"ANOTHER RELIC OF THE REVOLUTION GONE."

"George, once the favorite body-servant of General Washington,

died yesterday at the house of Mr. John Leavenworth in this city,

at the venerable age of 95 years. He was in the full possession

of his faculties up to the hour of his death, and distinctly

recollected the first and second installations and death of

President Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles

of Trenton and Monmouth, the sufferings of the patriot army at

Valley Forge, the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence,

the speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Delegates,

and many other old-time reminiscences of stirring interest.

Few white men die lamented as was this aged negro. The funeral

was very largely attended."

During the next ten or eleven years the subject of this sketch

appeared at intervals at Fourth-of-July celebrations in various

parts of the country, and was exhibited upon the rostrum with

flattering success. But in the fall of 1855 he died again.

The California papers thus speak of the event:

ANOTHER OLD HERO GONE

Died, at Dutch Flat, on the 7th of March, George (once the confidential

body-servant of General Washington), at the great age of 95 years.

His memory, which did not fail him till the last, was a wonderful

storehouse of interesting reminiscences. He could distinctly recollect

the first and second installations and death of President Washington,

the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth,

and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence,

and Braddock's defeat. George was greatly respected in Dutch Flat,

and it is estimated that there were 10,000 people present at

his funeral.

The last time the subject of this sketch died was in June, 1864; and until

we learn the contrary, it is just to presume that he died permanently

this time. The Michigan papers thus refer to the sorrowful event:

ANOTHER CHERISHED REMNANT OF THE REVOLUTION GONE

George, a colored man, and once the favorite body-servant of

George Washington, died in Detroit last week, at the patriarchal age

of 95 years. To the moment of his death his intellect was unclouded,

and he could distinctly remember the first and second installations

and death of Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles

of Trenton and Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the

Declaration of Independence, Braddock's defeat, the throwing over

of the tea in Boston harbor, and the landing of the Pilgrims.

He died greatly respected, and was followed to the grave by a vast

concourse of people.

The faithful old servant is gone! We shall never see him more until

he turns up again. He has closed his long and splendid career

of dissolution, for the present, and sleeps peacefully, as only they sleep

who have earned their rest. He was in all respects a remarkable man.

He held his age better than any celebrity that has figured in history;

and the longer he lived the stronger and longer his memory grew.

If he lives to die again, he will distinctly recollect the discovery

of America.

The above resume of his biography I believe to be substantially

correct, although it is possible that he may have died once or twice

in obscure places where the event failed of newspaper notoriety.

One fault I find in all the notices of his death I have quoted,

and this ought to be correct. In them he uniformly and impartially

died at the age of 95. This could not have been. He might have

done that once, or maybe twice, but he could not have continued

it indefinitely. Allowing that when he first died, he died at

the age of 95, he was 151 years old when he died last, in 1864.

But his age did not keep pace with his recollections. When he died

the last time, he distinctly remembered the landing of the Pilgrims,

which took place in 1620. He must have been about twenty years

old when he witnessed that event, wherefore it is safe to assert

that the body-servant of General Washington was in the neighborhood

of two hundred and sixty or seventy years old when he departed this

life finally.

Having waited a proper length of time, to see if the subject of his

sketch had gone from us reliably and irrevocably, I now publish his

biography with confidence, and respectfully offer it to a mourning nation.

P.S.--I see by the papers that this imfamous old fraud has just

died again, in Arkansas. This makes six times that he is known

to have died, and always in a new place. The death of Washington's

body-servant has ceased to be a novelty; it's charm is gone;

the people are tired of it; let it cease. This well-meaning

but misguided negro has not put six different communities to the

expense of burying him in state, and has swindled tens of thousands

of people into following him to the grave under the delusion that

a select and peculiar distinction was being conferred upon them.

Let him stay buried for good now; and let that newspaper suffer

the severest censure that shall ever, in all the future time,

publish to the world that General Washington's favorite colored

body-servant has died again.

WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE "TWO-YEAR-OLDS"

All infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable fashion

nowadays of saying "smart" things on most occasions that offer,

and especially on occasions when they ought not to be saying anything

at all. Judging by the average published specimens of smart sayings,

the rising generation of children are little better than idiots.

And the parents must surely be but little better than the children,

for in most cases they are the publishers of the sunbursts of infantile

imbecility which dazzle us from the pages of our periodicals.

I may seem to speak with some heat, not to say a suspicion of

personal spite; and I do admit that it nettles me to hear about so

many gifted infants in these days, and remember that I seldom said

anything smart when I was a child. I tried it once or twice, but it

was not popular. The family were not expecting brilliant remarks

from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes and spanked me the rest.

But it makes my flesh creep and my blood run cold to think what might

have happened to me if I had dared to utter some of the smart things

of this generation's "four-year-olds" where my father could hear me.

To have simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at an end

would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one so sinning.

He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of precocity.

If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said them in

his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He would, indeed. He would,

provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not,

for I would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first

and say my smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has

been tarnished by just one pun. My father overheard that, and he

hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my life.

If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right;

but, child as I was, I could not know how wicked a thing I

had done.

I made one of those remarks ordinarily called "smart things"

before that, but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a

serious rupture between my father and myself. My father and mother,

my uncle Ephraim and his wife, and one or two others were present,

and the conversation turned on a name for me. I was lying there

trying some India-rubber rings of various patterns, and endeavoring

to make a selection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth on

people's fingers, and wanted to get hold of something that would

enable me to hurry the thing through and get something else.

Did you ever notice what a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on

your nurse's finger, or how back-breaking and tiresome it was trying

to cut them on your big toe? And did you never get out of patience

and wish your teeth were in Jerico long before you got them half cut?

To me it seems as if these things happened yesterday. And they did,

to some children. But I digress. I was lying there trying the

India-rubber rings. I remember looking at the clock and noticing

that in an hour and twenty-five minutes I would be two weeks old,

and thinking how little I had done to merit the blessings that were so

unsparingly lavished upon me. My father said:

"Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was named Abraham."

My mother said:

"Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us have Abraham for one

of his names."

I said:

"Abraham suits the subscriber."

My father frowned, my mother looked pleased; my aunt said:

"What a little darling it is!"

My father said:

"Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good name."

My mother assented, and said:

"No names are better. Let us add Isaac and Jacob to his names."

I said:

"All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours truly.

Pass me that rattle, if you please. I can't chew India-rubber rings

all day."

Not a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for publication.

I saw that, and did it myself, else they would have been utterly lost.

So far from meeting with a generous encouragement like other children

when developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon

by my father; my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt

had about her an expression of seeming to think that maybe I had

gone too far. I took a vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring,

and covertly broke the rattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing.

Presently my father said:

"Samuel is a very excellent name."

I saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could prevent it. I laid

down my rattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my uncle's

silver watch, the clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier,

the nutmeg-grater, and other matters which I was accustomed to examine,

and meditate upon and make pleasant noises with, and bang and batter

and break when I needed wholesome entertainment. Then I put on my

little frock and my little bonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one

hand and my licorice in the other, and climbed out on the floor.

I said to myself, Now, if the worse comes to worst, I am ready.

Then I said aloud, in a firm voice:

"Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of Samuel."

"My son!"

"Father, I mean it. I cannot."

"Why?"

"Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that name."

"My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and good men have been

named Samuel."

"Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance."

"What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was not he great and good?"

"Not so very."

"My son! With His own voice the Lord called him."

"Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple times before he could come!"

And then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied forth after me.

He overtook me at noon the following day, and when the interview was

over I had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing, and other

useful information; and by means of this compromise my father's

wrath was appeased and a misunderstanding bridged over which might

have become a permanent rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable.

But just judging by this episode, what would my father have done

to me if I had ever uttered in his hearing one of the flat,

sickly things these "two-years-olds" say in print nowadays?

In my opinion there would have been a case of infanticide in our family.

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

I take the following paragraph from an article in the Boston ADVERTISER:

AN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN

Perhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain have been

descriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his humor at all.

