they do not
look glad to see me, but annoyed, and they seem to say: "Here is this
old derelict again. "
Earlier in life this would have pained me and made me ashamed, but I am
older now, and when I am behaving myself, and doing right, I do not care
for a whale's opinion about me. When we are young we generally estimate
an opinion by the size of the person that holds it, but later we find
that that is an uncertain rule, for we realize that there are times when
a hornet's opinion disturbs us more than an emperor's.
I do not mean that I care nothing at all for a whale's opinion, for that
would be going to too great a length. Of course, it is better to have
the good opinion of a whale than his disapproval; but my position is
that if you cannot have a whale's good opinion, except at some sacrifice
of principle or personal dignity, it is better to try to live without
it. That is my idea about whales.
Yes, I have gone over that same route so often that I know my way
without a compass, just by the waves. I know all the large waves and a
good many of the small ones. Also the sunsets. I know every sunset and
where it belongs just by its color. Necessarily, then, I do not make the
passage now for scenery. That is all gone by.
What I prize most is safety, and in the second place swift transit
and handiness. These are best furnished, by the American line, whose
watertight compartments have no passage through them; no doors to be
left open, and consequently no way for water to get from one of them to
another in time of collision. If you nullify the peril which collisions
threaten you with, you nullify the only very serious peril which attends
voyages in the great liners of our day, and makes voyaging safer than
staying at home.
When the Paris was half-torn to pieces some years ago, enough of the
Atlantic ebbed and flowed through one end of her, during her long agony,
to sink the fleets of the world if distributed among them; but she
floated in perfect safety, and no life was lost. In time of collision
the rock of Gibraltar is not safer than the Paris and other great ships
of this line. This seems to be the only great line in the world that
takes a passenger from metropolis to metropolis without the intervention
of tugs and barges or bridges--takes him through without breaking bulk,
so to speak.
On the English side he lands at a dock; on the dock a special train is
waiting; in an hour and three-quarters he is in London. Nothing could
be handier. If your journey were from a sand-pit on our side to a
lighthouse on the other, you could make it quicker by other lines, but
that is not the case. The journey is from the city of New York to the
city of London, and no line can do that journey quicker than this one,
nor anywhere near as conveniently and handily. And when the passenger
lands on our side he lands on the American side of the river, not in
the provinces. As a very learned man said on the last voyage (he is head
quartermaster of the New York land garboard streak of the middle watch),
"When we land a passenger on the American side there's nothing betwix
him and his hotel but hell and the hackman. "
I am glad, with you and the nation, to welcome the new ship. She is
another pride, another consolation, for a great country whose mighty
fleets have all vanished, and which has almost forgotten what it is to
fly its flag to sea. I am not sure as to which St. Paul she is named
for. Some think it is the one that is on the upper Mississippi, but the
head quartermaster told me it was the one that killed Goliath. But it is
not important. No matter which it is, let us give her hearty welcome and
godspeed.
SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY
AT THE METROPOLITAN CLUB, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 28, 1902
Address at a dinner given in honor of Mr. Clemens by Colonel
Harvey, President of Harper & Brothers.
I think I ought to be allowed to talk as long as I want to, for the
reason that I have cancelled all my winter's engagements of every kind,
for good and sufficient reasons, and am making no new engagements for
this winter, and, therefore, this is the only chance I shall have to
disembowel my skull for a year--close the mouth in that portrait for
a year. I want to offer thanks and homage to the chairman for this
innovation which he has introduced here, which is an improvement, as
I consider it, on the old-fashioned style of conducting occasions like
this. That was bad that was a bad, bad, bad arrangement. Under that old
custom the chairman got up and made a speech, he introduced the prisoner
at the bar, and covered him all over with compliments, nothing but
compliments, not a thing but compliments, never a slur, and sat down
and left that man to get up and talk without a text. You cannot talk on
compliments; that is not a text. No modest person, and I was born one,
can talk on compliments. A man gets up and is filled to the eyes with
happy emotions, but his tongue is tied; he has nothing to say; he is in
the condition of Doctor Rice's friend who came home drunk and explained
it to his wife, and his wife said to him, "John, when you have drunk all
the whiskey you want, you ought to ask for sarsaparilla. " He said, "Yes,
but when I have drunk all the whiskey I want I can't say sarsaparilla. "
And so I think it is much better to leave a man unmolested until the
testimony and pleadings are all in. Otherwise he is dumb--he is at the
sarsaparilla stage.
Before I get to the higgledy-piggledy point, as Mr. Howells suggested
I do, I want to thank you, gentlemen, for this very high honor you are
doing me, and I am quite competent to estimate it at its value. I see
around me captains of all the illustrious industries, most distinguished
men; there are more than fifty here, and I believe I know thirty-nine of
them well. I could probably borrow money from--from the others, anyway.
