when I was in London and said: “The gentleman who has been so liberal in
taking care of Helen Keller has died without making provision for her
in his will, and now they don't know what to do.” They were proposing
to raise a fund, and he thought $50,000 enough to furnish an income of
$2400 or $2500 a year for the support of that wonderful girl and her
wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, now Mrs. Macy. I wrote to Mr. Hutton
and said: “Go on, get up your fund. It will be slow, but if you want
quick work, I propose this system,” the system I speak of, of asking
people to contribute such and such a sum from year to year and drop
out whenever they please, and he would find there wouldn't be any
difficulty, people wouldn't feel the burden of it. And he wrote back
saying he had raised the $2400 a year indefinitely by that system in a
single afternoon. We would like to do something just like that to-night.
We will take as many checks as you care to give. You can leave your
donations in the big room outside.
I knew once what it was to be blind. I shall never forget that
experience. I have been as blind as anybody ever was for three or
four hours, and the sufferings that I endured and the mishaps and the
accidents that are burning in my memory make my sympathy rise when I
feel for the blind and always shall feel. I once went to Heidelberg
on an excursion. I took a clergyman along with me, the Rev. Joseph
Twichell, of Hartford, who is still among the living despite that fact.
I always travel with clergymen when I can. It is better for them, it is
better for me. And any preacher who goes out with me in stormy weather
and without a lightning rod is a good one. The Reverend Twichell is one
of those people filled with patience and endurance, two good ingredients
for a man travelling with me, so we got along very well together. In
that old town they have not altered a house nor built one in 1500 years.
We went to the inn and they placed Twichell and me in a most colossal
bedroom, the largest I ever saw or heard of. It was as big as this room.
I didn't take much notice of the place. I didn't really get my bearings.
I noticed Twichell got a German bed about two feet wide, the kind in
which you've got to lie on your edge, because there isn't room to lie on
your back, and he was way down south in that big room, and I was way up
north at the other end of it, with a regular Sahara in between.
We went to bed. Twichell went to sleep, but then he had his conscience
loaded and it was easy for him to get to sleep. I couldn't get to sleep.
It was one of those torturing kinds of lovely summer nights when you
hear various kinds of noises now and then. A mouse away off in the
southwest. You throw things at the mouse. That encourages the mouse. But
I couldn't stand it, and about two o'clock I got up and thought I
would give it up and go out in the square where there was one of those
tinkling fountains, and sit on its brink and dream, full of romance.
I got out of bed, and I ought to have lit a candle, but I didn't think
of it until it was too late. It was the darkest place that ever was.
There has never been darkness any thicker than that. It just lay in
cakes.
I thought that before dressing I would accumulate my clothes. I pawed
around in the dark and found everything packed together on the floor
except one sock. I couldn't get on the track of that sock. It might
have occurred to me that maybe it was in the wash. But I didn't think of
that. I went excursioning on my hands and knees. Presently I thought,
“I am never going to find it; I'll go back to bed again.” That is what I
tried to do during the next three hours. I had lost the bearings of that
bed. I was going in the wrong direction all the time. By-and-by I came
in collision with a chair and that encouraged me.
It seemed to me, as far as I could recollect, there was only a chair
here and there and yonder, five or six of them scattered over this
territory, and I thought maybe after I found that chair I might find the
next one. Well, I did. And I found another and another and another. I
kept going around on my hands and knees, having those sudden collisions,
and finally when I banged into another chair I almost lost my temper.
And I raised up, garbed as I was, not for public exhibition, right in
front of a mirror fifteen or sixteen feet high.
I hadn't noticed the mirror; didn't know it was there. And when I saw
myself in the mirror I was frightened out of my wits. I don't allow any
ghosts to bite me, and I took up a chair and smashed at it. A million
pieces. Then I reflected. That's the way I always do, and it's
unprofitable unless a man has had much experience that way and has
clear judgment. And I had judgment, and I would have had to pay for that
mirror if I hadn't recollected to say it was Twichell who broke it.
Then I got down, on my hands and knees and went on another exploring
expedition.