We have become familiar with the Californians who were thrilled with

terror by his burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story,

and we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned

his INNOCENTS ABROAD to the book-agent with the remark that "the

man who could shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot."

But Mark Twain may now add a much more glorious instance to his string

of trophies. The SATURDAY REVIEW, in its number of October 8th,

reviews his book of travels, which has been republished in England,

and reviews it seriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist

in reading this tribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing

in itself that he can hardly do better than reproduce the article

in full in his next monthly Memoranda.

(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of authority

for reproducing the SATURDAY REVIEW'S article in full in these pages.

I dearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write anything half so

delicious myself. If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this

English criticism and preserve his austerity, I would drive him

off the door-step.)

(From the London "Saturday Review.")

REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD. A Book of Travels. By Mark Twain.

London: Hotten, publisher. 1870.

Lord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when we

finished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work.

Macaulay died too soon--for none but he could mete out complete

and comprehensive justice to the insolence, the impertinence,

the presumption, the mendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance

of this author.

To say that the INNOCENTS ABROAD is a curious book, would be to

use the faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn

as a neat elevation or of Niagara as being "nice" or "pretty."

"Curious" is too tame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity

of this work. There is no word that is large enough or long enough.

Let us, therefore, photograph a passing glimpse of book and author,

and trust the rest to the reader. Let the cultivated English student

of human nature picture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable

of doing the following-described things--and not only doing them,

but with incredible innocence PRINTING THEM calmly and tranquilly

in a book. For instance:

He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get shaved,

and the first "rake" the barber gave him with his razor it LOOSENED

HIS "HIDE" and LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE CHAIR.

This is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so annoyed

by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a

frantic spirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this.

He gives at full length a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen

hundred years old, which he professes to have found in the ruins

of the Coliseum, among the dirt and mold and rubbish. It is a

sufficient comment upon this statement to remark that even a cast-iron

program would not have lasted so long under such circumstances.

In Greece he plainly betrays both fright and flight upon one occasion,

but with frozen effrontery puts the latter in this falsely tamed form:

"We SIDLED toward the Piraeus." "Sidled," indeed! He does not hesitate

to intimate that at Ephesus, when his mule strayed from the proper course,

he got down, took him under his arm, carried him to the road again,

pointed him right, remounted, and went to sleep contentedly till

it was time to restore the beast to the path once more. He states

that a growing youth among his ship's passengers was in the constant

habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum between meals.

In Palestine he tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend

the summer in the desert and brought their provisions with them;

yet he shows by his description of the country that the feat was

an impossibility. He mentions, as if it were the most commonplace

of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight in Jerusalem,

with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shed more blood IF

HE HAD HAD A GRAVEYARD OF HIS OWN. These statements are unworthy

a moment's attention. Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who did

such a thing in Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly

lose his life. But why go on? Why repeat more of his audacious

and exasperating falsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one:

he affirms that "in the mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople

I got my feet so stuck up with a complication of gums, slime,

and general impurity, that I wore out more than two thousand

pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that night, and even then

some Christian hide peeled off with them." It is monstrous.

Such statements are simply lies--there is no other name for them.

Will the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that pervades

the American nation when we tell him that we are informed upon perfectly

good authority that this extravagant compilation of falsehoods,

this exhaustless mine of stupendous lies, this INNOCENTS ABROAD,

has actually been adopted by the schools and colleges of several

of the states as a text-book!

But if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his ignorance

are enough to make one burn the book and despise the author. In one

place he was so appalled at the sudden spectacle of a murdered man,

unveiled by the moonlight, that he jumped out of the window,

going through sash and all, and then remarks with the most childlike

simplicity that he "was not scared, but was considerably agitated."

It puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton is densely

unconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage.

He is vulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough

to criticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue. He says they

spell the name of their great painter "Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy"

--and then adds with a naivete possible only to helpless ignorance,

"foreigners always spell better than they pronounce." In another

place he commits the bald absurdity of putting the phrase "tare

an ouns" into an Italian's mouth. In Rome he unhesitatingly

believes the legend that St. Philip Neri's heart was so inflamed

with divine love that it burst his ribs--believes it wholly

because an author with a learned list of university degrees strung

after his name endorses it--"otherwise," says this gentle idiot,

"I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philip had for dinner."

Our author makes a long, fatiguing journey to the Grotto del Cane

on purpose to test its poisoning powers on a dog--got elaborately

ready for the experiment, and then discovered that he had no dog.

A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,

but with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts

his foot in a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii,

and presently, when staring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed

in the next square, conceives the idea that maybe it is the remains

of the ancient Street Commissioner, and straightway his horror softens

down to a sort of chirpy contentment with the condition of things.

In Damascus he visits the well of Ananias, three thousand years old,

and is as surprised and delighted as a child to find that the water

is "as pure and fresh as if the well had been dug yesterday."

In the Holy Land he gags desperately at the hard Arabic and Hebrew

Biblical names, and finally concludes to call them Baldwinsville,

Williamsburgh, and so on, "for convenience of spelling."

We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity

and innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance.

We do not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin,

we certainly would not know where to leave off. We will give

one specimen, and one only. He did not know, until he got to Rome,

that Michael Angelo was dead! And then, instead of crawling away

and hiding his shameful ignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express

a pious, grateful sort of satisfaction that he is gone and out

of his troubles!

No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his

uncultivation for himself. The book is absolutely dangerous,

considering the magnitude and variety of its misstatements,

and the convincing confidence with which they are made.

And yet it is a text-book in the schools of America.

The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the

Old Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in

art-knowledge, which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a

proper thing for a traveled man to be able to display. But what is

the manner of his study? And what is the progress he achieves?

To what extent does he familiarize himself with the great pictures

of Italy, and what degree of appreciation does he arrive at? Read:

"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven,

we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,

looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know

that that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock,

looking tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him,

and without other baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome.

Because we know that he always went flying light in the matter

of baggage. When we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven,

but having no trade-mark, we always ask who those parties are.

We do this because we humbly wish to learn."

He then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these

several pictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed

simplicity that he feels encouraged to believe that when he has seen

"Some More" of each, and had a larger experience, he will eventually

"begin to take an absorbing interest in them"--the vulgar boor.

That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one

will deny. That is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the

confiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book

is a deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent

upon every page. Having placed our judgment thus upon record,

let us close with what charity we can, by remarking that even in this

volume there is some good to be found; for whenever the author talks

of his own country and lets Europe alone, he never fails to make

himself interesting, and not only interesting but instructive.

No one can read without benefit his occasional chapters and paragraphs,

about life in the gold and silver mines of California and Nevada;

about the Indians of the plains and deserts of the West,

and their cannibalism; about the raising of vegetables in kegs of

gunpowder by the aid of two or three teaspoons of guano; about the

moving of small arms from place to place at night in wheelbarrows

to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules in the Humboldt

mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the people at night.

These matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing.

It is a pity the author did not put in more of the same kind.

His book is well written and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it

just barely escaped being quite valuable also.

(One month later)

Latterly I have received several letters, and see a number of

newspaper paragraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of about

the same tenor. I here give honest specimens. One is from a New

York paper, one is from a letter from an old friend, and one is

from a letter from a New York publisher who is a stranger to me.

I humbly endeavor to make these bits toothsome with the remark that

the article they are praising (which appeared in the December GALAXY,

and PRETENDED to be a criticism from the London SATURDAY REVIEW

on my INNOCENTS ABROAD) WAS WRITTEN BY MYSELF, EVERY LINE OF IT:

The HERALD says the richest thing out is the "serious critique"

in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, on Mark Twain's INNOCENTS ABROAD.

We thought before we read it that it must be "serious," as everybody

said so, and were even ready to shed a few tears; but since perusing it,

we are bound to confess that next to Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog"

it's the finest bit of humor and sarcasm that we've come across in many

a day.

(I do not get a compliment like that every day.)

I used to think that your writings were pretty good, but after reading

the criticism in THE GALAXY from the LONDON REVIEW, have discovered

what an ass I must have been. If suggestions are in order, mine is,

that you put that article in your next edition of the INNOCENTS,

as an extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put your own humor

in competition with it. It is as rich a thing as I ever read.

(Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)

The London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, "serious" creature

he pretends to be, _I_ think; but, on the contrary, has a keep

appreciation and enjoyment of your book. As I read his article in

THE GALAXY, I could imagine him giving vent to many a hearty laugh.

But he is writing for Catholics and Established Church people,

and high-toned, antiquated, conservative gentility, whom it is

a delight to him to help you shock, while he pretends to shake his

head with owlish density. He is a magnificent humorist himself.

(Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off my hat to my life-long

friend and comrade, and with my feet together and my fingers spread

over my heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, "You do me proud.")

I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean

any harm. I saw by an item in the Boston ADVERTISER that a solemn,

serious critique on the English edition of my book had appeared

in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, and the idea of SUCH a literary

breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too

much for a naturally weak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it

--reveled in it, I may say. I never saw a copy of the real SATURDAY

REVIEW criticism until after my burlesque was written and mailed

to the printer. But when I did get hold of a copy, I found it

to be vulgar, awkwardly written, ill-natured, and entirely serious

and in earnest. The gentleman who wrote the newspaper paragraph

above quoted had not been misled as to its character.

If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not

kill him; I will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one,

and let any New York publisher hold the stakes, that the statements I

have above made as to the authorship of the article in question are

entirely true. Perhaps I may get wealthy at this, for I am willing

to take all the bets that offer; and if a man wants larger odds,

I will give him all he requires. But he ought to find out whether

I am betting on what is termed "a sure thing" or not before he

ventures his money, and he can do that by going to a public

library and examining the London SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th,

which contains the real critique.

Bless me, some people thought that _I_ was the "sold" person!

P.S.--I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most savory

thing of all--this easy, graceful, philosophical disquisition,

with his happy, chirping confidence. It is from the Cincinnati ENQUIRER:

Nothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar.

Nine smokers out of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article,

three for a quarter, to fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in ignorance

of the cost of the latter. The flavor of the Partaga is too delicate

for palates that have been accustomed to Connecticut seed leaf.

So it is with humor. The finer it is in quality, the more danger

of its not being recognized at all. Even Mark Twain has been taken

in by an English review of his INNOCENTS ABROAD. Mark Twain is by

no means a coarse humorist, but the Englishman's humor is so much

finer than his, that he mistakes it for solid earnest, and "lafts

most consumedly."

A man who cannot learn stands in his own light. Hereafter, when I

write an article which I know to be good, but which I may have reason

to fear will not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to much,

coming from an American, I will aver that an Englishman wrote it

and that it is copied from a London journal. And then I will occupy

a back seat and enjoy the cordial applause.

(Still later)

Mark Twain at last sees that the SATURDAY REVIEW'S criticism of his

INNOCENTS ABROAD was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at the

thought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only course left him,

and in the last GALAXY claims that HE wrote the criticism himself,

and published it in THE GALAXY to sell the public. This is ingenious,

but unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take

the trouble to call at this office we sill show them the original

article in the SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, which, on comparison,

will be found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY.

The best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold,

and say no more about it.

The above is from the Cincinnati ENQUIRER, and is a falsehood.

Come to the proof. If the ENQUIRER people, through any agent,

will produce at THE GALAXY office a London SATURDAY REVIEW

of October 8th, containing an article which, on comparison,

will be found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY,

I will pay to that agent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at

any specified time I fail to produce at the same place a copy

of the London SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, containing a lengthy

criticism upon the INNOCENTS ABROAD, entirely different, in every

paragraph and sentence, from the one I published in THE GALAXY,

I will pay to the ENQUIRER agent another five hundred dollars cash.

I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers, 500 Broadway, New York,

as my "backers." Any one in New York, authorized by the ENQUIRER,

will receive prompt attention. It is an easy and profitable way

for the ENQUIRER people to prove that they have not uttered a pitiful,

deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs. Will they swallow

that falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent to THE

GALAXY office. I think the Cincinnati ENQUIRER must be edited

by children.

A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, OCTOBER 15, 1902.

THE HON. THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, WASHINGTON, D. C.:

Sir,--Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached

an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in

straitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following order:

Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace,

gold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred.

Twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for cooking.

Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency, vintage of 1866,

eligible for kindlings.

Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale

at lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to

Your obliged servant,

Mark Twain, Who will be very grateful, and will vote right.

AMENDED OBITUARIES

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir,--I am approaching seventy; it is in sight; it is only three

years away. Necessarily, I must go soon. It is but matter-of-course

wisdom, then, that I should begin to set my worldly house in

order now, so that it may be done calmly and with thoroughness,

in place of waiting until the last day, when, as we have often seen,

the attempt to set both houses in order at the same time has been

marred by the necessity for haste and by the confusion and waste

of time arising from the inability of the notary and the ecclesiastic

to work together harmoniously, taking turn about and giving each

other friendly assistance--not perhaps in fielding, which could

hardly be expected, but at least in the minor offices of keeping

game and umpiring; by consequence of which conflict of interests

and absence of harmonious action a draw has frequently resulted

where this ill-fortune could not have happened if the houses had been

set in order one at a time and hurry avoided by beginning in season,

and giving to each the amount of time fairly and justly proper to it.

In setting my earthly house in order I find it of moment that I

should attend in person to one or two matters which men in my

position have long had the habit of leaving wholly to others,

with consequences often most regrettable. I wish to speak of only

one of these matters at this time: Obituaries. Of necessity,

an Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously edited by any hand

as by that of the subject of it. In such a work it is not the Facts

that are of chief importance, but the light which the obituarist

shall throw upon them, the meaning which he shall dress them in,

the conclusions which he shall draw from them, and the judgments

which he shall deliver upon them. The Verdicts, you understand:

that is the danger-line.

In considering this matter, in view of my approaching change,

it has seemed to me wise to take such measures as may be feasible,

to acquire, by courtesy of the press, access to my standing obituaries,

with the privilege--if this is not asking too much--of editing,

not their Facts, but their Verdicts. This, not for the present profit,

further than as concerns my family, but as a favorable influence

usable on the Other Side, where there are some who are not friendly

to me.

With this explanation of my motives, I will now ask you of your

courtesy to make an appeal for me to the public press. It is my

desire that such journals and periodicals as have obituaries of me

lying in their pigeonholes, with a view to sudden use some day,

will not wait longer, but will publish them now, and kindly send

me a marked copy. My address is simply New York City--I have no

other that is permanent and not transient.

I will correct them--not the Facts, but the Verdicts--striking out

such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the Other Side,

and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character.

I should, of course, expect to pay double rates for both the omissions

and the substitutions; and I should also expect to pay quadruple

rates for all obituaries which proved to be rightly and wisely worded

in the originals, thus requiring no emendations at all.

It is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries neatly bound

behind me as a perennial consolation and entertainment to my family,

and as an heirloom which shall have a mournful but definite

commercial value for my remote posterity.

I beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement (1t-eow, agate,

inside), and send the bill to

Yours very respectfully.

Mark Twain.

P.S.--For the best Obituary--one suitable for me to read in public,

and calculated to inspire regret--I desire to offer a Prize,

consisting of a Portrait of me done entirely by myself in pen and ink

without previous instructions. The ink warranted to be the kind

used by the very best artists.

A MONUMENT TO ADAM

Some one has revealed to the TRIBUNE that I once suggested

to Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up

a monument to Adam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project.

There is more to it than that. The matter started as a joke,

but it came somewhat near to materializing.

It is long ago--thirty years. Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN has been

in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised

by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing

the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had

left Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and "missing links,"

and plenty of other kinds of ancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with

Mr. Beecher and other friends in Elmira, I said there seemed to be

a likelihood that the world would discard Adam and accept the monkey,

and that in the course of time Adam's very name would be forgotten

in the earth; therefore this calamity ought to be averted;

a monument would accomplish this, and Elmira ought not to waste

this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor and herself a credit.

Then the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and took

hold of the matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they

saw in the monument certain commercial advantages for the town.

The project had seemed gently humorous before--it was more than

that now, with this stern business gravity injected into it.