It is a proud thing to me, indeed, to see such a distinguished company
gather here on such an occasion as this, when there is no foreign
prince to be feted--when you have come here not to do honor to hereditary
privilege and ancient lineage, but to do reverence to mere moral
excellence and elemental veracity-and, dear me, how old it seems to make
me! I look around me and I see three or four persons I have known so
many, many years. I have known Mr. Secretary Hay--John Hay, as the nation
and the rest of his friends love to call him--I have known John Hay and
Tom Reed and the Reverend Twichell close upon thirty-six years. Close
upon thirty-six years I have known those venerable men. I have known Mr.
Howells nearly thirty-four years, and I knew Chauncey Depew before
he could walk straight, and before he learned to tell the truth.
Twenty-seven years ago, I heard him make the most noble and eloquent and
beautiful speech that has ever fallen from even his capable lips. Tom
Reed said that my principal defect was inaccuracy of statement. Well,
suppose that that is true. What's the use of telling the truth all the
time? I never tell the truth about Tom Reed--but that is his defect,
truth; he speaks the truth always. Tom Reed has a good heart, and he
has a good intellect, but he hasn't any judgment. Why, when Tom Reed
was invited to lecture to the Ladies' Society for the Procreation
or Procrastination, or something, of morals, I don't know what
it was--advancement, I suppose, of pure morals--he had the immortal
indiscretion to begin by saying that some of us can't be optimists, but
by judiciously utilizing the opportunities that Providence puts in our
way we can all be bigamists. You perceive his limitations. Anything he
has in his mind he states, if he thinks it is true. Well, that was true,
but that was no place to say it--so they fired him out.
A lot of accounts have been settled here tonight for me; I have held
grudges against some of these people, but they have all been wiped out
by the very handsome compliments that have been paid me. Even Wayne
MacVeagh--I have had a grudge against him many years. The first time I
saw Wayne MacVeagh was at a private dinner-party at Charles A. Dana's,
and when I got there he was clattering along, and I tried to get a
word in here and there; but you know what Wayne MacVeagh is when he is
started, and I could not get in five words to his one--or one word to his
five. I struggled along and struggled along, and--well, I wanted to tell
and I was trying to tell a dream I had had the night before, and it was
a remarkable dream, a dream worth people's while to listen to, a dream
recounting Sam Jones the revivalist's reception in heaven. I was on a
train, and was approaching the celestial way-station--I had a through
ticket--and I noticed a man sitting alongside of me asleep, and he
had his ticket in his hat. He was the remains of the Archbishop of
Canterbury; I recognized him by his photograph. I had nothing against
him, so I took his ticket and let him have mine. He didn't object--he
wasn't in a condition to object--and presently when the train stopped
at the heavenly station--well, I got off, and he went on by request--but
there they all were, the angels, you know, millions of them, every one
with a torch; they had arranged for a torch-light procession; they were
expecting the Archbishop, and when I got off they started to raise
a shout, but it didn't materialize. I don't know whether they were
disappointed. I suppose they had a lot of superstitious ideas about the
Archbishop and what he should look like, and I didn't fill the bill, and
I was trying to explain to Saint Peter, and was doing it in the German
tongue, because I didn't want to be too explicit. Well, I found it was
no use, I couldn't get along, for Wayne MacVeagh was occupying the whole
place, and I said to Mr. Dana, "What is the matter with that man? Who is
that man with the long tongue? What's the trouble with him, that long,
lank cadaver, old oil-derrick out of a job--who is that? " "Well, now,"
Mr. Dana said, "you don't want to meddle with him; you had better keep
quiet; just keep quiet, because that's a bad man. Talk! He was born to
talk. Don't let him get out with you; he'll skin you. " I said, "I have
been skinned, skinned, and skinned for years, there is nothing left. "
He said, "Oh, you'll find there is; that man is the very seed and
inspiration of that proverb which says, 'No matter how close you skin an
onion, a clever man can always peel it again. '" Well, I reflected and
I quieted down. That would never occur to Tom Reed. He's got no
discretion. Well, MacVeagh is just the same man; he hasn't changed a bit
in all those years; he has been peeling Mr. Mitchell lately. That's the
kind of man he is.
