There is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-scraps in a
language which you are not acquainted with--the charm that always goes
with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely
sure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are
chasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns
and dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary would
spoil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil
of dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and
practical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable
mystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that
benefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious
word? would you be properly grateful?
After a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject and seek
a case in point. I find it without trouble, in the morning paper; a
cablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris. All the words save
one are guessable by a person ignorant of Italian:
Revolverate in teatro
PARIGI, 27.--La PATRIE ha da Chicago:
Il guardiano del teatro dell'opera di Walace (Indiana), avendo voluto
espellare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare malgrado il diviety,
questo spalleggiato dai suoi amici tir`o diversi colpi di rivoltella.
Il guardiano ripose. Nacque una scarica generale. Grande panico tra gli
spettatori. Nessun ferito.
_Translation._--“Revolveration in Theater. _Paris, 27th. La Patrie_ has
from Chicago: The cop of the theater of the opera of Wallace, Indiana,
had willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke in spite of the
prohibition, who, spalleggiato by his friends, tire (_Fr. Tire, Anglice
Pulled_) manifold revolver-shots; great panic among the spectators.
Nobody hurt.”
It is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of the opera
of Wallace, Indiana, excited not a person in Europe but me, and so came
near to not being worth cabling to Florence by way of France. But it
does excite me. It excites me because I cannot make out, for sure, what
it was that moved the spectator to resist the officer. I was gliding
along smoothly and without obstruction or accident, until I came to that
word “spalleggiato,” then the bottom fell out. You notice what a rich
gloom, what a somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all over the
whole Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the thing, that is the
delight of it. This is where you begin, this is where you revel. You can
guess and guess, and have all the fun you like; you need not be afraid
there will be an end to it; none is possible, for no amount of guessing
will ever furnish you a meaning for that word that you can be sure is
the right one. All the other words give you hints, by their form, their
sound, or their spelling--this one doesn't, this one throws out no
hints, this one keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest slight
shadow of a hint anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly suggestive fact
that “spalleggiato” carries our word “egg” in its stomach. Well, make
the most out of it, and then where are you at? You conjecture that
the spectator which was smoking in spite of the prohibition and become
reprohibited by the guardians, was “egged on” by his friends, and that
was owing to that evil influence that he initiated the revolveration in
theater that has galloped under the sea and come crashing through the
European press without exciting anybody but me. But are you sure, are
you dead sure, that that was the way of it? No. Then the uncertainty
remains, the mystery abides, and with it the charm. Guess again.
If I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort I would study it,
and not give all my free time to undictionarial readings, but there is
no such work on the market. The existing phrase-books are inadequate.
They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin
your leg they don't tell you what to say.
ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR
I found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful
language with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I
presently found that to such a person a grammar could be of use at
times. It is because, if he does not know the _were's_ and the
_was's_ and the _maybe's_ and the _has-beens's_ apart, confusions and
uncertainties can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to
happen next week when the truth is that it has already happened week
before last. Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry
showed me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded
and straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed the
hands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that had
no permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always
dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.
Further examination, further inquiry, further reflection, confirmed this
judgment, and established beyond peradventure the fact that the Verb was
the storm-center. This discovery made plain the right and wise course to
pursue in order to acquire certainty and exactness in understanding the
statements which the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I
must catch a Verb and tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot
its eccentricities, I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently
foresee and forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely
to try upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main
shifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.
I had noticed, in other foreign languages, that verbs are bred in
families, and that the members of each family have certain features or
resemblances that are common to that family and distinguish it from the
other families--the other kin, the cousins and what not. I had noticed
that this family-mark is not usually the nose or the hair, so to speak,
but the tail--the Termination--and that these tails are quite definitely
differentiated; insomuch that an expert can tell a Pluperfect from a
Subjunctive by its tail as easily and as certainly as a cowboy can tell
a cow from a horse by the like process, the result of observation and
culture. I should explain that I am speaking of legitimate verbs, those
verbs which in the slang of the grammar are called Regular. There are
others--I am not meaning to conceal this; others called Irregulars, born
out of wedlock, of unknown and uninteresting parentage, and naturally
destitute of family resemblances, as regards to all features, tails
included. But of these pathetic outcasts I have nothing to say. I do not
approve of them, I do not encourage them; I am prudishly delicate and
sensitive, and I do not allow them to be used in my presence.
But, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the others and break it
into harness. One is enough. Once familiar with its assortment of tails,
you are immune; after that, no regular verb can conceal its specialty
from you and make you think it is working the past or the future or the
conditional or the unconditional when it is engaged in some other line
of business--its tail will give it away. I found out all these things by
myself, without a teacher.
I selected the verb _amare, to love._ Not for any personal reason, for
I am indifferent about verbs; I care no more for one verb than for
another, and have little or no respect for any of them; but in foreign
languages you always begin with that one. Why, I don't know. It is
merely habit, I suppose; the first teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied,
and there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start
a fresh one. For they _are _a pretty limited lot, you will admit that?
Originality is not in their line; they can't think up anything new,
anything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the language
lesson and put life and “go” into it, and charm and grace and
picturesqueness.
I knew I must look after those details myself; therefore I thought them
out and wrote them down, and sent for the _facchino _and explained them
to him, and said he must arrange a proper plant, and get together a
good stock company among the _contadini_, and design the costumes, and
distribute the parts; and drill the troupe, and be ready in three days
to begin on this Verb in a shipshape and workman-like manner. I told him
to put each grand division of it under a foreman, and each subdivision
under a subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something
like that, and to have a different uniform for each squad, so that I
could tell a Pluperfect from a Compound Future without looking at the
book; the whole battery to be under his own special and particular
command, with the rank of Brigadier, and I to pay the freight.
I then inquired into the character and possibilities of the selected
verb, and was much disturbed to find that it was over my size, it being
chambered for fifty-seven rounds--fifty-seven ways of saying I _love_
without reloading; and yet none of them likely to convince a girl that
was laying for a title, or a title that was laying for rocks.
It seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go into
action with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it to the rear and told the
facchino to provide something a little more primitive to start with,
something less elaborate, some gentle old-fashioned flint-lock,
smooth-bore, double-barreled thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred
yards and kill at forty--an arrangement suitable for a beginner who
could be satisfied with moderate results on the offstart and did not
wish to take the whole territory in the first campaign.
But in vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the verbs being
of the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same caliber and delivery,
fifty-seven to the volley, and fatal at a mile and a half. But he said
the auxiliary verb _avere, to have_, was a tidy thing, and easy to
handle in a seaway, and less likely to miss stays in going about than
some of the others; so, upon his recommendation I chose that one,
and told him to take it along and scrape its bottom and break out its
spinnaker and get it ready for business.
I will explain that a facchino is a general-utility domestic. Mine was a
horse-doctor in his better days, and a very good one.
At the end of three days the facchino-doctor-brigadier was ready. I was
also ready, with a stenographer. We were in a room called the Rope-Walk.
This is a formidably long room, as is indicated by its facetious name,
and is a good place for reviews. At 9:30 the F.-D.-B. took his place
near me and gave the word of command; the drums began to rumble and
thunder, the head of the forces appeared at an upper door, and the
“march-past” was on. Down they filed, a blaze of variegated color, each
squad gaudy in a uniform of its own and bearing a banner inscribed with
its verbal rank and quality: first the Present Tense in Mediterranean
blue and old gold, then the Past Definite in scarlet and black, then the
Imperfect in green and yellow, then the Indicative Future in the stars
and stripes, then the Old Red Sandstone Subjunctive in purple
and silver--and so on and so on, fifty-seven privates and twenty
commissioned and non-commissioned officers; certainly one of the most
fiery and dazzling and eloquent sights I have ever beheld. I could not
keep back the tears. Presently:
“Halt!” commanded the Brigadier.
“Front--face!”
“Right dress!”
“Stand at ease!”