The bankers discussed the monument with me. We met several times.

They proposed an indestructible memorial, to cost twenty-five

thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a monument set up in a village

to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without

any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth

--and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the planet

to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could

never have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the

Milky Way.

People would come from every corner of the globe and stop off

to look at it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out

Adam's monument. Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim

ships at pilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's railways;

libraries would be written about the monument, every tourist would

kodak it, models of it would be for sale everywhere in the earth,

its form would become as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.

One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think

the other one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with

certainty now whether that was the figure or not. We got designs made

--some of them came from Paris.

In the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke

--I had framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to

Congress begging the government to built the monument, as a testimony

of the Great Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race

and as a token of her loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation

when his older children were doubting and deserting him. It seemed

to me that this petition ought to be presented, now--it would be

widely and feelingly abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would

advertise our scheme and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly.

So I sent it to General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House,

and he said he would present it. But he did not do it. I think

he explained that when he came to read it he was afraid of it:

it was too serious, to gushy, too sentimental--the House might take it

for earnest.

We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could

have managed it without any great difficulty, and Elmira would

now be the most celebrated town in the universe.

Very recently I began to build a book in which one of the minor

characters touches incidentally upon a project for a monument to Adam,

and now the TRIBUNE has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of

thirty years ago. Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business.

It is odd; but the freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.

A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN

[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from him,

we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark Twain.

--Editor.]

TO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:

Dear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous talk.

The American Board accepts contributions from me every year:

then why shouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the ages,

three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been

conscience-money, as my books will show: then what becomes of

the sting when that term is applied to Mr. Rockefeller's gift?

The American Board's trade is financed mainly from the graveyards.

Bequests, you understand. Conscience-money. Confession of an old

crime and deliberate perpetration of a new one; for deceased's

contribution is a robbery of his heirs. Shall the Board decline

bequests because they stand for one of these offenses every time and

generally for both?

Allow me to continue. The charge must persistently and resentfully

and remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is

incurably tainted by perjury--perjury proved against him in the courts.

IT MAKES US SMILE--down in my place! Because there isn't a rich

man in your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before

the tax board. They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick.

Iron-clad, so to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire

to acquire him for my museum, and will pay Dinosaur rates.

Will you say it isn't infraction of the law, but only annual evasion

of it? Comfort yourselves with that nice distinction if you like

--FOR THE PRESENT. But by and by, when you arrive, I will show you

something interesting: a whole hell-full of evaders! Sometimes a

frank law-breaker turns up elsewhere, but I get those others every time.

To return to my muttons. I wish you to remember that my rich

perjurers are contributing to the American Board with frequency:

it is money filched from the sworn-off personal tax; therefore it

is the wages of sin; therefore it is my money; therefore it is _I_

that contribute it; and, finally, it is therefore as I have said:

since the Board daily accepts contributions from me, why should it

decline them from Mr. Rockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the

courts say what they may?

Satan.

INTRODUCTION TO "THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN

PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH"

by Pedro Carolino

In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing

which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is,

that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the

English language lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness,

and its enchanting naivete, as are supreme and unapproachable,

in their way, as are Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is

perfect in its kind, in literature, is imperishable: nobody can

imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow;

it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality

is secure.

It is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big books have

received such wide attention, and been so much pondered by the grave

and learned, and so much discussed and written about by the thoughtful,

the thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish. Long notices of it

have appeared, from time to time, in the great English reviews,

and in erudite and authoritative philological periodicals; and it

has been laughed at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly

every newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world.

Every scribbler, almost, has had his little fling at it, at one time

or another; I had mine fifteen years ago. The book gets out of print,

every now and then, and one ceases to hear of it for a season;

but presently the nations and near and far colonies of our tongue

and lineage call for it once more, and once more it issues from some

London or Continental or American press, and runs a new course around

the globe, wafted on its way by the wind of a world's laughter.

Many persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities

were studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume

carefully through and keep that opinion. It was written in

serious good faith and deep earnestness, by an honest and upright

idiot who believed he knew something of the English language,

and could impart his knowledge to others. The amplest proof

of this crops out somewhere or other upon each and every page.

There are sentences in the book which could have been manufactured

by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent and deliberate

purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there are other sentences,

and paragraphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could ever achieve

--nor yet even the most genuine and comprehensive ignorance,

when unbacked by inspiration.

It is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of the

author's Preface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience

is at rest, a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for

his nation and his generation, and is well pleased with his performance:

We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him,

and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the

acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth,

at which we dedicate him particularly.

One cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness.

To prove that this is true, I will open it at random and copy

the page I happen to stumble upon. Here is the result:

DIALOGUE 16

For To See the Town

Anothony, go to accompany they gentilsmen, do they see the town.

We won't to see all that is it remarquable here.

Come with me, if you please. I shall not folget nothing what can

to merit your attention. Here we are near to cathedral; will you

come in there?

We will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in there

for to look the interior.

Admire this master piece gothic architecture's.

The chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.

The cupola and the nave are not less curious to see.

What is this palace how I see yonder?

It is the town hall.

And this tower here at this side?

It is the Observatory.

The bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is constructed

of free stone.

The streets are very layed out by line and too paved.

What is the circuit of this town?

Two leagues.

There is it also hospitals here?

It not fail them.

What are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?

It is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse,

and the Purse.

We are going too see the others monuments such that the public

pawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money office's,

the library.

That it shall be for another day; we are tired.

DIALOGUE 17

To Inform One'self of a Person

How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?

Is a German.

I did think him Englishman.

He is of the Saxony side.

He speak the french very well.

Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish

and english, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan,

he speak the frenche as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen

believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman. It is

difficult to enjoy well so much several languages.

The last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to be a truth

when one contracts it and apples it to an individual--provided that

that individual is the author of this book, Sehnor Pedro Carolino.

I am sure I should not find it difficult "to enjoy well so much

several languages"--or even a thousand of them--if he did the

translating for me from the originals into his ostensible English.

ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS

Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for

every trifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted

to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances.

If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one

of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one,

you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless.

And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless

your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able

to do it.

You ought never to take your little brother's "chewing-gum" away

from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise

of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the

river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to this

time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction.

In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured

the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother,

do not correct him with mud--never, on any account, throw mud at him,

because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little,

for then you obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate

attention to the lessons you are inculcating, and at the same time

your hot water will have a tendency to move impurities from his person,

and possibly the skin, in spots.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply

that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate

that you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly

in the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment.

You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you

are indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home

from school when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought

to respect their little prejudices, and humor their little whims,

and put up with their little foibles until they get to crowding you

too much.

Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged.

You ought never to "sass" old people unless they "sass" you first.

POST-MORTEM POETRY [1]

In Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant

to see adopted throughout the land. It is that of appending to

published death-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry.

Any one who is in the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia

LEDGER must frequently be touched by these plaintive tributes

to extinguished worth. In Philadelphia, the departure of a child

is a circumstance which is not more surely followed by a burial

than by the accustomed solacing poesy in the PUBLIC LEDGER.

In that city death loses half its terror because the knowledge

of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery of verse.

For instance, in a late LEDGER I find the following (I change

the surname):

DIED

Hawks.--On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim

and Laura Hawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.

That merry shout no more I hear,

No laughing child I see,

No little arms are around my neck,

No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek,

These lips are sealed to me.

Dear Lord, how could I give Clara up

To any but to Thee?

A child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented.

From the LEDGER of the same date I make the following extract,

merely changing the surname, as before:

Becket.--On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son

of George and Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.

That merry shout no more I hear,

No laughing child I see,

No little arms are round my neck,

No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek;

These lips are sealed to me.

Dear Lord, how could I give Johnnie up

To any but to Thee?

The similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners in these

two instances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity

of thought which they experienced, and the surprising coincidence

of language used by them to give it expression.

In the same journal, of the same date, I find the following

(surname suppressed, as before):

Wagner.--On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William

L. and Martha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.

That merry shout no more I hear,

No laughing child I see,

No little arms are round my neck,

No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek,

These lips are sealed to me.