As far as I could remember there were six chairs in that Oklahoma, and
one table, a great big heavy table, not a good table to hit with your
head when rushing madly along. In the course of time I collided with
thirty-five chairs and tables enough to stock that dining-room out
there. It was a hospital for decayed furniture, and it was in a worse
condition when I got through with it. I went on and on, and at last got
to a place where I could feel my way up, and there was a shelf. I knew
that wasn't in the middle of the room. Up to that time I was afraid I
had gotten out of the city.
I was very careful and pawed along that shelf, and there was a pitcher
of water about a foot high, and it was at the head of Twichell's bed,
but I didn't know it. I felt that pitcher going and I grabbed at it,
but it didn't help any and came right down in Twichell's face and nearly
drowned him. But it woke him up. I was grateful to have company on any
terms. He lit a match, and there I was, way down south when I ought to
have been back up yonder. My bed was out of sight it was so far away.
You needed a telescope to find it. Twichell comforted me and I scrubbed
him off and we got sociable.
But that night wasn't wasted. I had my pedometer on my leg. Twichell and
I were in a pedometer match. Twichell had longer legs than I. The only
way I could keep up was to wear my pedometer to bed. I always walk in my
sleep, and on this occasion I gained sixteen miles on him. After all, I
never found that sock. I never have seen it from that day to this. But
that adventure taught me what it is to be blind. That was one of the
most serious occasions of my whole life, yet I never can speak of it
without somebody thinking it isn't serious. You try it and see how
serious it is to be as the blind are and I was that night.
[Mr. Clemens read several letters of regret. He then introduced Joseph
H. Choate, saying:]
It is now my privilege to present to you Mr. Choate. I don't have to
really introduce him. I don't have to praise him, or to flatter him.
I could say truly that in the forty-seven years I have been familiarly
acquainted with him he has always been the handsomest man America has
ever produced. And I hope and believe he will hold the belt forty-five
years more. He has served his country ably, faithfully, and brilliantly.
He stands at the summit, at the very top in the esteem and regard of his
countrymen, and if I could say one word which would lift him any higher
in his countrymen's esteem and affection, I would say that word whether
it was true or not.
DR. MARK TWAIN, FARMEOPATH
ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE NEW YORK POST-GRADUATE
MEDICAL SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL, JANUARY 21, 1909
The president, Dr. George N. Miller, in introducing Mr.
Clemens, referred to his late experience with burglars.
GENTLEMEN AND DOCTORS,—I am glad to be among my own kind to-night. I
was once a sharpshooter, but now I practise a much higher and equally as
deadly a profession. It wasn't so very long ago that I became a member
of your cult, and for the time I've been in the business my record is
one that can't be scoffed at.
As to the burglars, I am perfectly familiar with these people. I have
always had a good deal to do with burglars—not officially, but through
their attentions to me. I never suffered anything at the hands of a
burglar. They have invaded my house time and time again. They never got
anything. Then those people who burglarized our house in September—we
got back the plated ware they took off, we jailed them, and I have been
sorry ever since. They did us a great service they scared off all the
servants in the place.
I consider the Children's Theatre, of which I am president, and the
Post-Graduate Medical School as the two greatest institutions in the
country. This school, in bringing its twenty thousand physicians from
all parts of the country, bringing them up to date, and sending them
back with renewed confidence, has surely saved hundreds of thousands of
lives which otherwise would have been lost.
I have been practising now for seven months. When I settled on my farm
in Connecticut in June I found the Community very thinly settled—and
since I have been engaged in practice it has become more thinly settled
still. This gratifies me, as indicating that I am making an impression
on my community. I suppose it is the same with all of you.
I have always felt that I ought to do something for you, and so I
organized a Redding (Connecticut) branch of the Post-Graduate School. I
am only a country farmer up there, but I am doing the best I can.
Of course, the practice of medicine and surgery in a remote country
district has its disadvantages, but in my case I am happy in a division
of responsibility. I practise in conjunction with a horse-doctor, a
sexton, and an undertaker. The combination is air-tight, and once a man
is stricken in our district escape is impossible for him.
These four of us—three in the regular profession and the fourth an
undertaker—are all good men. There is Bill Ferguson, the Redding
undertaker. Bill is there in every respect. He is a little lukewarm on
general practice, and writes his name with a rubber stamp. Like my old
Southern, friend, he is one of the finest planters anywhere.