“One--two--three. In unison--_recite!_”
It was fine. In one noble volume of sound of all the fifty-seven
Haves in the Italian language burst forth in an exalting and splendid
confusion. Then came commands:
“About--face! Eyes--front! Helm alee--hard aport! Forward--march!” and
the drums let go again.
When the last Termination had disappeared, the commander said the
instruction drill would now begin, and asked for suggestions. I said:
“They say _I have, thou hast, he has_, and so on, but they don't say
_what_. It will be better, and more definite, if they have something to
have; just an object, you know, a something--anything will do; anything
that will give the listener a sort of personal as well as grammatical
interest in their joys and complaints, you see.”
He said:
“It is a good point. Would a dog do?”
I said I did not know, but we could try a dog and see. So he sent out an
aide-de-camp to give the order to add the dog.
The six privates of the Present Tense now filed in, in charge of
Sergeant Avere (_to have_), and displaying their banner. They formed in
line of battle, and recited, one at a time, thus:
“_Io ho un cane,_ I have a dog.”
“_Tu hai un cane_, thou hast a dog.”
_“Egli ha un cane, _he has a dog.”
_“Noi abbiamo un cane_, we have a dog.”
“_Voi avete un cane_, you have a dog.”
“_Eglino hanno un cane,_ they have a dog.”
No comment followed. They returned to camp, and I reflected a while. The
commander said:
“I fear you are disappointed.”
“Yes,” I said; “they are too monotonous, too singsong, to
dead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural;
it could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog
is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never
saw a case. What the nation do you suppose is the matter with these
people?”
He thought maybe the trouble was with the dog. He said:
“These are _contadini_, you know, and they have a prejudice against
dogs--that is, against marimane. Marimana dogs stand guard over people's
vines and olives, you know, and are very savage, and thereby a grief and
an inconvenience to persons who want other people's things at night. In
my judgment they have taken this dog for a marimana, and have soured on
him.”
I saw that the dog was a mistake, and not functionable: we must try
something else; something, if possible, that could evoke sentiment,
interest, feeling.
“What is cat, in Italian?” I asked.
“Gatto.”
“Is it a gentleman cat, or a lady?”
“Gentleman cat.”
“How are these people as regards that animal?”
“We-ll, they--they--”
“You hesitate: that is enough. How are they about chickens?”
He tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy. I understood.
“What is chicken, in Italian?” I asked.
“Pollo, _Podere._” (Podere is Italian for master. It is a title of
courtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) “Pollo is one chicken
by itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is
_polli._”
“Very well, polli will do. Which squad is detailed for duty next?”
“The Past Definite.”
“Send out and order it to the front--with chickens. And let them
understand that we don't want any more of this cold indifference.”
He gave the order to an aide, adding, with a haunting tenderness in his
tone and a watering mouth in his aspect:
“Convey to them the conception that these are unprotected chickens.” He
turned to me, saluting with his hand to his temple, and explained, “It
will inflame their interest in the poultry, sire.”
A few minutes elapsed. Then the squad marched in and formed up, their
faces glowing with enthusiasm, and the file-leader shouted:
“_Ebbi polli_, I had chickens!”
“Good!” I said. “Go on, the next.”
“_Avest polli_, thou hadst chickens!”
“Fine! Next!”
“_Ebbe polli_, he had chickens!”
“Moltimoltissimo! Go on, the next!”
“_Avemmo polli,_ we had chickens!”
“Basta-basta aspettatto avanti--last man--_charge_!”
“_Ebbero polli_, they had chickens!”
Then they formed in echelon, by columns of fours, refused the left, and
retired in great style on the double-quick. I was enchanted, and said:
“Now, doctor, that is something _like_! Chickens are the ticket, there
is no doubt about it. What is the next squad?”
“The Imperfect.”
“How does it go?”
“_Io Aveva_, I had, _tu avevi_, thou hadst, _egli aveva_, he had, _noi
av_--”
“Wait--we've just _had _the hads. What are you giving me?”