Dear Lord, how could I give Ferguson up

To any but to Thee?

It is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical

thought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the LEDGER

and read the poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable

depression of the spirits. When we drift further down the column

and read the poetry about little Johnnie, the depression and spirits

acquires and added emphasis, and we experience tangible suffering.

When we saunter along down the column further still and read

the poetry about little Ferguson, the word torture but vaguely

suggests the anguish that rends us.

In the LEDGER (same copy referred to above) I find the following

(I alter surname, as usual):

Welch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch,

and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year

of her age.

A mother dear, a mother kind,

Has gone and left us all behind.

Cease to weep, for tears are vain,

Mother dear is out of pain.

Farewell, husband, children dear,

Serve thy God with filial fear,

And meet me in the land above,

Where all is peace, and joy, and love.

What could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts

(without reduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated

than is done in the first stanza by the surviving relatives,

and no more concise and comprehensive program of farewells,

post-mortuary general orders, etc., could be framed in any

form than is done in verse by deceased in the last stanza.

These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and better.

Another extract:

Ball.--On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John

and Sarah F. Ball.

'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope

That when my change shall come

Angels will hover round my bed,

To waft my spirit home.

The following is apparently the customary form for heads of families:

Burns.--On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.

Dearest father, thou hast left us,

Hear thy loss we deeply feel;

But 'tis God that has bereft us,

He can all our sorrows heal.

Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.

There is something very simple and pleasant about the following,

which, in Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives

of long standing. (It deplores four distinct cases in the single

copy of the LEDGER which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):

Bromley.--On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley,

in the 50th year of his age.

Affliction sore long time he bore,

Physicians were in vain--

Till God at last did hear him mourn,

And eased him of his pain.

That friend whom death from us has torn,

We did not think so soon to part;

An anxious care now sinks the thorn

Still deeper in our bleeding heart.

This beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the contrary,

the oftener one sees it in the LEDGER, the more grand and awe-inspiring

it seems.

With one more extract I will close:

Doble.--On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble,

aged 4 days.

Our little Sammy's gone,

His tiny spirit's fled;

Our little boy we loved so dear

Lies sleeping with the dead.

A tear within a father's eye,

A mother's aching heart,

Can only tell the agony

How hard it is to part.

Could anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further

concessions of grammar? Could anything be likely to do more toward

reconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go?

Perhaps not. The power of song can hardly be estimated. There is

an element about some poetry which is able to make even physical

suffering and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations

to be desired. This element is present in the mortuary poetry

of Philadelphia degree of development.

The custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted

in all the cities of the land.

It is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the

Rev. T. K. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon

--a man who abhors the lauding of people, either dead or alive,

except in dignified and simple language, and then only for merits

which they actually possessed or possess, not merits which they

merely ought to have possessed. The friends of the deceased got

up a stately funeral. They must have had misgivings that the

corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for they prepared

some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was left

unsaid on that subject that a fervid imagination and an unabridged

dictionary could compile, and these they handed to the minister

as he entered the pulpit. They were merely intended as suggestions,

and so the friends were filled with consternation when the minister

stood in the pulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds

and ends in ghastly detail and in a loud voice! And their

consternation solidified to petrification when he paused at the end,

contemplated the multitude reflectively, and then said, impressively:

"The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that.

Let us pray!"

And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the

man would be a fool who tried to add anything to the following

transcendent obituary poem. There is something so innocent,

so guileless, so complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied

about this peerless "hog-wash," that the man must be made of stone

who can read it without a dulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone

and quivering in his marrow. There is no need to say that this

poem is genuine and in earnest, for its proofs are written all

over its face. An ingenious scribbler might imitate it after

a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not counterfeit it.

It is noticeable that the country editor who published it did

not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its

kind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show.

He did not dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet

must have been something of an apparition--but he just shoveled

it into his paper anywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed,

and put that disgusted "Published by Request" over it, and hoped

that his subscribers would overlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:

(Published by Request)

LINES

Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children

by M. A. Glaze

Friends and neighbors all draw near,

And listen to what I have to say;

And never leave your children dear

When they are small, and go away.

But always think of that sad fate,

That happened in year of '63;

Four children with a house did burn,

Think of their awful agony.

Their mother she had gone away,

And left them there alone to stay;

The house took fire and down did burn;

Before their mother did return.

Their piteous cry the neighbors heard,

And then the cry of fire was given;

But, ah! before they could them reach,

Their little spirits had flown to heaven.

Their father he to war had gone,

And on the battle-field was slain;

But little did he think when he went away,

But what on earth they would meet again.

The neighbors often told his wife

Not to leave his children there,

Unless she got some one to stay,

And of the little ones take care.

The oldest he was years not six,

And the youngest only eleven months old,

But often she had left them there alone,

As, by the neighbors, I have been told.

How can she bear to see the place.

Where she so oft has left them there,

Without a single one to look to them,

Or of the little ones to take good care.

Oh, can she look upon the spot,

Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,

But what she thinks she hears them say,

''Twas God had pity, and took us on high.'

And there may she kneel down and pray,

And ask God her to forgive;

And she may lead a different life

While she on earth remains to live.

Her husband and her children too,

God has took from pain and woe.

May she reform and mend her ways,

That she may also to them go.

And when it is God's holy will,

O, may she be prepared

To meet her God and friends in peace,

And leave this world of care.

1. Written in 1870.

THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED

The man in the ticket-office said:

"Have an accident insurance ticket, also?"

"No," I said, after studying the matter over a little. "No, I

believe not; I am going to be traveling by rail all day today.

However, tomorrow I don't travel. Give me one for tomorrow."

The man looked puzzled. He said:

"But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to travel

by rail--"

"If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it. Lying at home

in bed is the thing _I_ am afraid of."

I had been looking into this matter. Last year I traveled twenty

thousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled

over twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail;

and the year before that I traveled in the neighborhood of ten

thousand miles, exclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in all

the little odd journeys here and there, I may say I have traveled

sixty thousand miles during the three years I have mentioned.

AND NEVER AN ACCIDENT.

For a good while I said to myself every morning: "Now I

have escaped thus far, and so the chances are just that much

increased that I shall catch it this time. I will be shrewd,

and buy an accident ticket." And to a dead moral certainty I

drew a blank, and went to bed that night without a joint started

or a bone splintered. I got tired of that sort of daily bother,

and fell to buying accident tickets that were good for a month.

I said to myself, "A man CAN'T buy thirty blanks in one bundle."

But I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the the lot.

I could read of railway accidents every day--the newspaper

atmosphere was foggy with them; but somehow they never came my way.

I found I had spent a good deal of money in the accident business,

and had nothing to show for it. My suspicions were aroused, and I

began to hunt around for somebody that had won in this lottery.

I found plenty of people who had invested, but not an individual

that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I stopped buying

accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was astounding.

THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.

I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all

the glaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters,

less than THREE HUNDRED people had really lost their lives by those

disasters in the preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set

down as the most murderous in the list. It had killed forty-six

--or twenty-six, I do not exactly remember which, but I know the

number was double that of any other road. But the fact straightway

suggested itself that the Erie was an immensely long road, and did

more business than any other line in the country; so the double

number of killed ceased to be matter for surprise.

By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester

the Erie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day--16 altogether;

and carried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is about a million

in six months--the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills

from 13 to 23 persons of ITS million in six months; and in the same

time 13,000 of New York's million die in their beds! My flesh crept,

my hair stood on end. "This is appalling!" I said. "The danger

isn't in traveling by rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds.

I will never sleep in a bed again."

I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of

the Erie road. It was plain that the entire road must transport

at least eleven or twelve thousand people every day. There are

many short roads running out of Boston that do fully half as much;

a great many such roads. There are many roads scattered about the

Union that do a prodigious passenger business. Therefore it was fair

to presume that an average of 2,500 passengers a day for each road

in the country would be almost correct. There are 846 railway

lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are 2,115,000. So the

railways of America move more than two millions of people every day;

six hundred and fifty millions of people a year, without counting

the Sundays. They do that, too--there is no question about it;

though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the jurisdiction

of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and through,

and I find that there are not that many people in the United States,

by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.

