The Complete Works of Mark Twain - Part 14

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The Complete Works of Mark Twain - Part 14

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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 momsus 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 his 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 correct.  In them he uniformly and impartially
died at the age of 95.  This could not have been.  He might have
done that once, or maybe twice, but he could not have continued
it indefinitely.  Allowing that when he first died, he died at
the age of 95, he was 151 years old when he died last, in 1864.
But his age did not keep pace with his recollections.  When he died
the last time, he distinctly remembered the landing of the Pilgrims,
which took place in 1620.  He must have been about twenty years
old when he witnessed that event, wherefore it is safe to assert
that the body-servant of General Washington was in the neighborhood
of two hundred and sixty or seventy years old when he departed this
life finally.

Having waited a proper length of time, to see if the subject of his
sketch had gone from us reliably and irrevocably, I now publish his
biography with confidence, and respectfully offer it to a mourning nation.

P.S.--I see by the papers that this imfamous old fraud has just
died again, in Arkansas.  This makes six times that he is known
to have died, and always in a new place.  The death of Washington's
body-servant has ceased to be a novelty; it's charm is gone;
the people are tired of it; let it cease.  This well-meaning
but misguided negro has not put six different communities to the
expense of burying him in state, and has swindled tens of thousands
of people into following him to the grave under the delusion that
a select and peculiar distinction was being conferred upon them.
Let him stay buried for good now; and let that newspaper suffer
the severest censure that shall ever, in all the future time,
publish to the world that General Washington's favorite colored
body-servant has died again.






WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE "TWO-YEAR-OLDS"



All infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable fashion
nowadays of saying "smart" things on most occasions that offer,
and especially on occasions when they ought not to be saying anything
at all.  Judging by the average published specimens of smart sayings,
the rising generation of children are little better than idiots.
And the parents must surely be but little better than the children,
for in most cases they are the publishers of the sunbursts of infantile
imbecility which dazzle us from the pages of our periodicals.
I may seem to speak with some heat, not to say a suspicion of
personal spite; and I do admit that it nettles me to hear about so
many gifted infants in these days, and remember that I seldom said
anything smart when I was a child.  I tried it once or twice, but it
was not popular.  The family were not expecting brilliant remarks
from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes and spanked me the rest.
But it makes my flesh creep and my blood run cold to think what might
have happened to me if I had dared to utter some of the smart things
of this generation's "four-year-olds" where my father could hear me.
To have simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at an end
would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one so sinning.
He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of precocity.
If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said them in
his hearing, he would have destroyed me.  He would, indeed.  He would,
provided the opportunity remained with him.  But it would not,
for I would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first
and say my smart thing afterward.  The fair record of my life has
been tarnished by just one pun.  My father overheard that, and he
hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my life.
If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right;
but, child as I was, I could not know how wicked a thing I
had done.

I made one of those remarks ordinarily called "smart things"
before that, but it was not a pun.  Still, it came near causing a
serious rupture between my father and myself.  My father and mother,
my uncle Ephraim and his wife, and one or two others were present,
and the conversation turned on a name for me.  I was lying there
trying some India-rubber rings of various patterns, and endeavoring
to make a selection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth on
people's fingers, and wanted to get hold of something that would
enable me to hurry the thing through and get something else.
Did you ever notice what a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on
your nurse's finger, or how back-breaking and tiresome it was trying
to cut them on your big toe?  And did you never get out of patience
and wish your teeth were in Jerico long before you got them half cut?
To me it seems as if these things happened yesterday.  And they did,
to some children.  But I digress.  I was lying there trying the
India-rubber rings.  I remember looking at the clock and noticing
that in an hour and twenty-five minutes I would be two weeks old,
and thinking how little I had done to merit the blessings that were so
unsparingly lavished upon me.  My father said:

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

My mother said:

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

I said:

"Abraham suits the subscriber."

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

"What a little darling it is!"

My father said:

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

My mother assented, and said:

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

I said:

"All right.  Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours truly.
Pass me that rattle, if you please.  I can't chew India-rubber rings
all day."

Not a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for publication.
I saw that, and did it myself, else they would have been utterly lost.
So far from meeting with a generous encouragement like other children
when developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon
by my father; my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt
had about her an expression of seeming to think that maybe I had
gone too far.  I took a vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring,
and covertly broke the rattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing.
Presently my father said:

"Samuel is a very excellent name."

I saw that trouble was coming.  Nothing could prevent it.  I laid
down my rattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my uncle's
silver watch, the clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier,
the nutmeg-grater, and other matters which I was accustomed to examine,
and meditate upon and make pleasant noises with, and bang and batter
and break when I needed wholesome entertainment.  Then I put on my
little frock and my little bonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one
hand and my licorice in the other, and climbed out on the floor.
I said to myself, Now, if the worse comes to worst, I am ready.
Then I said aloud, in a firm voice:

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

"My son!"

"Father, I mean it.  I cannot."

"Why?"

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

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

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

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

"Not so very."

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

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

And then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied forth after me.
He overtook me at noon the following day, and when the interview was
over I had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing, and other
useful information; and by means of this compromise my father's
wrath was appeased and a misunderstanding bridged over which might
have become a permanent rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable.
But just judging by this episode, what would my father have done
to me if I had ever uttered in his hearing one of the flat,
sickly things these "two-years-olds" say in print nowadays?
In my opinion there would have been a case of infanticide in our family.






AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE



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


AN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN


Perhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain have been
descriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his humor at all.
We have become familiar with the Californians who were thrilled with
terror by his burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story,
and we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned
his INNOCENTS ABROAD to the book-agent with the remark that "the
man who could shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot."
But Mark Twain may now add a much more glorious instance to his string
of trophies.  The SATURDAY REVIEW, in its number of October 8th,
reviews his book of travels, which has been republished in England,
and reviews it seriously.  We can imagine the delight of the humorist
in reading this tribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing
in itself that he can hardly do better than reproduce the article
in full in his next monthly Memoranda.


(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of authority
for reproducing the SATURDAY REVIEW'S article in full in these pages.
I dearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write anything half so
delicious myself.  If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this
English criticism and preserve his austerity, I would drive him
off the door-step.)


(From the London "Saturday Review.")


REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS


THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.  A Book of Travels.  By Mark Twain.
London:  Hotten, publisher.  1870.


Lord Macaulay died too soon.  We never felt this so deeply as when we
finished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work.
Macaulay died too soon--for none but he could mete out complete
and comprehensive justice to the insolence, the impertinence,
the presumption, the mendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance
of this author.

To say that the INNOCENTS ABROAD is a curious book, would be to
use the faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn
as a neat elevation or of Niagara as being "nice" or "pretty."
"Curious" is too tame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity
of this work.  There is no word that is large enough or long enough.
Let us, therefore, photograph a passing glimpse of book and author,
and trust the rest to the reader.  Let the cultivated English student
of human nature picture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable
of doing the following-described things--and not only doing them,
but with incredible innocence PRINTING THEM calmly and tranquilly
in a book.  For instance:

He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get shaved,
and the first "rake" the barber gave him with his razor it LOOSENED
HIS "HIDE" and LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE CHAIR.

This is unquestionably exaggerated.  In Florence he was so annoyed
by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a
frantic spirit of revenge.  There is, of course, no truth in this.
He gives at full length a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen
hundred years old, which he professes to have found in the ruins
of the Coliseum, among the dirt and mold and rubbish.  It is a
sufficient comment upon this statement to remark that even a cast-iron
program would not have lasted so long under such circumstances.
In Greece he plainly betrays both fright and flight upon one occasion,
but with frozen effrontery puts the latter in this falsely tamed form:
"We SIDLED toward the Piraeus."  "Sidled," indeed!  He does not hesitate
to intimate that at Ephesus, when his mule strayed from the proper course,
he got down, took him under his arm, carried him to the road again,
pointed him right, remounted, and went to sleep contentedly till
it was time to restore the beast to the path once more.  He states
that a growing youth among his ship's passengers was in the constant
habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum between meals.
In Palestine he tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend
the summer in the desert and brought their provisions with them;
yet he shows by his description of the country that the feat was
an impossibility.  He mentions, as if it were the most commonplace
of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight in Jerusalem,
with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shed more blood IF
HE HAD HAD A GRAVEYARD OF HIS OWN.  These statements are unworthy
a moment's attention.  Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who did
such a thing in Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly
lose his life.  But why go on?  Why repeat more of his audacious
and exasperating falsehoods?  Let us close fittingly with this one:
he affirms that "in the mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople
I got my feet so stuck up with a complication of gums, slime,
and general impurity, that I wore out more than two thousand
pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that night, and even then
some Christian hide peeled off with them."  It is monstrous.
Such statements are simply lies--there is no other name for them.
Will the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that pervades
the American nation when we tell him that we are informed upon perfectly
good authority that this extravagant compilation of falsehoods,
this exhaustless mine of stupendous lies, this INNOCENTS ABROAD,
has actually been adopted by the schools and colleges of several
of the states as a text-book!