“But this is another breed.”
“What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? _Had_ is
_had_, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going
to make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that yourself.”
“But there is a distinction--they are not just the same Hads.”
“How do you make it out?”
“Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that
happened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the
other when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more
prolonged and indefinitely continuous way.”
“Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If
I have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position
right then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go
out hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had
go hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts
the other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it
pining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to
get sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of
thing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the
wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive
hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for
nothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not
honorable; it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is
so delicate it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west--I won't
have this dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--”
“But you miss the point. It is like this. You see--”
“Never mind explaining, I don't care anything about it. Six Hads is
enough for me; anybody that needs twelve, let him subscribe; I don't
want any stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the Prolonged and Indefinitely
Continuous; four-fifths of it is water, anyway.”
“But I beg you, podere! It is often quite indispensable in cases
where--”
“Pipe the next squad to the assault!”
But it was not to be; for at that moment the dull boom of the noon
gun floated up out of far-off Florence, followed by the usual softened
jangle of church-bells, Florentine and suburban, that bursts out in
murmurous response; by labor-union law the _colazione_ (1) must stop;
stop promptly, stop instantly, stop definitely, like the chosen and best
of the breed of Hads.
1. Colazione is Italian for a collection, a meeting, a seance, a
sitting.--M.T.
A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY
Two or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would
write an autobiography they would read it when they got leisure, I yield
at last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tender my history.
Ours is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity.
The earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend of the
family by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh century, when
our people were living in Aberdeen, county of Cork, England. Why it is
that our long line has ever since borne the maternal name (except when
one of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert
foolishness), instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever
felt much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we
leave it alone. All the old families do that way.
Arthour Twain was a man of considerable note--a solicitor on the highway
in William Rufus's time. At about the age of thirty he went to one of
those fine old English places of resort called Newgate, to see about
something, and never returned again. While there he died suddenly.
Augustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year
1160. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his old
saber and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night,
and stick it through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a
born humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time
he was found stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one
end of him, and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it
could contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any
situation so much or stuck to it so long.
Then for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a succession
of soldiers--noble, high-spirited fellows, who always went into battle
singing, right behind the army, and always went out a-whooping, right
ahead of it.
This is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart's poor witticism that
our family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that one stuck
out at right angles, and bore fruit winter and summer.
Early in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called “the Scholar.”
He wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody's
hand so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head off
to see it. He had infinite sport with his talent. But by and by he took
a contract to break stone for a road, and the roughness of the work
spoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time he was in the
stone business, which, with inconsiderable intervals, was some forty-two
years. In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years he gave
such satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week
till the government gave him another. He was a perfect pet. And he was
always a favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicuous member
of their benevolent secret society, called the Chain Gang. He always
wore his hair short, had a preference for striped clothes, and died
lamented by the government. He was a sore loss to his country. For he
was so regular.
Some years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain. He came over
to this country with Columbus in 1492 as a passenger. He appears to have
been of a crusty, uncomfortable disposition. He complained of the food
all the way over, and was always threatening to go ashore unless there
was a change. He wanted fresh shad. Hardly a day passed over his head
that he did not go idling about the ship with his nose in the air,
sneering about the commander, and saying he did not believe Columbus
knew where he was going to or had ever been there before. The memorable
cry of “Land ho!” thrilled every heart in the ship but his. He gazed
awhile through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line lying on the
distant water, and then said: “Land be hanged--it's a raft!”
When this questionable passenger came on board the ship, he brought
nothing with him but an old newspaper containing a handkerchief marked
“B. G.,” one cotton sock marked “L. W. C.,” one woolen one marked “D.
F.,” and a night-shirt marked “O. M. R.” And yet during the voyage he
worried more about his “trunk,” and gave himself more airs about it,
than all the rest of the passengers put together. If the ship was “down
by the head,” and would not steer, he would go and move his “trunk”
further aft, and then watch the effect. If the ship was “by the stern,”
he would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to “shift that baggage.”
In storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings about his “trunk”
made it impossible for the men to hear the orders. The man does not
appear to have been openly charged with any gravely unbecoming thing,
but it is noted in the ship's log as a “curious circumstance” that
albeit he brought his baggage on board the ship in a newspaper, he took
it ashore in four trunks, a queensware crate, and a couple of champagne
baskets. But when he came back insinuating, in an insolent, swaggering
way, that some of this things were missing, and was going to search
the other passengers' baggage, it was too much, and they threw him
overboard. They watched long and wonderingly for him to come up, but not
even a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But while every one was
most absorbed in gazing over the side, and the interest was momentarily
increasing, it was observed with consternation that the vessel was
adrift and the anchor-cable hanging limp from the bow. Then in the
ship's dimmed and ancient log we find this quaint note:
“In time it was discouvered yt ye troblesome passenger hadde gone downe
and got ye anchor, and toke ye same and solde it to ye dam sauvages from
ye interior, saying yt he hadde founde it, ye sonne of a ghun!”
Yet this ancestor had good and noble instincts, and it is with pride
that we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who
ever interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our
Indians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to
his dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more
restraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other
reformer that ever labored among them. At this point the chronicle
becomes less frank and chatty, and closes abruptly by saying that the
old voyager went to see his gallows perform on the first white man ever
hanged in America, and while there received injuries which terminated in
his death.
The great-grandson of the “Reformer” flourished in sixteen hundred and
something, and was known in our annals as “the old Admiral,” though in
history he had other titles. He was long in command of fleets of swift
vessels, well armed and manned, and did great service in hurrying up
merchantmen. Vessels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on, always
made good fair time across the ocean. But if a ship still loitered
in spite of all he could do, his indignation would grow till he could
contain himself no longer--and then he would take that ship home where
he lived and keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come for
it, but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness and sloth
out of the sailors of that ship by compelling them to take invigorating
exercise and a bath. He called it “walking a plank.” All the pupils
liked it. At any rate, they never found any fault with it after trying
it. When the owners were late coming for their ships, the Admiral always
burned them, so that the insurance money should not be lost. At last
this fine old tar was cut down in the fullness of his years and honors.
And to her dying day, his poor heart-broken widow believed that if
he had been cut down fifteen minutes sooner he might have been
resuscitated.
Charles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of the seventeenth
century, and was a zealous and distinguished missionary. He converted
sixteen thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that a dog-tooth
necklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to
divine service in. His poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and
when his funeral was over, they got up in a body (and came out of the
restaurant) with tears in their eyes, and saying, one to another, that
he was a good tender missionary, and they wished they had some more of
him.
Pah-go-to-wah-wah-pukketekeewis (Mighty-Hunter-with-a-Hog-Eye-Twain)
adorned the middle of the eighteenth century, and aided General Braddock
with all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington. It was this
ancestor who fired seventeen times at our Washington from behind a tree.
So far the beautiful romantic narrative in the moral story-books is
correct; but when that narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth
round the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being
reserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not
lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously
impairs the integrity of history. What he did say was:
“It ain't no (hic) no use. 'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long
enough for a man to hit him. I (hic) I can't 'ford to fool away any more
am'nition on him.”
That was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was a good,
plain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself
to us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is about
it.
I also enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a marring misgiving
that every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier a couple
of times (two easily grows to seventeen in a century), and missed
him, jumped to the conclusion that the Great Spirit was reserving that
soldier for some grand mission; and so I somehow feared that the only
reason why Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten is,
that in his the prophecy came true, and in that of the others it
didn't. There are not books enough on earth to contain the record of the
prophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties have made; but one may
carry in his overcoat pockets the record of all the prophecies that have
been fulfilled.
I will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of mine are so
thoroughly well-known in history by their aliases, that I have not felt
it to be worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention them in the
order of their birth. Among these may be mentioned Richard Brinsley
Twain, alias Guy Fawkes; John Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-String
Jack; William Hogarth Twain, alias Jack Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias
Baron Munchausen; John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then there
are George Francis Twain, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and Baalam's
Ass--they all belong to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat
distinctly removed from the honorable direct line--in fact, a collateral
branch, whose members chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that, in
order to acquire the notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for,
they have got into a low way of going to jail instead of getting hanged.