They must use some of the same people over again, likely.

San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60

deaths a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter--if they

have luck. That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight

times as many in New York--say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health

of the two places is the same. So we will let it stand as a fair

presumption that this will hold good all over the country, and that

consequently 25,000 out of every million of people we have must die

every year. That amounts to one-fortieth of our total population.

One million of us, then, die annually. Out of this million ten

or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned,

or meet a similarly violent death in some other popular way,

such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations,

getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking

through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines,

or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46;

the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each;

and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that

appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds!

You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds.

The railroads are good enough for me.

And my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more than

you can help; but when you have GOT to stay at home a while,

buy a package of those insurance tickets and sit up nights.

You cannot be too cautious.

[One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner

recorded at the top of this sketch.]

The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble

more than is fair about railroad management in the United States.

When we consider that every day and night of the year full fourteen

thousand railway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life

and armed with death, go thundering over the land, the marvel is,

NOT that they kill three hundred human beings in a twelvemonth,

but that they do not kill three hundred times three hundred!

PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III

I never can look at those periodical portraits in THE GALAXY magazine

without feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist.

I have seen thousands and thousands of pictures in my time

--acres of them here and leagues of them in the galleries of Europe

--but never any that moved me as these portraits do.

There is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number,

now COULD anything be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarck's,

in the October number; who can look at that without being purer

and stronger and nobler for it? And Thurlow and Weed's picture

in the September number; I would not have died without seeing that,

no, not for anything this world can give. But look back still

further and recall my own likeness as printed in the August number;

if I had been in my grave a thousand years when that appeared,

I would have got up and visited the artist.

I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that

I can go on studying them as soon as the day dawns in the morning.

I know them all as thoroughly as if I had made them myself; I know

every line and mark about them. Sometimes when company are present

I shuffle the portraits all up together, and then pick them out

one by one and call their names, without referring to the printing

on the bottom. I seldom make a mistake--never, when I am calm.

I have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till

my aunt gets everything ready for hanging them up in the parlor.

But first one thing and then another interferes, and so the thing

is delayed. Once she said they would have more of the peculiar kind

of light they needed in the attic. The old simpleton! it is as dark

as a tomb up there. But she does not know anything about art,

and so she has no reverence for it. When I showed her my "Map of

the Fortifications of Paris," she said it was rubbish.

Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last

to have a perfect infatuation for art. I have a teacher now,

and my enthusiasm continually and tumultuously grows, as I learn

to use with more and more facility the pencil, brush, and graver.

I am studying under De Mellville, the house and portrait painter.

[His name was Smith when he lived in the West.] He does any kind

of artist work a body wants, having a genius that is universal,

like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great artist, in fact.

The back of his head is like this, and he wears his hat-brim tilted

down on his nose to expose it.

I have been studying under De Mellville several months now.

The first month I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction.

The next month I white-washed a barn. The third, I was doing

tin roofs; the forth, common signs; the fifth, statuary to stand

before cigar shops. This present month is only the sixth, and I am

already in portraits!

The humble offering which accompanies these remarks [see figure]

--the portrait of his Majesty William III., King of Prussia

--is my fifth attempt in portraits, and my greatest success.

It has received unbounded praise from all classes of the community,

but that which gratifies me most is the frequent and cordial verdict

that it resembles the GALAXY portraits. Those were my first love,

my earliest admiration, the original source and incentive of my

art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art today, I owe to these portraits.

I ask no credit for myself--I deserve none. And I never take any,

either. Many a stranger has come to my exhibition (for I have had my

portrait of King William on exhibition at one dollar a ticket), and

would have gone away blessing ME, if I had let him, but I never did.

I always stated where I got the idea.

King William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some critics have

thought that this portrait would be more complete if they were added.

But it was not possible. There was not room for side-whiskers and

epaulets both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put in the epaulets,

for the sake of style. That thing on his hat is an eagle.

The Prussian eagle--it is a national emblem. When I say hat I

mean helmet; but it seems impossible to make a picture of a helmet

that a body can have confidence in.

I wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract

a little attention to the GALAXY portraits. I feel persuaded it can

be accomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment.

I write for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men,

and if I can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask;

the reading-matter will take care of itself.

COMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT

There is nothing like it in the Vatican. Pius IX.

It has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about it,

which many of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to in the

Murillo school of Art. Ruskin.

The expression is very interesting. J.W. Titian.

(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)

It is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.

Rosa Bonheur.

The smile may be almost called unique. Bismarck.

I never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before.

De Mellville.

There is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this

work which warms the heart toward it as much, full as much,

as it fascinates the eye. Landseer.

One cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.

Frederick William.

Send me the entire edition--together with the plate and the

original portrait--and name your own price. And--would you

like to come over and stay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmsh:ohe?

It shall not cost you a cent. William III.

DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?

Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and

petrified by custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity

a geologic period.

The day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend,

and he rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged

to the brim with joy--joy that was evidently a pleasant salve

to an old sore place:

"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying

that is irritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance

for a return jibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a lord';

but after this I shall talk back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'"

It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get.

The man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery.

The man he says it to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels,

is received everywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as

a piece of rare and acute observation, but as being exhaustively

true and profoundly wise; and so it presently takes its place

in the world's list of recognized and established wisdoms,

and after that no one thinks of examining it to see whether it is

really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to mind instances

of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness is not

surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a lord:

one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty Dollar,

the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash for

a title, with a husband thrown in.

It isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar,

it is the human race. The human race has always adored the hatful

of shells, or the bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings,

or the handful of steel fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives,

or the zareba full of cattle, or the two-score camels and asses,

or the factory, or the farm, or the block of buildings, or the

railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or the hoarded cash, or

--anything that stands for wealth and consideration and independence,

and can secure to the possessor that most precious of all things,

another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the idea

that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than

another's.

Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;

it had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America

was discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;

and, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy

the husband without it. They must put up the "dot," or there is

no trade. The commercialization of brides is substantially universal,

except in America. It exists with us, to some little extent,

but in no degree approaching a custom.

"The Englishman dearly loves a lord."

What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could

be more correctly worded:

"The human race dearly envies a lord."

That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts,

I think: its Power and its Conspicuousness.

Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light

of our own observation and experience, we are able to measure

and comprehend, I think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as

passionate as is that of any other nation. No one can care less

for a lord than the backwoodsman, who has had no personal contact

with lords and has seldom heard them spoken of; but I will not

allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy of a lord than has

the average American who has lived long years in a European capital

and fully learned how immense is the position the lord occupies.

Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,

to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred

will be there out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up

with desire to see a personage who is so much talked about.

They envy him; but it is Conspicuousness they envy mainly, not the

Power that is lodged in his royal quality and position, for they

have but a vague and spectral knowledge and appreciation of that;

though their environment and associations they have been accustomed

to regard such things lightly, and as not being very real; consequently,

they are not able to value them enough to consumingly envy them.

But, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence,

for the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness

which he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity

and pleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion--envy

--whether he suspects it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part

of America, you can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger

by calling his attention to any other passing stranger and saying:

"Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller."

Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness

which the man understands.

When we understand rank, we always like to rub against it.

When a man is conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if he

will pay us an attention we will manage to remember it. Also, we

will mention it now and then, casually; sometimes to a friend,

or if a friend is not handy, we will make out with a stranger.

Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At once we

think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities

in soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there.

But that is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage

on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher;

and distinction, also, exists on every round of the ladder,

and commands its due of deference and envy.

To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege

of all the human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised

in democracies as well as in monarchies--and even, to some extent,

among those creatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals.

For even they have some poor little vanities and foibles, though in

this matter they are paupers as compared to us.

A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions

of subjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him.