But if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his ignorance
are enough to make one burn the book and despise the author.  In one
place he was so appalled at the sudden spectacle of a murdered man,
unveiled by the moonlight, that he jumped out of the window,
going through sash and all, and then remarks with the most childlike
simplicity that he "was not scared, but was considerably agitated."
It puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton is densely
unconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage.
He is vulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough
to criticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue.  He says they
spell the name of their great painter "Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy"
--and then adds with a naivete possible only to helpless ignorance,
"foreigners always spell better than they pronounce."  In another
place he commits the bald absurdity of putting the phrase "tare
an ouns" into an Italian's mouth.  In Rome he unhesitatingly
believes the legend that St. Philip Neri's heart was so inflamed
with divine love that it burst his ribs--believes it wholly
because an author with a learned list of university degrees strung
after his name endorses it--"otherwise," says this gentle idiot,
"I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philip had for dinner."
Our author makes a long, fatiguing journey to the Grotto del Cane
on purpose to test its poisoning powers on a dog--got elaborately
ready for the experiment, and then discovered that he had no dog.
A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,
but with this harmless creature everything comes out.  He hurts
his foot in a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii,
and presently, when staring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed
in the next square, conceives the idea that maybe it is the remains
of the ancient Street Commissioner, and straightway his horror softens
down to a sort of chirpy contentment with the condition of things.
In Damascus he visits the well of Ananias, three thousand years old,
and is as surprised and delighted as a child to find that the water
is "as pure and fresh as if the well had been dug yesterday."
In the Holy Land he gags desperately at the hard Arabic and Hebrew
Biblical names, and finally concludes to call them Baldwinsville,
Williamsburgh, and so on, "for convenience of spelling."

We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity
and innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance.
We do not know where to begin.  And if we knew where to begin,
we certainly would not know where to leave off.  We will give
one specimen, and one only.  He did not know, until he got to Rome,
that Michael Angelo was dead!  And then, instead of crawling away
and hiding his shameful ignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express
a pious, grateful sort of satisfaction that he is gone and out
of his troubles!

No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his
uncultivation for himself.  The book is absolutely dangerous,
considering the magnitude and variety of its misstatements,
and the convincing confidence with which they are made.
And yet it is a text-book in the schools of America.

The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the
Old Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in
art-knowledge, which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a
proper thing for a traveled man to be able to display.  But what is
the manner of his study?  And what is the progress he achieves?
To what extent does he familiarize himself with the great pictures
of Italy, and what degree of appreciation does he arrive at?  Read:

"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven,
we know that that is St. Mark.  When we see a monk with a book and a pen,
looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know
that that is St. Matthew.  When we see a monk sitting on a rock,
looking tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him,
and without other baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome.
Because we know that he always went flying light in the matter
of baggage.  When we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven,
but having no trade-mark, we always ask who those parties are.
We do this because we humbly wish to learn."

He then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these
several pictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed
simplicity that he feels encouraged to believe that when he has seen
"Some More" of each, and had a larger experience, he will eventually
"begin to take an absorbing interest in them"--the vulgar boor.

That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one
will deny.  That is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the
confiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown.  That the book
is a deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent
upon every page.  Having placed our judgment thus upon record,
let us close with what charity we can, by remarking that even in this
volume there is some good to be found; for whenever the author talks
of his own country and lets Europe alone, he never fails to make
himself interesting, and not only interesting but instructive.
No one can read without benefit his occasional chapters and paragraphs,
about life in the gold and silver mines of California and Nevada;
about the Indians of the plains and deserts of the West,
and their cannibalism; about the raising of vegetables in kegs of
gunpowder by the aid of two or three teaspoons of guano; about the
moving of small arms from place to place at night in wheelbarrows
to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules in the Humboldt
mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the people at night.
These matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing.
It is a pity the author did not put in more of the same kind.
His book is well written and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it
just barely escaped being quite valuable also.


(One month later)


Latterly I have received several letters, and see a number of
newspaper paragraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of about
the same tenor.  I here give honest specimens.  One is from a New
York paper, one is from a letter from an old friend, and one is
from a letter from a New York publisher who is a stranger to me.
I humbly endeavor to make these bits toothsome with the remark that
the article they are praising (which appeared in the December GALAXY,
and PRETENDED to be a criticism from the London SATURDAY REVIEW
on my INNOCENTS ABROAD) WAS WRITTEN BY MYSELF, EVERY LINE OF IT:


The HERALD says the richest thing out is the "serious critique"
in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, on Mark Twain's INNOCENTS ABROAD.
We thought before we read it that it must be "serious," as everybody
said so, and were even ready to shed a few tears; but since perusing it,
we are bound to confess that next to Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog"
it's the finest bit of humor and sarcasm that we've come across in many
a day.


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


I used to think that your writings were pretty good, but after reading
the criticism in THE GALAXY from the LONDON REVIEW, have discovered
what an ass I must have been.  If suggestions are in order, mine is,
that you put that article in your next edition of the INNOCENTS,
as an extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put your own humor
in competition with it.  It is as rich a thing as I ever read.


(Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)


The London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, "serious" creature
he pretends to be, _I_ think; but, on the contrary, has a keep
appreciation and enjoyment of your book.  As I read his article in
THE GALAXY, I could imagine him giving vent to many a hearty laugh.
But he is writing for Catholics and Established Church people,
and high-toned, antiquated, conservative gentility, whom it is
a delight to him to help you shock, while he pretends to shake his
head with owlish density.  He is a magnificent humorist himself.


(Now that is graceful and handsome.  I take off my hat to my life-long
friend and comrade, and with my feet together and my fingers spread
over my heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, "You do me proud.")

I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean
any harm.  I saw by an item in the Boston ADVERTISER that a solemn,
serious critique on the English edition of my book had appeared
in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, and the idea of SUCH a literary
breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too
much for a naturally weak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it
--reveled in it, I may say.  I never saw a copy of the real SATURDAY
REVIEW criticism until after my burlesque was written and mailed
to the printer.  But when I did get hold of a copy, I found it
to be vulgar, awkwardly written, ill-natured, and entirely serious
and in earnest.  The gentleman who wrote the newspaper paragraph
above quoted had not been misled as to its character.

If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him.  No, I will not
kill him; I will win his money.  I will bet him twenty to one,
and let any New York publisher hold the stakes, that the statements I
have above made as to the authorship of the article in question are
entirely true.  Perhaps I may get wealthy at this, for I am willing
to take all the bets that offer; and if a man wants larger odds,
I will give him all he requires.  But he ought to find out whether
I am betting on what is termed "a sure thing" or not before he
ventures his money, and he can do that by going to a public
library and examining the London SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th,
which contains the real critique.

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


P.S.--I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most savory
thing of all--this easy, graceful, philosophical disquisition,
with his happy, chirping confidence.  It is from the Cincinnati ENQUIRER:


Nothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar.
Nine smokers out of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article,
three for a quarter, to fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in ignorance
of the cost of the latter.  The flavor of the Partaga is too delicate
for palates that have been accustomed to Connecticut seed leaf.
So it is with humor.  The finer it is in quality, the more danger
of its not being recognized at all.  Even Mark Twain has been taken
in by an English review of his INNOCENTS ABROAD.  Mark Twain is by
no means a coarse humorist, but the Englishman's humor is so much
finer than his, that he mistakes it for solid earnest, and "lafts
most consumedly."


A man who cannot learn stands in his own light.  Hereafter, when I
write an article which I know to be good, but which I may have reason
to fear will not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to much,
coming from an American, I will aver that an Englishman wrote it
and that it is copied from a London journal.  And then I will occupy
a back seat and enjoy the cordial applause.


(Still later)


Mark Twain at last sees that the SATURDAY REVIEW'S criticism of his
INNOCENTS ABROAD was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at the
thought of having been so badly sold.  He takes the only course left him,
and in the last GALAXY claims that HE wrote the criticism himself,
and published it in THE GALAXY to sell the public.  This is ingenious,
but unfortunately it is not true.  If any of our readers will take
the trouble to call at this office we sill show them the original
article in the SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, which, on comparison,
will be found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY.
The best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold,
and say no more about it.


The above is from the Cincinnati ENQUIRER, and is a falsehood.
Come to the proof.  If the ENQUIRER people, through any agent,
will produce at THE GALAXY office a London SATURDAY REVIEW
of October 8th, containing an article which, on comparison,
will be found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY,
I will pay to that agent five hundred dollars cash.  Moreover, if at
any specified time I fail to produce at the same place a copy
of the London SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, containing a lengthy
criticism upon the INNOCENTS ABROAD, entirely different, in every
paragraph and sentence, from the one I published in THE GALAXY,
I will pay to the ENQUIRER agent another five hundred dollars cash.
I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers, 500 Broadway, New York,
as my "backers."  Any one in New York, authorized by the ENQUIRER,
will receive prompt attention.  It is an easy and profitable way
for the ENQUIRER people to prove that they have not uttered a pitiful,
deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs.  Will they swallow
that falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent to THE
GALAXY office.  I think the Cincinnati ENQUIRER must be edited
by children.