It is not well, when writing an autobiography, to follow your ancestry
down too close to your own time--it is safest to speak only vaguely of
your great-grandfather, and then skip from there to yourself, which I
now do.
I was born without teeth--and there Richard III. had the advantage of
me; but I was born without a humpback, likewise, and there I had the
advantage of him. My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously
honest.
But now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so tame
contrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave
it unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biographies I have read
had stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred, it would have
been a felicitous thing for the reading public. How does it strike you?
HOW TO TELL A STORY
The Humorous Story an American Development.--Its Difference from Comic
and Witty Stories
I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only
claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily
in the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.
There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind--the
humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is
American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The
humorous story depends for its effect upon the _manner _of the telling;
the comic story and the witty story upon the _matter_.
The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander
around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the
comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous
story bubbles gently along, the others burst.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art--high and delicate art--and
only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic
and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous
story--understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print--was created in
America, and has remained at home.
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal
the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about
it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is
one of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager
delight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And
sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that
he will repeat the “nub” of it and glance around from face to face,
collecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to
see.
Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story
finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it.
Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will
divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and
indifferent way, with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.
Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience
presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if
wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before
him, Nye and Riley and others use it today.
But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at
you--every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and
Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after
it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very
depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better
life.
Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote which
has been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years.
The teller tells it in this way:
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot
off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the
rear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained;
whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate,
proceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were
flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the
wounded man's head off--without, however, his deliverer being aware of
it. In no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:
“Where are you going with that carcass?”
“To the rear, sir--he's lost his leg!”
“His leg, forsooth?” responded the astonished officer; “you mean his
head, you booby.”
Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood
looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:
“It is true, sir, just as you have said.” Then after a pause he added,
“_But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!_”
Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous
horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gasping
and shriekings and suffocatings.
It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;
and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story
form it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever
listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.
He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just
heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is
trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets
all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious
details that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them
out conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless;
making minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and
explain how he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot
to put in in their proper place and going back to put them in there;
stopping his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name
of the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's
name was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no
real importance, anyway--better, of course, if one knew it, but not
essential, after all--and so on, and so on, and so on.
The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has
to stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing
outright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with
interior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have
laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their
faces.
The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the
old farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance
which is thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art--and fine and
beautiful, and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell
the other story.
To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and
sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they
are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is
correct. Another feature is the slurring of the point. A third is the
dropping of a studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one
where thinking aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.
Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal. He would begin
to tell with great animation something which he seemed to think was
wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an apparently absent-minded
pause add an incongruous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the
remark intended to explode the mine--and it did.
For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, “I once knew a man in New
Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head”--here his animation would
die out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say
dreamily, and as if to himself, “and yet that man could beat a drum
better than any man I ever saw.”
The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and
a frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate,
and also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right
length--no more and no less--or it fails of its purpose and makes
trouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and
the audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended--and
then you can't surprise them, of course.
On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had a pause in
front of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important
thing in the whole story. If I got it the right length precisely, I
could spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some
impressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her
seat--and that was what I was after. This story was called “The
Golden Arm,” and was told in this fashion. You can practice with it
yourself--and mind you look out for the pause and get it right.
THE GOLDEN ARM
Once 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, en he live 'way out in de
prairie all 'lone by hisself, 'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died,
en he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her. Well,
she had a golden arm--all solid gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz
pow'ful mean--pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep, caze he want dat
golden arm so bad.
When it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no mo'; so he git up, he did,
en tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de
golden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de win', en plowed en plowed
en plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable
pause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) en say:
“My _lan'_, what's dat?”
