“About 1853 some idiot in Congress wanted to announce to the world that
this was a religious nation, and proposed putting it there, and no other
Congressman had courage enough to oppose it, of course. It took courage
in those days to do a thing like that; but I think the same thing would
happen to-day.”
“Still the country has become broader. It took a brave man before the
Civil War to confess he had read the 'Age of Reason'.”
“So it did, and yet that seems a mild book now. I read it first when I
was a cub pilot, read it with fear and hesitation, but marveling at its
fearlessness and wonderful power. I read it again a year or two ago,
for some reason, and was amazed to see how tame it had become. It seemed
that Paine was apologizing everywhere for hurting the feelings of the
reader.”
He drifted, naturally, into a discussion of the Knickerbocker Trust
Company's suspension, which had tied up some fifty-five thousand dollars
of his capital, and wondered how many were trusting in God for the
return of these imperiled sums. Clemens himself, at this time, did not
expect to come out whole from that disaster. He had said very little
when the news came, though it meant that his immediate fortunes were
locked up, and it came near stopping the building activities at Redding.
It was only the smaller things of life that irritated him. He often met
large calamities with a serenity which almost resembled indifference.
In the Knickerbocker situation he even found humor as time passed, and
wrote a number of gay letters, some of which found their way into print.
It should be added that in the end there was no loss to any of the
Knickerbocker depositors.