A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY



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

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


Sir,--Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached
an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in
straitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following order:

Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace,
gold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred.

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

Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency, vintage of 1866,
eligible for kindlings.

Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale
at lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to

Your obliged servant,

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






AMENDED OBITUARIES

TO THE EDITOR:


Sir,--I am approaching seventy; it is in sight; it is only three
years away.  Necessarily, I must go soon.  It is but matter-of-course
wisdom, then, that I should begin to set my worldly house in
order now, so that it may be done calmly and with thoroughness,
in place of waiting until the last day, when, as we have often seen,
the attempt to set both houses in order at the same time has been
marred by the necessity for haste and by the confusion and waste
of time arising from the inability of the notary and the ecclesiastic
to work together harmoniously, taking turn about and giving each
other friendly assistance--not perhaps in fielding, which could
hardly be expected, but at least in the minor offices of keeping
game and umpiring; by consequence of which conflict of interests
and absence of harmonious action a draw has frequently resulted
where this ill-fortune could not have happened if the houses had been
set in order one at a time and hurry avoided by beginning in season,
and giving to each the amount of time fairly and justly proper to it.

In setting my earthly house in order I find it of moment that I
should attend in person to one or two matters which men in my
position have long had the habit of leaving wholly to others,
with consequences often most regrettable.  I wish to speak of only
one of these matters at this time:  Obituaries.  Of necessity,
an Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously edited by any hand
as by that of the subject of it.  In such a work it is not the Facts
that are of chief importance, but the light which the obituarist
shall throw upon them, the meaning which he shall dress them in,
the conclusions which he shall draw from them, and the judgments
which he shall deliver upon them.  The Verdicts, you understand:
that is the danger-line.

In considering this matter, in view of my approaching change,
it has seemed to me wise to take such measures as may be feasible,
to acquire, by courtesy of the press, access to my standing obituaries,
with the privilege--if this is not asking too much--of editing,
not their Facts, but their Verdicts.  This, not for the present profit,
further than as concerns my family, but as a favorable influence
usable on the Other Side, where there are some who are not friendly
to me.

With this explanation of my motives, I will now ask you of your
courtesy to make an appeal for me to the public press.  It is my
desire that such journals and periodicals as have obituaries of me
lying in their pigeonholes, with a view to sudden use some day,
will not wait longer, but will publish them now, and kindly send
me a marked copy.  My address is simply New York City--I have no
other that is permanent and not transient.

I will correct them--not the Facts, but the Verdicts--striking out
such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the Other Side,
and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character.
I should, of course, expect to pay double rates for both the omissions
and the substitutions; and I should also expect to pay quadruple
rates for all obituaries which proved to be rightly and wisely worded
in the originals, thus requiring no emendations at all.

It is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries neatly bound
behind me as a perennial consolation and entertainment to my family,
and as an heirloom which shall have a mournful but definite
commercial value for my remote posterity.

I beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement (1t-eow, agate,
inside), and send the bill to

Yours very respectfully.

Mark Twain.


P.S.--For the best Obituary--one suitable for me to read in public,
and calculated to inspire regret--I desire to offer a Prize,
consisting of a Portrait of me done entirely by myself in pen and ink
without previous instructions.  The ink warranted to be the kind
used by the very best artists.






A MONUMENT TO ADAM



Some one has revealed to the TRIBUNE that I once suggested
to Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up
a monument to Adam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project.
There is more to it than that.  The matter started as a joke,
but it came somewhat near to materializing.

It is long ago--thirty years.  Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN has been
in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised
by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals.  In tracing
the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had
left Adam out altogether.  We had monkeys, and "missing links,"
and plenty of other kinds of ancestors, but no Adam.  Jesting with
Mr. Beecher and other friends in Elmira, I said there seemed to be
a likelihood that the world would discard Adam and accept the monkey,
and that in the course of time Adam's very name would be forgotten
in the earth; therefore this calamity ought to be averted;
a monument would accomplish this, and Elmira ought not to waste
this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor and herself a credit.

Then the unexpected happened.  Two bankers came forward and took
hold of the matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they
saw in the monument certain commercial advantages for the town.
The project had seemed gently humorous before--it was more than
that now, with this stern business gravity injected into it.
The bankers discussed the monument with me.  We met several times.
They proposed an indestructible memorial, to cost twenty-five
thousand dollars.  The insane oddity of a monument set up in a village
to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without
any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth
--and draw custom.  It would be the only monument on the planet
to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could
never have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the
Milky Way.

People would come from every corner of the globe and stop off
to look at it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out
Adam's monument.  Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim
ships at pilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's railways;
libraries would be written about the monument, every tourist would
kodak it, models of it would be for sale everywhere in the earth,
its form would become as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.

One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think
the other one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with
certainty now whether that was the figure or not.  We got designs made
--some of them came from Paris.

In the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke
--I had framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to
Congress begging the government to built the monument, as a testimony
of the Great Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race
and as a token of her loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation
when his older children were doubting and deserting him.  It seemed
to me that this petition ought to be presented, now--it would be
widely and feelingly abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would
advertise our scheme and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly.
So I sent it to General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House,
and he said he would present it.  But he did not do it.  I think
he explained that when he came to read it he was afraid of it:
it was too serious, to gushy, too sentimental--the House might take it
for earnest.

We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could
have managed it without any great difficulty, and Elmira would
now be the most celebrated town in the universe.

Very recently I began to build a book in which one of the minor
characters touches incidentally upon a project for a monument to Adam,
and now the TRIBUNE has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of
thirty years ago.  Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business.
It is odd; but the freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.






A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN



[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from him,
we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark Twain.
--Editor.]

TO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:


Dear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous talk.
The American Board accepts contributions from me every year:
then why shouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller?  In all the ages,
three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been
conscience-money, as my books will show:  then what becomes of
the sting when that term is applied to Mr. Rockefeller's gift?
The American Board's trade is financed mainly from the graveyards.
Bequests, you understand.  Conscience-money. Confession of an old
crime and deliberate perpetration of a new one; for deceased's
contribution is a robbery of his heirs.  Shall the Board decline
bequests because they stand for one of these offenses every time and
generally for both?

Allow me to continue.  The charge must persistently and resentfully
and remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is
incurably tainted by perjury--perjury proved against him in the courts.
IT MAKES US SMILE--down in my place!  Because there isn't a rich
man in your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before
the tax board.  They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick.
Iron-clad, so to speak.  If there is one that isn't, I desire
to acquire him for my museum, and will pay Dinosaur rates.
Will you say it isn't infraction of the law, but only annual evasion
of it?  Comfort yourselves with that nice distinction if you like
--FOR THE PRESENT.  But by and by, when you arrive, I will show you
something interesting:  a whole hell-full of evaders!  Sometimes a
frank law-breaker turns up elsewhere, but I get those others every time.

To return to my muttons.  I wish you to remember that my rich
perjurers are contributing to the American Board with frequency:
it is money filched from the sworn-off personal tax; therefore it
is the wages of sin; therefore it is my money; therefore it is _I_
that contribute it; and, finally, it is therefore as I have said:
since the Board daily accepts contributions from me, why should it
decline them from Mr. Rockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the
courts say what they may?


Satan.







INTRODUCTION TO "THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN

PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH"


by Pedro Carolino



In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing
which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty:  and that is,
that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the
English language lasts.  Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness,
and its enchanting naivete, as are supreme and unapproachable,
in their way, as are Shakespeare's sublimities.  Whatsoever is
perfect in its kind, in literature, is imperishable:  nobody can
imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow;
it is perfect, it must and will stand alone:  its immortality
is secure.

It is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big books have
received such wide attention, and been so much pondered by the grave
and learned, and so much discussed and written about by the thoughtful,
the thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish.  Long notices of it
have appeared, from time to time, in the great English reviews,
and in erudite and authoritative philological periodicals; and it
has been laughed at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly
every newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world.
Every scribbler, almost, has had his little fling at it, at one time
or another; I had mine fifteen years ago.  The book gets out of print,
every now and then, and one ceases to hear of it for a season;
but presently the nations and near and far colonies of our tongue
and lineage call for it once more, and once more it issues from some
London or Continental or American press, and runs a new course around
the globe, wafted on its way by the wind of a world's laughter.

Many persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities
were studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume
carefully through and keep that opinion.  It was written in
serious good faith and deep earnestness, by an honest and upright
idiot who believed he knew something of the English language,
and could impart his knowledge to others.  The amplest proof
of this crops out somewhere or other upon each and every page.
There are sentences in the book which could have been manufactured
by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent and deliberate
purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there are other sentences,
and paragraphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could ever achieve
--nor yet even the most genuine and comprehensive ignorance,
when unbacked by inspiration.