A Christian Emperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large

part of the Christian world outside of his domains; but he is

a matter of indifference to all China. A king, class A, has an

extensive worship; a king, class B, has a less extensive worship;

class C, class D, class E get a steadily diminishing share of worship;

class L (Sultan of Zanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and class W

(half-king of Samoa), get no worship at all outside their own little

patch of sovereignty.

Take the distinguished people along down. Each has his group

of homage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start

with the Secretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster

--and below; for there will be groups among the sailors, and each of

these groups will have a tar who is distinguished for his battles,

or his strength, or his daring, or his profanity, and is admired

and envied by his group. The same with the army; the same

with the literary and journalistic craft; the publishing craft;

the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S. Steel; the class A hotel

--and the rest of the alphabet in that line; the class A prize-fighter

--and the rest of the alphabet in his line--clear down to the lowest

and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with its one boy

that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king of Samoa,

bottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most ardent

admiration and envy.

There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this

human race's fondness for contact with power and distinction,

and for the reflected glory it gets out of it. The king, class A,

is happy in the state banquet and the military show which the

emperor provides for him, and he goes home and gathers the queen

and the princelings around him in the privacy of the spare room,

and tells them all about it, and says:

"His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most

friendly way--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!

--and everybody SEEING him do it; charming, perfectly charming!"

The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police

parade provided for him by the king, class B, and goes home

and tells the family all about it, and says:

"And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke

and a chat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away

and laughing and chatting, just the same as if we had been born

in the same bunk; and all the servants in the anteroom could see

us doing it! Oh, it was too lovely for anything!"

The king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him

by the king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it,

and is as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors

in the gaudier attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.

Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people--at the

bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside,

and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which.

We are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments

paid us, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown.

There is not one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that.

Do I mean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply

flattering attentions, let them come whence they may. We despise

no source that can pay us a pleasing attention--there is no source

that is humble enough for that. You have heard a dear little girl

say to a frowzy and disreputable dog: "He came right to me and let

me pat him on the head, and he wouldn't let the others touch him!"

and you have seen her eyes dance with pride in that high distinction.

You have often seen that. If the child were a princess, would that

random dog be able to confer the like glory upon her with his

pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her mature life and seated

upon a throne, she would still remember it, still recall it,

still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming and

lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,

remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields "talked to her"

when she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book;

and that the squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued

compliment of not being afraid of them; and "once one of them,

holding a nut between its sharp little teeth, ran right up against

my father"--it has the very note of "He came right to me and let

me pat him on the head"--"and when it saw itself reflected in his

boot it was very much surprised, and stopped for a long time to

contemplate itself in the polished leather"--then it went its way.

And the birds! she still remembers with pride that "they came

boldly into my room," when she had neglected her "duty" and put

no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the wild birds,

and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with pride

that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal

friends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship

to her injury: "never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee."

And here is that proud note again that sings in that little child's

elation in being singled out, among all the company of children,

for the random dog's honor-conferring attentions. "Even in the very

worst summer for wasps, when, in lunching out of doors, our table

was covered with them and every one else was stung, they never

hurt me."

When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are

able to add distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne,

remembers with grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and

distinctions conferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of

the forest, we are helped to realize that complimentary attentions,

homage, distinctions, are of no caste, but are above all cast

--that they are a nobility-conferring power apart.

We all like these things. When the gate-guard at the railway-station

passes me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets,

I feel as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial

hand on his shoulder, "everybody seeing him do it"; and as the child

felt when the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized

the others; and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her

and stung the rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna

(and remember it yet), when the helmeted police shut me off,

with fifty others, from a street which the Emperor was to pass through,

and the captain of the squad turned and saw the situation and said

indignantly to that guard:

"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!"

It was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget

the wind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my

buttons when I marked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my

fellow-rabble, and noted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful

expression which said, as plainly as speech could have worded it:

"And who in the nation is the Herr Mark Twain UM GOTTESWILLEN?"

How many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:

"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my

hand and touched him."

We have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud

distinction to be able to say those words. It brought envy to

the speaker, a kind of glory; and he basked in it and was happy

through all his veins. And who was it he stood so close to?

The answer would cover all the grades. Sometimes it was a king;

sometimes it was a renowned highwayman; sometimes it was an unknown

man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly famous by it;

always it was a person who was for the moment the subject of public

interest of a village.

"I was there, and I saw it myself." That is a common and

envy-compelling remark. It can refer to a battle; to a handing;

to a coronation; to the killing of Jumbo by the railway-train;

to the arrival of Jenny Lind at the Battery; to the meeting of the

President and Prince Henry; to the chase of a murderous maniac;

to the disaster in the tunnel; to the explosion in the subway;

to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village church struck by lightning.

It will be said, more or less causally, by everybody in America who has

seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to. The man who was absent

and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It is his privilege;

and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem, even to himself,

to be different from other Americans, and better. As his opinion

of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and concentrates

and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the distinction

of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their pleasure

in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of person.

If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen

to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try

to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction

was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way.

Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week

I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince

under it, see him bite, see him suffer. I revealed the whole episode

to him with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail.

When I was through, he asked me what had impressed me most.

I said:

"His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back

out from the presence, and find the door-knob as best I could;

it was not allowable to face around. Now the Emperor knew it would

be a difficult ordeal for me, because of lack of practice; and so,

when it was time to part, he turned, with exceeding delicacy,

and pretended to fumble with things on his desk, so I could get

out in my own way, without his seeing me."

It went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise

in the man's face; he couldn't keep it down. I saw him try to fix

up something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction.

I enjoyed that, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him.

He struggled along inwardly for quite a while; then he said,

with a manner of a person who has to say something and hasn't anything

relevant to say:

"You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?"

"Yes; _I_ never saw anything to match them."

I had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much

as another minute before he could play; then he said in as mean

a way as I ever heard a person say anything:

"He could have been counting the cigars, you know."

I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind

he is, so long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.

"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,"

(or other conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be

noticed by the conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such,

or with a conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion,

even in the forty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts

for some of our curious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large

private trade in the Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids

were able to drive in that article of commerce when the Prince made

the tour of the world in the long ago--hair which probably did

not always come from his brush, since enough of it was marketed

to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts for the fact that the rope

which lynches a negro in the presence of ten thousand Christian

spectators is salable five minutes later at two dollars and inch;

it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal personage does not

venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.

We do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation

is higher than our own. The lord of the group, for instance:

a group of peers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums,

a group of sailors, a group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians,

a group of college girls. No royal person has ever been the object

of a more delirious loyalty and slavish adoration than is paid

by the vast Tammany herd to its squalid idol in Wantage. There is

not a bifurcated animal in that menagerie that would not be proud

to appear in a newspaper picture in his company. At the same time,

there are some in that organization who would scoff at the people

who have been daily pictured in company with Prince Henry, and would

say vigorously that THEY would not consent to be photographed

with him--a statement which would not be true in any instance.

There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say to you

that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group with

the Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would

believe it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true.

We have a large population, but we have not a large enough one,

by several millions, to furnish that man. He has not yet been begotten,

and in fact he is not begettable.

You may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person

in the dim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it

is a crowd of ten thousand--ten thousand proud, untamed democrats,

horny-handed sons of toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle

--there isn't one who is trying to keep out of range, there isn't one

who isn't plainly meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning,

with the intention of hunting himself out in the picture and of framing

and keeping it if he shall find so much of his person in it as his

starboard ear.

We all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we

will put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more.

We may pretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend

it to ourselves privately--and we don't. We do confess in public

that we are the noblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit,

and teaching, and superstition; but deep down in the secret places

of our souls we recognize that, if we ARE the noblest work, the less

said about it the better.

We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles

--a fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they

are genuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner

likes the rest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of

predilection lodged in one people that is absent from another people.

