We are certainly gone mad. We scarcely look at the young colossus who is
to reign over 70,000,000 of people and the mightiest empire in extent
which exists to-day. We have no eyes but for this splendid barbarian,
who is lord over a few deserts and a modest ten million of
ragamuffins--a man who has never done anything to win our gratitude or
excite our admiration, except that he managed to starve a million of his
subjects to death in twelve months. If he had starved the rest I suppose
we would set up a monument to him now.
The London theaters are almost absolutely empty these nights. Nobody
goes, hardly. The managers are being ruined. The streets for miles are
crammed with people waiting whole long hours for a chance glimpse of the
Shah. I never saw any man “draw” like this one.
Is there any truth in the report that your bureaus are trying to get the
Shah to go over there and lecture? He could get $100,000 a night here
and choose his own subject.
I know a showman who has got a pill that belonged to him, and which for
some reason he did not take. That showman will not take any money for
that pill. He is going to travel with it. And let me tell you he will
get more engagements than he can fill in a year.
IV
MARK TWAIN HOOKS THE PERSIAN OUT OF
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
LONDON, _June 26, 1873_.
I suppose I am the only member of the Shah’s family who is not wholly
broken down and worn out; and, to tell the truth, there is not much of
me left. If you have ever been limited to four days in Paris or Rome or
Jerusalem and been “rushed” by a guide you can form a vague, far-away
sort of conception of what the Shah and the rest of us have endured
during these late momentous days. If this goes on we may as well get
ready for the imperial inquest.
When I was called at five o’clock the other morning to go to Portsmouth,
and remembered that the Shah’s incessant movements had left me only
three hours’ sleep that night, nothing but a sense of duty drove me
forth. A cab could not be found, nor a carriage in all London. I lost an
hour and a half waiting and trying, then started on foot and lost my
way; consequently I missed one train by a good while, another one by
three minutes, and then had more than half an hour to spare before
another would go. Most people had had a similar experience, and there
was comfort in that. We started at last, and were more than three hours
going seventy-two miles. We stopped at no stations, hardly, but we
halted every fifteen minutes out in the woods and fields for no purpose
that we could discover. Never was such an opportunity to look at
scenery. There were five strangers in our car, or carriage, as the
English call it, and by degrees their English reserve thawed out and
they passed around their sherry and sandwiches and grew sociable.
One of them had met the Russian General of Police in St. Petersburg, and
found him a queer old simple-hearted soldier, proud of his past and
devoted to his master, the present Tsar, and to the memory of his
predecessor, Nicholas. The English gentleman gave an instance of the old
man’s simplicity which one would not expect in a chief of police. The
general had been visiting London and been greatly impressed by two
things there--the admirable police discipline and the museum. It
transpired that the museum he referred to was not that mighty collection
of marvels known to all the world as the British Museum, but Mme.
Toussaud’s Waxworks Show; and in this waxwork show he had seen a figure
of the Emperor Nicholas. And did it please him? Yes, as to the likeness;
for it was a good likeness and a commanding figure; but--“_Mon Dieu!_
try to fancy it, m’sieu--dressed in the uniform of a simple colonel of
infantry!--the great Nicholas of Russia, my august late master, dressed
in a colonel’s uniform!”
The old general could not abide that. He went to the proprietor and
remonstrated against this wanton indignity. The proprietor was grieved;
but it was the only Russian uniform he could get, and----
“Say no more!” said the general. “May I get you one?”
The proprietor would be most happy. The general lost not a moment; he
wrote at once to the Emperor Alexander, describing with anguish the
degradation which the late great Nicholas was suffering day by day
through his infamously clothed waxen representative, and imploring His
Majesty to send suitable raiment for the imperial dummy, and also a
letter to authenticate the raiment. And out of regard for the old
servant and respect for his outraged feelings the Emperor of all the
Russias descended from his Alpine altitude to send to the Toussaud
waxwork the general’s uniform worn last by his father, and to write with
his own hand an authenticating letter to go with it. So the
simple-hearted police chief was happy once more, and never once thought
of charging the “museum” $10,000 for these valuable additions to the
show, which he might easily have done, and collected the money, too. How
like our own chiefs of police this good old soul is!
Another of these English gentlemen told an anecdote, which, he said, was
old, but which I had not heard before. He said that one day St. Peter
and the devil chanced to be thrown together, and found it pretty dull
trying to pass the time. Finally they got to throwing dice for a lawyer.
The devil threw sixes. Then St. Peter threw sixes. The devil threw sixes
again. St. Peter threw sixes again. The devil threw sixes once more.
Then St. Peter threw sevens, and the devil said, “Oh, come now, Your
Honor, cheat fair. None of your playing miracles here!” I thought there
was a nice bit of humor in that suggestion to “cheat fair.”