It is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of the
author's Preface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience
is at rest, a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for
his nation and his generation, and is well pleased with his performance:


We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him,
and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the
acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth,
at which we dedicate him particularly.


One cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness.
To prove that this is true, I will open it at random and copy
the page I happen to stumble upon.  Here is the result:



DIALOGUE 16


For To See the Town



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

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

Come with me, if you please.  I shall not folget nothing what can
to merit your attention.  Here we are near to cathedral; will you
come in there?

We will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in there
for to look the interior.

Admire this master piece gothic architecture's.

The chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.

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

What is this palace how I see yonder?

It is the town hall.

And this tower here at this side?

It is the Observatory.

The bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is constructed
of free stone.

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

What is the circuit of this town?

Two leagues.

There is it also hospitals here?

It not fail them.

What are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?

It is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse,
and the Purse.

We are going too see the others monuments such that the public
pawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money office's,
the library.

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



DIALOGUE 17


To Inform One'self of a Person



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

Is a German.

I did think him Englishman.

He is of the Saxony side.

He speak the french very well.

Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish
and english, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan,
he speak the frenche as the Frenches himselves.  The Spanishesmen
believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman.  It is
difficult to enjoy well so much several languages.


The last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to be a truth
when one contracts it and apples it to an individual--provided that
that individual is the author of this book, Sehnor Pedro Carolino.
I am sure I should not find it difficult "to enjoy well so much
several languages"--or even a thousand of them--if he did the
translating for me from the originals into his ostensible English.






ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS



Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for
every trifling offense.  This retaliation should only be resorted
to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances.

If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one
of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one,
you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless.
And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless
your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able
to do it.

You ought never to take your little brother's "chewing-gum" away
from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise
of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the
river on a grindstone.  In the artless simplicity natural to this
time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction.
In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured
the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother,
do not correct him with mud--never, on any account, throw mud at him,
because it will spoil his clothes.  It is better to scald him a little,
for then you obtain desirable results.  You secure his immediate
attention to the lessons you are inculcating, and at the same time
your hot water will have a tendency to move impurities from his person,
and possibly the skin, in spots.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply
that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate
that you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly
in the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment.

You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you
are indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home
from school when you let on that you are sick.  Therefore you ought
to respect their little prejudices, and humor their little whims,
and put up with their little foibles until they get to crowding you
too much.

Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged.
You ought never to "sass" old people unless they "sass" you first.






POST-MORTEM POETRY [1]


In Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant
to see adopted throughout the land.  It is that of appending to
published death-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry.
Any one who is in the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia
LEDGER must frequently be touched by these plaintive tributes
to extinguished worth.  In Philadelphia, the departure of a child
is a circumstance which is not more surely followed by a burial
than by the accustomed solacing poesy in the PUBLIC LEDGER.
In that city death loses half its terror because the knowledge
of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery of verse.
For instance, in a late LEDGER I find the following (I change
the surname):


DIED


Hawks.--On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim
and Laura Hawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.


     That merry shout no more I hear,
     No laughing child I see,
     No little arms are around my neck,
     No feet upon my knee;

     No kisses drop upon my cheek,
     These lips are sealed to me.
     Dear Lord, how could I give Clara up
     To any but to Thee?


A child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented.
From the LEDGER of the same date I make the following extract,
merely changing the surname, as before:


Becket.--On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son
of George and Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.


     That merry shout no more I hear,
     No laughing child I see,
     No little arms are round my neck,
     No feet upon my knee;

     No kisses drop upon my cheek;
     These lips are sealed to me.
     Dear Lord, how could I give Johnnie up
     To any but to Thee?


The similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners in these
two instances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity
of thought which they experienced, and the surprising coincidence
of language used by them to give it expression.

In the same journal, of the same date, I find the following
(surname suppressed, as before):


Wagner.--On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William
L. and Martha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.


     That merry shout no more I hear,
     No laughing child I see,
     No little arms are round my neck,
     No feet upon my knee;

     No kisses drop upon my cheek,
     These lips are sealed to me.
     Dear Lord, how could I give Ferguson up
     To any but to Thee?


It is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical
thought has upon one's feelings.  When we take up the LEDGER
and read the poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable
depression of the spirits.  When we drift further down the column
and read the poetry about little Johnnie, the depression and spirits
acquires and added emphasis, and we experience tangible suffering.
When we saunter along down the column further still and read
the poetry about little Ferguson, the word torture but vaguely
suggests the anguish that rends us.

In the LEDGER (same copy referred to above) I find the following
(I alter surname, as usual):


Welch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch,
and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year
of her age.


     A mother dear, a mother kind,
     Has gone and left us all behind.
     Cease to weep, for tears are vain,
     Mother dear is out of pain.

     Farewell, husband, children dear,
     Serve thy God with filial fear,
     And meet me in the land above,
     Where all is peace, and joy, and love.


What could be sweeter than that?  No collection of salient facts
(without reduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated
than is done in the first stanza by the surviving relatives,
and no more concise and comprehensive program of farewells,
post-mortuary general orders, etc., could be framed in any
form than is done in verse by deceased in the last stanza.
These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and better.
Another extract:


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


     'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope
     That when my change shall come
     Angels will hover round my bed,
     To waft my spirit home.

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


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


     Dearest father, thou hast left us,
     Hear thy loss we deeply feel;
     But 'tis God that has bereft us,
     He can all our sorrows heal.

     Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.


There is something very simple and pleasant about the following,
which, in Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives
of long standing.  (It deplores four distinct cases in the single
copy of the LEDGER which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):


Bromley.--On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley,
in the 50th year of his age.

     Affliction sore long time he bore,
     Physicians were in vain--
     Till God at last did hear him mourn,
     And eased him of his pain.

     That friend whom death from us has torn,
     We did not think so soon to part;
     An anxious care now sinks the thorn
     Still deeper in our bleeding heart.


This beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition.  On the contrary,
the oftener one sees it in the LEDGER, the more grand and awe-inspiring
it seems.

With one more extract I will close:


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


     Our little Sammy's gone,
     His tiny spirit's fled;
     Our little boy we loved so dear
     Lies sleeping with the dead.

     A tear within a father's eye,
     A mother's aching heart,
     Can only tell the agony
     How hard it is to part.


Could anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further
concessions of grammar?  Could anything be likely to do more toward
reconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go?
Perhaps not.  The power of song can hardly be estimated.  There is
an element about some poetry which is able to make even physical
suffering and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations
to be desired.  This element is present in the mortuary poetry
of Philadelphia degree of development.

The custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted
in all the cities of the land.

It is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the
Rev. T. K. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon
--a man who abhors the lauding of people, either dead or alive,
except in dignified and simple language, and then only for merits
which they actually possessed or possess, not merits which they
merely ought to have possessed.  The friends of the deceased got
up a stately funeral.  They must have had misgivings that the
corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for they prepared
some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was left
unsaid on that subject that a fervid imagination and an unabridged
dictionary could compile, and these they handed to the minister
as he entered the pulpit.  They were merely intended as suggestions,
and so the friends were filled with consternation when the minister
stood in the pulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds
and ends in ghastly detail and in a loud voice!  And their
consternation solidified to petrification when he paused at the end,
contemplated the multitude reflectively, and then said, impressively:

"The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that.
Let us pray!"

And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the
man would be a fool who tried to add anything to the following
transcendent obituary poem.  There is something so innocent,
so guileless, so complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied
about this peerless "hog-wash," that the man must be made of stone
who can read it without a dulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone
and quivering in his marrow.  There is no need to say that this
poem is genuine and in earnest, for its proofs are written all
over its face.  An ingenious scribbler might imitate it after
a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not counterfeit it.
It is noticeable that the country editor who published it did
not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its
kind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show.
He did not dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet
must have been something of an apparition--but he just shoveled
it into his paper anywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed,
and put that disgusted "Published by Request" over it, and hoped
that his subscribers would overlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:


(Published by Request)


LINES

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


by M. A. Glaze

     Friends and neighbors all draw near,
     And listen to what I have to say;
     And never leave your children dear
     When they are small, and go away.

     But always think of that sad fate,
     That happened in year of '63;
     Four children with a house did burn,
     Think of their awful agony.

     Their mother she had gone away,
     And left them there alone to stay;
     The house took fire and down did burn;
     Before their mother did return.

     Their piteous cry the neighbors heard,
     And then the cry of fire was given;
     But, ah! before they could them reach,
     Their little spirits had flown to heaven.

     Their father he to war had gone,
     And on the battle-field was slain;
     But little did he think when he went away,
     But what on earth they would meet again.

     The neighbors often told his wife
     Not to leave his children there,
     Unless she got some one to stay,
     And of the little ones take care.