En he listen--en listen--en de win' say (set your teeth together and
imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), “Bzzz-z-zzz”--en
den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a _voice_!--he hear
a voice all mix' up in de win'--can't hardly tell 'em 'part--
“Bzzz--zzz--W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n _arm?_” (You must begin to
shiver violently now.)
En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, “Oh, my! _Oh_, my lan'!” en de
win' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos'
choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep toward home mos' dead, he so
sk'yerd--en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin
_after _him! “Bzzz--zzz--zzz W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n--_arm_?”
When he git to de pasture he hear it agin--closter now, en
_a-comin'!_--a-comin' back dah in de dark en de storm--(repeat the wind
and the voice). When he git to de house he rush upstairs en jump in de
bed en kiver up, head and years, en lay da shiverin' en shakin'--en
den way out dah he hear it _agin!_--en a-_comin'_! En bimeby he hear
(pause--awed, listening attitude)--pat--pat--pat _Hit's a-comin'
upstairs!_ Den he hear de latch, en he _know _it's in de room!
Den pooty soon he know it's a-_stannin' by de bed!_ (Pause.) Den--he
know it's a-_bendin' down over him_--en he cain't skasely git his
breath! Den--den--he seem to feel someth'n' _c-o-l-d_, right down 'most
agin his head! (Pause.)
Den de voice say, _right at his year_--“W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y g-o-l-d-e-n
_arm?_” (You must wail it out very plaintively and accusingly; then
you stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone
auditor--a girl, preferably--and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to
build itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right
length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, “_You've_ got it!”)
If you've got the _pause _right, she'll fetch a dear little yelp and
spring right out of her shoes. But you _must _get the pause right; and
you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain
thing you ever undertook.
GENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT
A Biographical Sketch
The stirring part of this celebrated colored man's life properly began
with his death--that is to say, the notable features of his biography
began with the first time he died. He had been little heard of up to
that time, but since then we have never ceased to hear of him; we have
never ceased to hear of him at stated, unfailing intervals. His was a
most remarkable career, and I have thought that its history would make
a valuable addition to our biographical literature. Therefore, I
have carefully collated the materials for such a work, from authentic
sources, and here present them to the public. I have rigidly excluded
from these pages everything of a doubtful character, with the object in
view of introducing my work into the schools for the instruction of the
youth of my country.
The name of the famous body-servant of General Washington was George.
After serving his illustrious master faithfully for half a century, and
enjoying throughout this long term his high regard and confidence, it
became his sorrowful duty at last to lay that beloved master to rest in
his peaceful grave by the Potomac. Ten years afterward--in 1809--full
of years and honors, he died himself, mourned by all who knew him. The
_Boston Gazette_ of that date thus refers to the event:
George, the favorite body-servant of the lamented Washington, died in
Richmond, Va., last Tuesday, at the ripe age of 95 years. His intellect
was unimpaired, and his memory tenacious, up to within a few minutes of
his decease. He was present at the second installation of Washington as
President, and also at his funeral, and distinctly remembered all the
prominent incidents connected with those noted events.
From this period we hear no more of the favorite body-servant of General
Washington until May, 1825, at which time he died again. A Philadelphia
paper thus speaks of the sad occurrence:
At Macon, Ga., last week, a colored man named George, who was the
favorite body-servant of General Washington, died at the advanced age
of 95 years. Up to within a few hours of his dissolution he was in full
possession of all his faculties, and could distinctly recollect the
second installation of Washington, his death and burial, the surrender
of Cornwallis, the battle of Trenton, the griefs and hardships of Valley
Forge, etc. Deceased was followed to the grave by the entire population
of Macon.
On the Fourth of July, 1830, and also of 1834 and 1836, the subject of
this sketch was exhibited in great state upon the rostrum of the
orator of the day, and in November of 1840 he died again. The St. Louis
_Republican_ of the 25th of that month spoke as follows:
“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
corrected. 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 infamous 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 now 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 it 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 keen 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 a 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 “larfs 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 build 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 most 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, are as 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 applies it to an individual--provided that that
individual is the author of this book, Senhor 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.