Then there is Jim Ruggles, the horse-doctor. Ruggles is one of the best
men I have got. He also is not much on general medicine, but he is a
fine horse-doctor. Ferguson doesn't make any money off him.
You see, the combination started this way. When I got up to Redding and
had become a doctor, I looked around to see what my chances were for
aiding in the great work. The first thing I did was to determine what
manner of doctor I was to be. Being a Connecticut farmer, I naturally
consulted my farmacopia, and at once decided to become a farmeopath.
Then I got circulating about, and got in touch with Ferguson and
Ruggles. Ferguson joined readily in my ideas, but Ruggles kept saying
that, while it was all right for an undertaker to get aboard, he
couldn't see where it helped horses.
Well, we started to find out what was the trouble with the community,
and it didn't take long to find out that there was just one disease, and
that was race-suicide. And driving about the country-side I was told
by my fellow-farmers that it was the only rational human and valuable
disease. But it is cutting into our profits so that we'll either have to
stop it or we'll have to move.
We've had some funny experiences up there in Redding. Not long ago a
fellow came along with a rolling gait and a distressed face. We asked
him what was the matter. We always hold consultations on every case, as
there isn't business enough for four. He said he didn't know, but that
he was a sailor, and perhaps that might help us to give a diagnosis. We
treated him for that, and I never saw a man die more peacefully.
That same afternoon my dog Tige treed an African gentleman. We
chained up the dog, and then the gentleman came down and said he had
appendicitis. We asked him if he wanted to be cut open, and he said yes,
that he'd like to know if there was anything in it. So we cut him open
and found nothing in him but darkness. So we diagnosed his case as
infidelity, because he was dark inside. Tige is a very clever dog, and
aids us greatly.
The other day a patient came to me and inquired if I was old Doctor
Clemens—
As a practitioner I have given a great deal of my attention to Bright's
disease. I have made some rules for treating it that may be valuable.
Listen:
Rule 1. When approaching the bedside of one whom an all-wise President—I
mean an all-wise Providence—well, anyway, it's the same thing—has seen
fit to afflict with disease—well, the rule is simple, even if it is
old-fashioned.
Rule 2. I've forgotten just what it is, but—
Rule 3. This is always indispensable: Bleed your patient.
MISSOURI UNIVERSITY SPEECH
ADDRESS DELIVERED JUNE 4, 1902, AT COLUMBIA, MO.
When the name of Samuel L. Clemens was called the humorist
stepped forward, put his hand to his hair, and apparently
hesitated. There was a dead silence for a moment. Suddenly
the entire audience rose and stood in silence. Some one began
to spell out the word Missouri with an interval between the
letters. All joined in. Then the house again became silent.
Mr. Clemens broke the spell:
As you are all standing [he drawled in his characteristic voice], I
guess, I suppose I had better stand too.
[Then came a laugh and loud cries for a speech. As the great humorist
spoke of his recent visit to Hannibal, his old home, his voice
trembled.]
You cannot know what a strain it was on my emotions [he said]. In fact,
when I found myself shaking hands with persons I had not seen for fifty
years and looking into wrinkled faces that were so young and joyous when
I last saw them, I experienced emotions that I had never expected, and
did not know were in me. I was profoundly moved and saddened to think
that this was the last time, perhaps, that I would ever behold those
kind old faces and dear old scenes of childhood.
[The humorist then changed to a lighter mood, and for a time the
audience was in a continual roar of laughter. He was particularly amused
at the eulogy on himself read by Gardiner Lathrop in conferring the
degree.] He has a fine opportunity to distinguish himself [said Mr.
Clemens] by telling the truth about me.
I have seen it stated in print that as a boy I had been guilty of
stealing peaches, apples, and watermelons. I read a story to this effect
very closely not long ago, and I was convinced of one thing, which was
that the man who wrote it was of the opinion that it was wrong to steal,
and that I had not acted right in doing so. I wish now, however, to make
an honest statement, which is that I do not believe, in all my checkered
career, I stole a ton of peaches.
One night I stole—I mean I removed—a watermelon from a wagon while the
owner was attending to another customer. I crawled off to a secluded
spot, where I found that it was green. It was the greenest melon in
the Mississippi Valley. 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.