     The oldest he was years not six,
     And the youngest only eleven months old,
     But often she had left them there alone,
     As, by the neighbors, I have been told.

     How can she bear to see the place.
     Where she so oft has left them there,
     Without a single one to look to them,
     Or of the little ones to take good care.

     Oh, can she look upon the spot,
     Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,
     But what she thinks she hears them say,
     ''Twas God had pity, and took us on high.'

     And there may she kneel down and pray,
     And ask God her to forgive;
     And she may lead a different life
     While she on earth remains to live.

     Her husband and her children too,
     God has took from pain and woe.
     May she reform and mend her ways,
     That she may also to them go.

     And when it is God's holy will,
     O, may she be prepared
     To meet her God and friends in peace,
     And leave this world of care.

1.  Written in 1870.






THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED


The man in the ticket-office said:

"Have an accident insurance ticket, also?"

"No," I said, after studying the matter over a little.  "No, I
believe not; I am going to be traveling by rail all day today.
However, tomorrow I don't travel.  Give me one for tomorrow."

The man looked puzzled.  He said:

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

"If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it.  Lying at home
in bed is the thing _I_ am afraid of."

I had been looking into this matter.  Last year I traveled twenty
thousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled
over twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail;
and the year before that I traveled in the neighborhood of ten
thousand miles, exclusively by rail.  I suppose if I put in all
the little odd journeys here and there, I may say I have traveled
sixty thousand miles during the three years I have mentioned.
AND NEVER AN ACCIDENT.

For a good while I said to myself every morning:  "Now I
have escaped thus far, and so the chances are just that much
increased that I shall catch it this time.  I will be shrewd,
and buy an accident ticket."  And to a dead moral certainty I
drew a blank, and went to bed that night without a joint started
or a bone splintered.  I got tired of that sort of daily bother,
and fell to buying accident tickets that were good for a month.
I said to myself, "A man CAN'T buy thirty blanks in one bundle."

But I was mistaken.  There was never a prize in the the lot.
I could read of railway accidents every day--the newspaper
atmosphere was foggy with them; but somehow they never came my way.
I found I had spent a good deal of money in the accident business,
and had nothing to show for it.  My suspicions were aroused, and I
began to hunt around for somebody that had won in this lottery.
I found plenty of people who had invested, but not an individual
that had ever had an accident or made a cent.  I stopped buying
accident tickets and went to ciphering.  The result was astounding.
THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.

I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all
the glaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters,
less than THREE HUNDRED people had really lost their lives by those
disasters in the preceding twelve months.  The Erie road was set
down as the most murderous in the list.  It had killed forty-six
--or twenty-six, I do not exactly remember which, but I know the
number was double that of any other road.  But the fact straightway
suggested itself that the Erie was an immensely long road, and did
more business than any other line in the country; so the double
number of killed ceased to be matter for surprise.

By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester
the Erie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day--16 altogether;
and carried a daily average of 6,000 persons.  That is about a million
in six months--the population of New York City.  Well, the Erie kills
from 13 to 23 persons of ITS million in six months; and in the same
time 13,000 of New York's million die in their beds!  My flesh crept,
my hair stood on end.  "This is appalling!"  I said.  "The danger
isn't in traveling by rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds.
I will never sleep in a bed again."

I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of
the Erie road.  It was plain that the entire road must transport
at least eleven or twelve thousand people every day.  There are
many short roads running out of Boston that do fully half as much;
a great many such roads.  There are many roads scattered about the
Union that do a prodigious passenger business.  Therefore it was fair
to presume that an average of 2,500 passengers a day for each road
in the country would be almost correct.  There are 846 railway
lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are 2,115,000. So the
railways of America move more than two millions of people every day;
six hundred and fifty millions of people a year, without counting
the Sundays.  They do that, too--there is no question about it;
though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the jurisdiction
of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and through,
and I find that there are not that many people in the United States,
by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.
They must use some of the same people over again, likely.

San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60
deaths a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter--if they
have luck.  That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight
times as many in New York--say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health
of the two places is the same.  So we will let it stand as a fair
presumption that this will hold good all over the country, and that
consequently 25,000 out of every million of people we have must die
every year.  That amounts to one-fortieth of our total population.
One million of us, then, die annually.  Out of this million ten
or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned,
or meet a similarly violent death in some other popular way,
such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations,
getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking
through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines,
or committing suicide in other forms.  The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46;
the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each;
and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that
appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds!

You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds.
The railroads are good enough for me.

And my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more than
you can help; but when you have GOT to stay at home a while,
buy a package of those insurance tickets and sit up nights.
You cannot be too cautious.

[One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner
recorded at the top of this sketch.]

The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble
more than is fair about railroad management in the United States.
When we consider that every day and night of the year full fourteen
thousand railway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life
and armed with death, go thundering over the land, the marvel is,
NOT that they kill three hundred human beings in a twelvemonth,
but that they do not kill three hundred times three hundred!






PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III


I never can look at those periodical portraits in THE GALAXY magazine
without feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist.
I have seen thousands and thousands of pictures in my time
--acres of them here and leagues of them in the galleries of Europe
--but never any that moved me as these portraits do.

There is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number,
now COULD anything be sweeter than that?  And there was Bismarck's,
in the October number; who can look at that without being purer
and stronger and nobler for it?  And Thurlow and Weed's picture
in the September number; I would not have died without seeing that,
no, not for anything this world can give.  But look back still
further and recall my own likeness as printed in the August number;
if I had been in my grave a thousand years when that appeared,
I would have got up and visited the artist.

I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that
I can go on studying them as soon as the day dawns in the morning.
I know them all as thoroughly as if I had made them myself; I know
every line and mark about them.  Sometimes when company are present
I shuffle the portraits all up together, and then pick them out
one by one and call their names, without referring to the printing
on the bottom.  I seldom make a mistake--never, when I am calm.

I have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till
my aunt gets everything ready for hanging them up in the parlor.
But first one thing and then another interferes, and so the thing
is delayed.  Once she said they would have more of the peculiar kind
of light they needed in the attic.  The old simpleton! it is as dark
as a tomb up there.  But she does not know anything about art,
and so she has no reverence for it.  When I showed her my "Map of
the Fortifications of Paris," she said it was rubbish.

Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last
to have a perfect infatuation for art.  I have a teacher now,
and my enthusiasm continually and tumultuously grows, as I learn
to use with more and more facility the pencil, brush, and graver.
I am studying under De Mellville, the house and portrait painter.
[His name was Smith when he lived in the West.] He does any kind
of artist work a body wants, having a genius that is universal,
like Michael Angelo.  Resembles that great artist, in fact.
The back of his head is like this, and he wears his hat-brim tilted
down on his nose to expose it.

I have been studying under De Mellville several months now.
The first month I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction.
The next month I white-washed a barn.  The third, I was doing
tin roofs; the forth, common signs; the fifth, statuary to stand
before cigar shops.  This present month is only the sixth, and I am
already in portraits!

The humble offering which accompanies these remarks [see figure]
--the portrait of his Majesty William III., King of Prussia
--is my fifth attempt in portraits, and my greatest success.
It has received unbounded praise from all classes of the community,
but that which gratifies me most is the frequent and cordial verdict
that it resembles the GALAXY portraits.  Those were my first love,
my earliest admiration, the original source and incentive of my
art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art today, I owe to these portraits.
I ask no credit for myself--I deserve none.  And I never take any,
either.  Many a stranger has come to my exhibition (for I have had my
portrait of King William on exhibition at one dollar a ticket), and
would have gone away blessing ME, if I had let him, but I never did.
I always stated where I got the idea.

King William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some critics have
thought that this portrait would be more complete if they were added.
But it was not possible.  There was not room for side-whiskers and
epaulets both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put in the epaulets,
for the sake of style.  That thing on his hat is an eagle.
The Prussian eagle--it is a national emblem.  When I say hat I
mean helmet; but it seems impossible to make a picture of a helmet
that a body can have confidence in.

I wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract
a little attention to the GALAXY portraits.  I feel persuaded it can
be accomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment.
I write for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men,
and if I can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask;
the reading-matter will take care of itself.


COMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT


There is nothing like it in the Vatican.  Pius IX.


It has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about it,
which many of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to in the
Murillo school of Art.  Ruskin.


The expression is very interesting.  J.W. Titian.


(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)


It is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.

Rosa Bonheur.


The smile may be almost called unique.  Bismarck.


I never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before.
De Mellville.


There is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this
work which warms the heart toward it as much, full as much,
as it fascinates the eye.  Landseer.


One cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.

Frederick William.


Send me the entire edition--together with the plate and the
original portrait--and name your own price.  And--would you
like to come over and stay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmsh:ohe?
It shall not cost you a cent.  William III.






DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?



Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and
petrified by custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity
a geologic period.