There is no variety in the human race. We are all children,

all children of the one Adam, and we love toys. We can soon acquire

that Southern disease if some one will give it a start. It already

has a start, in fact. I have been personally acquainted with over

eighty-four thousand persons who, at one time or another in their lives,

have served for a year or two on the staffs of our multitudinous

governors, and through that fatality have been generals temporarily,

and colonels temporarily, and judge-advocates temporarily; but I

have known only nine among them who could be hired to let the title

go when it ceased to be legitimate. I know thousands and thousands

of governors who ceased to be governors away back in the last century;

but I am acquainted with only three who would answer your letter

if you failed to call them "Governor" in it. I know acres and acres

of men who have done time in a legislature in prehistoric days,

but among them is not half an acre whose resentment you would not

raise if you addressed them as "Mr." instead of "Hon." The first thing

a legislature does is to convene in an impressive legislative attitude,

and get itself photographed. Each member frames his copy and takes

it to the woods and hangs it up in the most aggressively conspicuous

place in his house; and if you visit the house and fail to inquire

what that accumulation is, the conversation will be brought around

to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you a figure

in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated

with the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, "It's me!"

Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room

in Washington with his letters?--and sit at his table and let on

to read them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?

--keeping a furtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see

if he is being observed and admired?--those same old letters

which he fetches in every morning? Have you seen it? Have you

seen him show off? It is THE sight of the national capital.

Except one; a pathetic one. That is the ex-Congressman: the poor

fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year taste of glory

and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded, and ought

to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear himself

away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he lingers,

and still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes snubbed,

ashamed of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look otherwise;

dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and gaiety,

hailing with chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed,

the more-fortunes who are still in place and were once his mates.

Have you seen him? He clings piteously to the one little shred that

is left of his departed distinction--the "privilege of the floor";

and works it hard and gets what he can out of it. That is the saddest

figure I know of.

Yes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we loftily

scoff at a Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we

only had his chance--ah! "Senator" is not a legitimate title.

A Senator has no more right to be addressed by it than have you

or I; but, in the several state capitals and in Washington,

there are five thousand Senators who take very kindly to

that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call them by it

--which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators smile

at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the South!

Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may.

And we work them for all they are worth. In prayer we call

ourselves "worms of the dust," but it is only on a sort of tacit

understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par. WE

--worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are not that. Except in fact;

and we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.

As a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke,

or a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the

head of our group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls

standing by the HERALD office, with an expectant look in his face.

Soon a large man passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

That was what the boy was waiting for--the large man's notice.

The pat made him proud and happy, and the exultation inside of him

shone out through his eyes; and his mates were there to see the pat

and envy it and wish they could have that glory. The boy belonged

down cellar in the press-room, the large man was king of the

upper floors, foreman of the composing-room. The light in the boy's

face was worship, the foreman was his lord, head of his group.

The pat was an accolade. It was as precious to the boy as it would

have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had

been delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence

of the honor was all there; there was no difference in values;

in truth there was no difference present except an artificial one

--clothes.

All the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon

or be noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness;

and sometimes animals, born to better things and higher ideals,

descend to man's level in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes

I have see a cat that was so vain of being the personal friend

of an elephant that I was ashamed of her.

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY

MONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal

in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about.

I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay

with the other animals. . . . Cloudy today, wind in the east;

think we shall have rain. . . . WE? Where did I get that word

--the new creature uses it.

TUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing

on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls

--why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls.

That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility.

I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names

everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest.

And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing.

There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it

one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to

keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it

does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than

I do.

WEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not

have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I

tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with,

and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise

such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress.

I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a

cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so.

I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange

sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming

solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new sound

is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear,

first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds

that are more or less distant from me.

FRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do.

I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty

--GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any

longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks

and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it

LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park.

Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA

FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me.

And already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF

THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

SATURDAY.--The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going

to run short, most likely. "We" again--that is ITS word; mine, too,

now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning.

I do not go out in the fog myself. This new creature does.

It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet.

And talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying.

It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest.

I had already six of them per week before. This morning found

the new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.

MONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right,

I have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it

to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently

raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word

and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She.

This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is were

nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk.

TUESDAY.--She has littered the whole estate with execrable names

and offensive signs:

This way to the Whirlpool

This way to Goat Island

Cave of the Winds this way

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was

any custom for it. Summer resort--another invention of hers

--just words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort?

But it is best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.

FRIDAY.--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.

What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why;

I have always done it--always liked the plunge, and coolness.

I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other

use that I can see, and they must have been made for something.

She says they were only made for scenery--like the rhinoceros and

the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her.

Went over in a tub--still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and

the Rapids in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious

complaints about my extravagance. I am too much hampered here.

What I need is a change of scene.

SATURDAY.--I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days,

and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my

tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast

which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful

noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with.

I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again

when occasion offers. She engages herself in many foolish things;

among others; to study out why the animals called lions and tigers

live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they

wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other.

This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other,

and that would introduce what, as I understand, is called "death";

and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park.

Which is a pity, on some accounts.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.

MONDAY.--I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time

to rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea.

. . . She has been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it.

She said nobody was looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient

justification for chancing any dangerous thing. Told her that.

The word justification moved her admiration--and envy, too, I thought.

It is a good word.

TUESDAY.--She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.

This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not

missed any rib. . . . She is in much trouble about the buzzard;

says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it;

thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must

get along the best it can with what is provided. We cannot overturn

the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.

SATURDAY.--She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at

herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled,

and said it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the

creatures which live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues

to fasten names on to things that don't need them and don't come

when they are called by them, which is a matter of no consequence

to her, she is such a numbskull, anyway; so she got a lot of them out

and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep warm,

but I have noticed them now and then all day and I don't see that

they are any happier there then they were before, only quieter.

When night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not sleep

with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among

when a person hasn't anything on.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.

TUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,

for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them;

and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get

a rest.

FRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,

and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.

I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce

death into the world. That was a mistake--it had been better

to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea--she could

save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent

lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree.

She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.

WEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night,

and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get

clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the

trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after

sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands

of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other,

according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest

of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion

and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what it meant

--Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.

. . . The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when I ordered

them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed

--which I didn't, but went away in much haste. . . . I found this place,

outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she

has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda

--says it LOOKS like that. In fact I was not sorry she came,

for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some

of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry.

It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no

real force except when one is well fed. . . . She came curtained

in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she

meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down,

she tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter

and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic.

She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was correct.

Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten--certainly the

best one I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season

--and arrayed myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then

spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to go and get some

more and not make a spectacle or herself. She did it, and after this

we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected

some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper

for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish,

and that is the main point about clothes. . . . I find she is a

good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed

without her, now that I have lost my property. Another thing,

she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter.

She will be useful. I will superintend.

TEN DAYS LATER.--She accuses ME of being the cause of our disaster!

She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured

her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts.

I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts.

She said the Serpent informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative

term meaning an aged and moldy joke. I turned pale at that,

for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some of them

could have been of that sort, though I had honestly supposed

that they were new when I made them. She asked me if I had made

one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit

that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this.

I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful

it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!"

Then in an instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let

it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble

UP there!"--and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at

it when all nature broke loose in war and death and I had to flee

for my life. "There," she said, with triumph, "that is just it;

the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut,

and said it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed

to blame. Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had never had

that radiant thought!

NEXT YEAR.--We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country

trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a

couple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four, she isn't

certain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation.

That is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment.

The difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different

and new kind of animal--a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the

water to see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before

there was opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter.

I still think it is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is,

and will not let me have it to try. I do not understand this.

The coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature

and made her unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more

of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is not able

to explain why. Her mind is disordered--everything shows it.

Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it

complains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water

comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she

pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth

to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways.

I have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it

troubles me greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so,

and play with them, before we lost our property, but it was only play;

she never took on about them like this when their dinner disagreed

with them.

SUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out,

and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool

noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes

it laugh. I have not seen a fish before that could laugh.

This makes me doubt. . . . I have come to like Sunday myself.

Superintending all the week tires a body so. There ought to be

more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they

come handy.

WEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is.

It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo"

when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not

a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop;

it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish,

though I cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not.

It merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up.

I have not seen any other animal do that before. I said I believed it

was an enigma; but she only admired the word without understanding it.

In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug.

If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its arrangements are.

I never had a thing perplex me so.