Mr. Howells--that poem of his is admirable; that's the way to treat a
person. Howells has a peculiar gift for seeing the merits of people,
and he has always exhibited them in my favor. Howells has never written
anything about me that I couldn't read six or seven times a day; he is
always just and always fair; he has written more appreciatively of
me than any one in this world, and published it in the North American
Review. He did me the justice to say that my intentions--he italicized
that--that my intentions were always good, that I wounded people's
conventions rather than their convictions. Now, I wouldn't want anything
handsomer than that said of me. I would rather wait, with anything harsh
I might have to say, till the convictions become conventions. Bangs has
traced me all the way down. He can't find that honest man, but I will
look for him in the looking-glass when I get home. It was intimated by
the Colonel that it is New England that makes New York and builds up
this country and makes it great, overlooking the fact that there's a
lot of people here who came from elsewhere, like John Hay from away
out West, and Howells from Ohio, and St. Clair McKelway and me
from Missouri, and we are doing what we can to build up New York a
little-elevate it. Why, when I was living in that village of Hannibal,
Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, and Hay up in the town of
Warsaw, also on the banks of the Mississippi River it is an emotional
bit of the Mississippi, and when it is low water you have to climb up
to it on a ladder, and when it floods you have to hunt for it; with a
deep-sea lead--but it is a great and beautiful country. In that old time
it was a paradise for simplicity--it was a simple, simple life, cheap but
comfortable, and full of sweetness, and there was nothing of this rage
of modern civilization there at all. It was a delectable land. I went
out there last June, and I met in that town of Hannibal a schoolmate of
mine, John Briggs, whom I had not seen for more than fifty years. I tell
you, that was a meeting! That pal whom I had known as a little boy long
ago, and knew now as a stately man three or four inches over six feet
and browned by exposure to many climes, he was back there to see that
old place again. We spent a whole afternoon going about here and there
and yonder, and hunting up the scenes and talking of the crimes which
we had committed so long ago. It was a heartbreaking delight, full of
pathos, laughter, and tears, all mixed together; and we called the roll
of the boys and girls that we picnicked and sweethearted with so many
years ago, and there were hardly half a dozen of them left; the rest
were in their graves; and we went up there on the summit of that hill,
a treasured place in my memory, the summit of Holiday's Hill, and looked
out again over that magnificent panorama of the Mississippi River,
sweeping along league after league, a level green paradise on one side,
and retreating capes and promontories as far as you could see on the
other, fading away in the soft, rich lights of the remote distance. I
recognized then that I was seeing now the most enchanting river view
the planet could furnish. I never knew it when I was a boy; it took an
educated eye that had travelled over the globe to know and appreciate
it; and John said, "Can you point out the place where Bear Creek used to
be before the railroad came? " I said, "Yes, it ran along yonder. " "And
can you point out the swimming-hole? " "Yes, out there. " And he said,
"Can you point out the place where we stole the skiff? " Well, I didn't
know which one he meant. Such a wilderness of events had intervened
since that day, more than fifty years ago, it took me more than five
minutes to call back that little incident, and then I did call it back;
it was a white skiff, and we painted it red to allay suspicion. And the
saddest, saddest man came along--a stranger he was--and he looked that red
skiff over so pathetically, and he said: "Well, if it weren't for the
complexion I'd know whose skiff that was. " He said it in that pleading
way, you know, that appeals for sympathy and suggestion; we were full of
sympathy for him, but we weren't in any condition to offer suggestions.
I can see him yet as he turned away with that same sad look on his face
and vanished out of history forever. I wonder what became of that man.
I know what became of the skiff. Well, it was a beautiful life, a lovely
life. There was no crime. Merely little things like pillaging orchards
and watermelon-patches and breaking the Sabbath--we didn't break the
Sabbath often enough to signify--once a week perhaps. But we were good
boys, good Presbyterian boys, all Presbyterian boys, and loyal and
all that; anyway, we were good Presbyterian boys when the weather was
doubtful; when it was fair, we did wander a little from the fold.
Look at John Hay and me. There we were in obscurity, and look where
we are now. Consider the ladder which he has climbed, the illustrious
vocations he has served--and vocations is the right word; he has in all
those vocations acquitted himself with high credit and honor to his
country and to the mother that bore him. Scholar, soldier, diplomat,
poet, historian--now, see where we are. He is Secretary of State and I am
a gentleman. It could not happen in any other country. Our institutions
give men the positions that of right belong to them through merit;
all you men have won your places, not by heredities, and not by family
influence or extraneous help, but only by the natural gifts God gave you
at your birth, made effective by your own energies; this is the country
to live in.
Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is present; the
larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; that is my wife,
and she has a good many personal friends here, and I think it won't
distress any one of them to know that, although she is going to
be confined to that bed for many months to come from that nervous
prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along very
well--and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of her. I knew
her for the first time just in the same year that I first knew John Hay
and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell--thirty-six years ago--and she has been the
best friend I have ever had, and that is saying a good deal; she
has reared me--she and Twichell together--and what I am I owe to them.
Twichell--why, it is such a pleasure to look upon Twichell's face!