The day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend,
and he rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged
to the brim with joy--joy that was evidently a pleasant salve
to an old sore place:

"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying
that is irritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance
for a return jibe:  'An Englishman does dearly love a lord';
but after this I shall talk back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'"

It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get.
The man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery.
The man he says it to, thinks the same.  It departs on its travels,
is received everywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as
a piece of rare and acute observation, but as being exhaustively
true and profoundly wise; and so it presently takes its place
in the world's list of recognized and established wisdoms,
and after that no one thinks of examining it to see whether it is
really entitled to its high honors or not.  I call to mind instances
of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness is not
surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a lord:
one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty Dollar,
the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash for
a title, with a husband thrown in.

It isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar,
it is the human race.  The human race has always adored the hatful
of shells, or the bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings,
or the handful of steel fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives,
or the zareba full of cattle, or the two-score camels and asses,
or the factory, or the farm, or the block of buildings, or the
railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or the hoarded cash, or
--anything that stands for wealth and consideration and independence,
and can secure to the possessor that most precious of all things,
another man's envy.  It was a dull person that invented the idea
that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than
another's.

Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;
it had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America
was discovered.  European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;
and, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy
the husband without it.  They must put up the "dot," or there is
no trade.  The commercialization of brides is substantially universal,
except in America.  It exists with us, to some little extent,
but in no degree approaching a custom.

"The Englishman dearly loves a lord."

What is the soul and source of this love?  I think the thing could
be more correctly worded:

"The human race dearly envies a lord."

That is to say, it envies the lord's place.  Why?  On two accounts,
I think:  its Power and its Conspicuousness.

Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light
of our own observation and experience, we are able to measure
and comprehend, I think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as
passionate as is that of any other nation.  No one can care less
for a lord than the backwoodsman, who has had no personal contact
with lords and has seldom heard them spoken of; but I will not
allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy of a lord than has
the average American who has lived long years in a European capital
and fully learned how immense is the position the lord occupies.

Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,
to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred
will be there out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up
with desire to see a personage who is so much talked about.
They envy him; but it is Conspicuousness they envy mainly, not the
Power that is lodged in his royal quality and position, for they
have but a vague and spectral knowledge and appreciation of that;
though their environment and associations they have been accustomed
to regard such things lightly, and as not being very real; consequently,
they are not able to value them enough to consumingly envy them.

But, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence,
for the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness
which he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity
and pleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion--envy
--whether he suspects it or not.  At any time, on any day, in any part
of America, you can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger
by calling his attention to any other passing stranger and saying:

"Do you see that gentleman going along there?  It is Mr. Rockefeller."

Watch his eye.  It is a combination of power and conspicuousness
which the man understands.

When we understand rank, we always like to rub against it.
When a man is conspicuous, we always want to see him.  Also, if he
will pay us an attention we will manage to remember it.  Also, we
will mention it now and then, casually; sometimes to a friend,
or if a friend is not handy, we will make out with a stranger.

Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness?  At once we
think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities
in soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there.
But that is a mistake.  Rank holds its court and receives its homage
on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher;
and distinction, also, exists on every round of the ladder,
and commands its due of deference and envy.

To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege
of all the human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised
in democracies as well as in monarchies--and even, to some extent,
among those creatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals.
For even they have some poor little vanities and foibles, though in
this matter they are paupers as compared to us.

A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions
of subjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him.
A Christian Emperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large
part of the Christian world outside of his domains; but he is
a matter of indifference to all China.  A king, class A, has an
extensive worship; a king, class B, has a less extensive worship;
class C, class D, class E get a steadily diminishing share of worship;
class L (Sultan of Zanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and class W
(half-king of Samoa), get no worship at all outside their own little
patch of sovereignty.

Take the distinguished people along down.  Each has his group
of homage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start
with the Secretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster
--and below; for there will be groups among the sailors, and each of
these groups will have a tar who is distinguished for his battles,
or his strength, or his daring, or his profanity, and is admired
and envied by his group.  The same with the army; the same
with the literary and journalistic craft; the publishing craft;
the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S. Steel; the class A hotel
--and the rest of the alphabet in that line; the class A prize-fighter
--and the rest of the alphabet in his line--clear down to the lowest
and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with its one boy
that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king of Samoa,
bottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most ardent
admiration and envy.

There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this
human race's fondness for contact with power and distinction,
and for the reflected glory it gets out of it.  The king, class A,
is happy in the state banquet and the military show which the
emperor provides for him, and he goes home and gathers the queen
and the princelings around him in the privacy of the spare room,
and tells them all about it, and says:

"His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most
friendly way--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!
--and everybody SEEING him do it; charming, perfectly charming!"

The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police
parade provided for him by the king, class B, and goes home
and tells the family all about it, and says:

"And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke
and a chat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away
and laughing and chatting, just the same as if we had been born
in the same bunk; and all the servants in the anteroom could see
us doing it!  Oh, it was too lovely for anything!"

The king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him
by the king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it,
and is as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors
in the gaudier attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.

Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people--at the
bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside,
and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which.
We are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments
paid us, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown.
There is not one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that.
Do I mean attentions shown us by the guest?  No, I mean simply
flattering attentions, let them come whence they may.  We despise
no source that can pay us a pleasing attention--there is no source
that is humble enough for that.  You have heard a dear little girl
say to a frowzy and disreputable dog:  "He came right to me and let
me pat him on the head, and he wouldn't let the others touch him!"
and you have seen her eyes dance with pride in that high distinction.
You have often seen that.  If the child were a princess, would that
random dog be able to confer the like glory upon her with his
pretty compliment?  Yes; and even in her mature life and seated
upon a throne, she would still remember it, still recall it,
still speak of it with frank satisfaction.  That charming and
lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,
remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields "talked to her"
when she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book;
and that the squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued
compliment of not being afraid of them; and "once one of them,
holding a nut between its sharp little teeth, ran right up against
my father"--it has the very note of "He came right to me and let
me pat him on the head"--"and when it saw itself reflected in his
boot it was very much surprised, and stopped for a long time to
contemplate itself in the polished leather"--then it went its way.
And the birds! she still remembers with pride that "they came
boldly into my room," when she had neglected her "duty" and put
no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the wild birds,
and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with pride
that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal
friends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship
to her injury:  "never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee."
And here is that proud note again that sings in that little child's
elation in being singled out, among all the company of children,
for the random dog's honor-conferring attentions.  "Even in the very
worst summer for wasps, when, in lunching out of doors, our table
was covered with them and every one else was stung, they never
hurt me."

When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are
able to add distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne,
remembers with grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and
distinctions conferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of
the forest, we are helped to realize that complimentary attentions,
homage, distinctions, are of no caste, but are above all cast
--that they are a nobility-conferring power apart.

We all like these things.  When the gate-guard at the railway-station
passes me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets,
I feel as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial
hand on his shoulder, "everybody seeing him do it"; and as the child
felt when the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized
the others; and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her
and stung the rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna
(and remember it yet), when the helmeted police shut me off,
with fifty others, from a street which the Emperor was to pass through,
and the captain of the squad turned and saw the situation and said
indignantly to that guard:

"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain?  Let him through!"

It was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget
the wind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my
buttons when I marked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my
fellow-rabble, and noted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful
expression which said, as plainly as speech could have worded it:
"And who in the nation is the Herr Mark Twain UM GOTTESWILLEN?"

How many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:

"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my
hand and touched him."

We have all heard it many and many a time.  It was a proud
distinction to be able to say those words.  It brought envy to
the speaker, a kind of glory; and he basked in it and was happy
through all his veins.  And who was it he stood so close to?
The answer would cover all the grades.  Sometimes it was a king;
sometimes it was a renowned highwayman; sometimes it was an unknown
man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly famous by it;
always it was a person who was for the moment the subject of public
interest of a village.

"I was there, and I saw it myself."  That is a common and
envy-compelling remark.  It can refer to a battle; to a handing;
to a coronation; to the killing of Jumbo by the railway-train;
to the arrival of Jenny Lind at the Battery; to the meeting of the
President and Prince Henry; to the chase of a murderous maniac;
to the disaster in the tunnel; to the explosion in the subway;
to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village church struck by lightning.
It will be said, more or less causally, by everybody in America who has
seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to.  The man who was absent
and didn't see him to anything, will scoff.  It is his privilege;
and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem, even to himself,
to be different from other Americans, and better.  As his opinion
of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and concentrates
and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the distinction
of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their pleasure
in it if he can.  My life has been embittered by that kind of person.
If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen
to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try
to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction
was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way.
Once I was received in private audience by an emperor.  Last week
I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince
under it, see him bite, see him suffer.  I revealed the whole episode
to him with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail.
When I was through, he asked me what had impressed me most.
I said:

"His Majesty's delicacy.  They told me to be sure and back
out from the presence, and find the door-knob as best I could;
it was not allowable to face around.  Now the Emperor knew it would
be a difficult ordeal for me, because of lack of practice; and so,
when it was time to part, he turned, with exceeding delicacy,
and pretended to fumble with things on his desk, so I could get
out in my own way, without his seeing me."

It went home!  It was vitriol!  I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise
in the man's face; he couldn't keep it down.  I saw him try to fix
up something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction.
I enjoyed that, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him.
He struggled along inwardly for quite a while; then he said,
with a manner of a person who has to say something and hasn't anything
relevant to say:

"You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?"

"Yes; _I_ never saw anything to match them."

I had him again.  He had to fumble around in his mind as much
as another minute before he could play; then he said in as mean
a way as I ever heard a person say anything:

"He could have been counting the cigars, you know."

I cannot endure a man like that.  It is nothing to him how unkind
he is, so long as he takes the bloom off.  It is all he cares for.

"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,"
(or other conspicuous person.) It includes us all.  We love to be
noticed by the conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such,
or with a conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion,
even in the forty-seventh, if we cannot do better.  This accounts
for some of our curious tastes in mementos.  It accounts for the large
private trade in the Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids
were able to drive in that article of commerce when the Prince made
the tour of the world in the long ago--hair which probably did
not always come from his brush, since enough of it was marketed
to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts for the fact that the rope
which lynches a negro in the presence of ten thousand Christian
spectators is salable five minutes later at two dollars and inch;
it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal personage does not
venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.

We do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation
is higher than our own.  The lord of the group, for instance:
a group of peers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums,
a group of sailors, a group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians,
a group of college girls.  No royal person has ever been the object
of a more delirious loyalty and slavish adoration than is paid
by the vast Tammany herd to its squalid idol in Wantage.  There is
not a bifurcated animal in that menagerie that would not be proud
to appear in a newspaper picture in his company.  At the same time,
there are some in that organization who would scoff at the people
who have been daily pictured in company with Prince Henry, and would
say vigorously that THEY would not consent to be photographed
with him--a statement which would not be true in any instance.
There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say to you
that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group with
the Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would
believe it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true.
We have a large population, but we have not a large enough one,
by several millions, to furnish that man.  He has not yet been begotten,
and in fact he is not begettable.

You may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person
in the dim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it
is a crowd of ten thousand--ten thousand proud, untamed democrats,
horny-handed sons of toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle
--there isn't one who is trying to keep out of range, there isn't one
who isn't plainly meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning,
with the intention of hunting himself out in the picture and of framing
and keeping it if he shall find so much of his person in it as his
starboard ear.

We all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we
will put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more.
We may pretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend
it to ourselves privately--and we don't. We do confess in public
that we are the noblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit,
and teaching, and superstition; but deep down in the secret places
of our souls we recognize that, if we ARE the noblest work, the less
said about it the better.

We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles
--a fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they
are genuine or pinchbeck.  We forget that whatever a Southerner
likes the rest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of
predilection lodged in one people that is absent from another people.
There is no variety in the human race.  We are all children,
all children of the one Adam, and we love toys.  We can soon acquire
that Southern disease if some one will give it a start.  It already
has a start, in fact.  I have been personally acquainted with over
eighty-four thousand persons who, at one time or another in their lives,
have served for a year or two on the staffs of our multitudinous
governors, and through that fatality have been generals temporarily,
and colonels temporarily, and judge-advocates temporarily; but I
have known only nine among them who could be hired to let the title
go when it ceased to be legitimate.  I know thousands and thousands
of governors who ceased to be governors away back in the last century;
but I am acquainted with only three who would answer your letter
if you failed to call them "Governor" in it.  I know acres and acres
of men who have done time in a legislature in prehistoric days,
but among them is not half an acre whose resentment you would not
raise if you addressed them as "Mr." instead of "Hon." The first thing
a legislature does is to convene in an impressive legislative attitude,
and get itself photographed.  Each member frames his copy and takes
it to the woods and hangs it up in the most aggressively conspicuous
place in his house; and if you visit the house and fail to inquire
what that accumulation is, the conversation will be brought around
to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you a figure
in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated
with the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, "It's me!"

Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room
in Washington with his letters?--and sit at his table and let on
to read them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?
--keeping a furtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see
if he is being observed and admired?--those same old letters
which he fetches in every morning?  Have you seen it?  Have you
seen him show off?  It is THE sight of the national capital.
Except one; a pathetic one.  That is the ex-Congressman: the poor
fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year taste of glory
and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded, and ought
to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear himself
away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he lingers,
and still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes snubbed,
ashamed of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look otherwise;
dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and gaiety,
hailing with chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed,
the more-fortunes who are still in place and were once his mates.
Have you seen him?  He clings piteously to the one little shred that
is left of his departed distinction--the "privilege of the floor";
and works it hard and gets what he can out of it.  That is the saddest
figure I know of.

Yes, we do so love our little distinctions!  And then we loftily
scoff at a Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we
only had his chance--ah!  "Senator" is not a legitimate title.
A Senator has no more right to be addressed by it than have you
or I; but, in the several state capitals and in Washington,
there are five thousand Senators who take very kindly to
that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call them by it
--which you may do quite unrebuked.  Then those same Senators smile
at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the South!

Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may.
And we work them for all they are worth.  In prayer we call
ourselves "worms of the dust," but it is only on a sort of tacit
understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par.  WE
--worms of the dust!  Oh, no, we are not that.  Except in fact;
and we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.

As a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke,
or a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the
head of our group.  Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls
standing by the HERALD office, with an expectant look in his face.
Soon a large man passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.
That was what the boy was waiting for--the large man's notice.
The pat made him proud and happy, and the exultation inside of him
shone out through his eyes; and his mates were there to see the pat
and envy it and wish they could have that glory.  The boy belonged
down cellar in the press-room, the large man was king of the
upper floors, foreman of the composing-room. The light in the boy's
face was worship, the foreman was his lord, head of his group.
The pat was an accolade.  It was as precious to the boy as it would
have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had
been delivered by his sovereign with a sword.  The quintessence
of the honor was all there; there was no difference in values;
in truth there was no difference present except an artificial one
--clothes.

All the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon
or be noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness;
and sometimes animals, born to better things and higher ideals,
descend to man's level in this matter.  In the Jardin des Plantes
I have see a cat that was so vain of being the personal friend
of an elephant that I was ashamed of her.






EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY



MONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal
in the way.  It is always hanging around and following me about.
I don't like this; I am not used to company.  I wish it would stay
with the other animals.  . . . Cloudy today, wind in the east;
think we shall have rain.  . . . WE?  Where did I get that word
--the new creature uses it.

TUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall.  It is the finest thing
on the estate, I think.  The new creature calls it Niagara Falls
--why, I am sure I do not know.  Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls.
That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility.
I get no chance to name anything myself.  The new creature names
everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest.
And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing.
There is a dodo, for instance.  Says the moment one looks at it
one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo."  It will have to
keep that name, no doubt.  It wearies me to fret about it, and it
does no good, anyway.  Dodo!  It looks no more like a dodo than
I do.

WEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not
have it to myself in peace.  The new creature intruded.  When I
tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with,
and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise
such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress.
I wish it would not talk; it is always talking.  That sounds like a
cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so.
I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange
sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming
solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note.  And this new sound
is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear,
first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds
that are more or less distant from me.

FRIDAY.  The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do.
I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty
--GARDEN OF EDEN.  Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any
longer publicly.  The new creature says it is all woods and rocks
and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden.  Says it
LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park.
Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA
FALLS PARK.  This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me.
And already there is a sign up:


KEEP OFF


THE GRASS


My life is not as happy as it was.

SATURDAY.--The new creature eats too much fruit.  We are going
to run short, most likely.  "We" again--that is ITS word; mine, too,
now, from hearing it so much.  Good deal of fog this morning.
I do not go out in the fog myself.  This new creature does.
It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet.
And talks.  It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.  This day is getting to be more and more trying.
It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest.
I had already six of them per week before.  This morning found
the new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.

MONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve.  That is all right,
I have no objections.  Says it is to call it by, when I want it
to come.  I said it was superfluous, then.  The word evidently
raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word
and will bear repetition.  It says it is not an It, it is a She.
This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is were
nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk.

TUESDAY.--She has littered the whole estate with execrable names
and offensive signs:


This way to the Whirlpool


This way to Goat Island


Cave of the Winds this way


She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was
any custom for it.  Summer resort--another invention of hers
--just words, without any meaning.  What is a summer resort?
But it is best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.

FRIDAY.--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.
What harm does it do?  Says it makes her shudder.  I wonder why;
I have always done it--always liked the plunge, and coolness.
I supposed it was what the Falls were for.  They have no other
use that I can see, and they must have been made for something.
She says they were only made for scenery--like the rhinoceros and
the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her.
Went over in a tub--still not satisfactory.  Swam the Whirlpool and
the Rapids in a fig-leaf suit.  It got much damaged.  Hence, tedious
complaints about my extravagance.  I am too much hampered here.
What I need is a change of scene.

SATURDAY.--I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days,
and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my
tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast
which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful
noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with.
I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again
when occasion offers.  She engages herself in many foolish things;
among others; to study out why the animals called lions and tigers
live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they
wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other.
This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other,
and that would introduce what, as I understand, is called "death";
and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park.
Which is a pity, on some accounts.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.

MONDAY.--I believe I see what the week is for:  it is to give time
to rest up from the weariness of Sunday.  It seems a good idea.
. . . She has been climbing that tree again.  Clodded her out of it.
She said nobody was looking.  Seems to consider that a sufficient
justification for chancing any dangerous thing.  Told her that.
The word justification moved her admiration--and envy, too, I thought.
It is a good word.

TUESDAY.--She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.
This is at least doubtful, if not more than that.  I have not
missed any rib.  . . . She is in much trouble about the buzzard;
says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it;
thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh.  The buzzard must
get along the best it can with what is provided.  We cannot overturn
the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.

SATURDAY.--She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at
herself in it, which she is always doing.  She nearly strangled,
and said it was most uncomfortable.  This made her sorry for the
creatures which live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues
to fasten names on to things that don't need them and don't come
when they are called by them, which is a matter of no consequence
to her, she is such a numbskull, anyway; so she got a lot of them out
and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep warm,
but I have noticed them now and then all day and I don't see that
they are any happier there then they were before, only quieter.
When night comes I shall throw them outdoors.  I will not sleep
with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among
when a person hasn't anything on.

SUNDAY.--Pulled through.

TUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now.  The other animals are glad,
for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them;
and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get
a rest.

FRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,
and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.
I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce
death into the world.  That was a mistake--it had been better
to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea--she could
save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent
lions and tigers.  I advised her to keep away from the tree.
She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble.  Will emigrate.

WEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time.  I escaped last night,
and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get
clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the
trouble should begin; but it was not to be.  About an hour after
sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands
of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other,
according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest
of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion
and every beast was destroying its neighbor.  I knew what it meant
--Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.
. . . The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when I ordered
them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed
--which I didn't, but went away in much haste.  . . . I found this place,
outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she
has found me out.  Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda
--says it LOOKS like that.  In fact I was not sorry she came,
for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some
of those apples.  I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry.
It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no
real force except when one is well fed.  . . . She came curtained
in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she
meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down,
she tittered and blushed.  I had never seen a person titter
and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic.
She said I would soon know how it was myself.  This was correct.
Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten--certainly the
best one I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season
--and arrayed myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then
spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to go and get some
more and not make a spectacle or herself.  She did it, and after this
we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected
some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper
for public occasions.  They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish,
and that is the main point about clothes.  . . . I find she is a
good deal of a companion.  I see I should be lonesome and depressed
without her, now that I have lost my property.  Another thing,
she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter.
She will be useful.  I will superintend.

TEN DAYS LATER.--She accuses ME of being the cause of our disaster!
She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured
her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts.
I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts.
She said the Serpent informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative
term meaning an aged and moldy joke.  I turned pale at that,
for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some of them
could have been of that sort, though I had honestly supposed
that they were new when I made them.  She asked me if I had made
one just at the time of the catastrophe.  I was obliged to admit
that I had made one to myself, though not aloud.  It was this.
I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful
it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!"
Then in an instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let
it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble
UP there!"--and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at
it when all nature broke loose in war and death and I had to flee
for my life.  "There," she said, with triumph, "that is just it;
the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut,
and said it was coeval with the creation."  Alas, I am indeed
to blame.  Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had never had
that radiant thought!

NEXT YEAR.--We have named it Cain.  She caught it while I was up country
trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a
couple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four, she isn't
certain which.  It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation.
That is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment.
The difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different
and new kind of animal--a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the
water to see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before
there was opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter.
I still think it is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is,
and will not let me have it to try.  I do not understand this.
The coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature
and made her unreasonable about experiments.  She thinks more
of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is not able
to explain why.  Her mind is disordered--everything shows it.
Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it
complains and wants to get to the water.  At such times the water
comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she
pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth
to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways.
I have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it
troubles me greatly.  She used to carry the young tigers around so,
and play with them, before we lost our property, but it was only play;
she never took on about them like this when their dinner disagreed
with them.

SUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out,
and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool
noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes
it laugh.  I have not seen a fish before that could laugh.
This makes me doubt.  . . . I have come to like Sunday myself.
Superintending all the week tires a body so.  There ought to be
more Sundays.  In the old days they were tough, but now they
come handy.

WEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish.  I cannot quite make out what it is.
It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo"
when it is.  It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not
a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop;
it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish,
though I cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not.
It merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up.
I have not seen any other animal do that before.  I said I believed it
was an enigma; but she only admired the word without understanding it.
In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug.
If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its arrangements are.
I never had a thing perplex me so.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of diminishing.
I sleep but little.  It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on
its four legs now.  Yet it differs from the other four legged animals,
in that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this
causes the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high
in the air, and this is not attractive.  It is built much as we are,
but its method of traveling shows that it is not of our breed.
The short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is a of
the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation of that species,
since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does.
Still it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been
catalogued before.  As I discovered it, I have felt justified
in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it,
and hence have called it KANGAROORUM ADAMIENSIS.  . . . It must have
been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since.
It must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when
discontented it is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times
the noise it made at first.  Coercion does not modify this, but has
the contrary effect.  For this reason I discontinued the system.
She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she
had previously told me she wouldn't give it.  As already observed,
I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found it
in the woods.  It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it
must be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find
another one to add to my collection, and for this to play with;
for surely then it would be quieter and we could tame it more easily.
But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all,
no tracks.  It has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself;
therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?
I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good.  I catch all small
animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out
of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for.  They never
drink it.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is
very strange and perplexing.  I never knew one to be so long getting
its growth.  It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur,
but exactly like our hair except that it is much finer and softer,
and instead of being black is red.  I am like to lose my mind over
the capricious and harassing developments of this unclassifiable
zoological freak.  If I could catch another one--but that is hopeless;
it is a new variety, and the only sample; this is plain.  But I
caught a true kangaroo and brought it in, thinking that this one,
being lonesome, would rather have that for company than have no kin
at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy
from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do not
know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it
is among friends; but it was a mistake--it went into such fits at
the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen
one before.  I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is
nothing I can do to make it happy.  If I could tame it--but that is
out of the question; the more I try the worse I seem to make it.
It grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow
and passion.  I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it.
That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right.
It might be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one,
how could IT?

FIVE MONTHS LATER.--It is not a kangaroo.  No, for it supports
itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its
hind legs, and then falls down.  It is probably some kind of a bear;
and yet it has no tail--as yet--and no fur, except upon its head.
It still keeps on growing--that is a curious circumstance,
for bears get their growth earlier than this.  Bears are dangerous
--since our catastrophe--and I shall not be satisfied to have this
one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle on.
I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go,
but it did no good--she is determined to run us into all sorts
of foolish risks, I think.  She was not like this before she lost
her mind.

A FORTNIGHT LATER.--I examined its mouth.  There is no danger yet:
it has only one tooth.  It has no tail yet.  It makes more noise
now than it ever did before--and mainly at night.  I have moved out.
But I shall go over, mornings, to breakfast, and see if it has
more teeth.  If it gets a mouthful of teeth it will be time for it
to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does not need a tail in order to
be dangerous.

FOUR MONTHS LATER.--I have been off hunting and fishing a month,
up in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it
is because there are not any buffaloes there.  Meantime the bear
has learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs,
and says "poppa" and "momma."  It is certainly a new species.
This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of course,
and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is
still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do.
This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur
and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new
kind of bear.  The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.
Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of
the north and make an exhaustive search.  There must certainly be
another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it
has company of its own species.  I will go straightway; but I will
muzzle this one first.

THREE MONTHS LATER.--It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have
had no success.  In the mean time, without stirring from the
home estate, she has caught another one!  I never saw such luck.
I might have hunted these woods a hundred years, I never would
have run across that thing.

NEXT DAY.--I have been comparing the new one with the old one,
and it is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed.
I was going to stuff one of them for my collection, but she
is prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so I have
relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake.  It would
be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away.
The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a parrot,
having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much,
and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree.
I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot;
and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has already been
everything else it could think of since those first days when it
was a fish.  The new one is as ugly as the old one was at first;
has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and the same singular
head without any fur on it.  She calls it Abel.

TEN YEARS LATER.--They are BOYS; we found it out long ago.
It was their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us;
we were not used to it.  There are some girls now.  Abel is a good boy,
but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have improved him.  After all
these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning;
it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it
without her.  At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should
be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life.
Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me
to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!






EVE'S DIARY


Translated from the Original



SATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now.  I arrived yesterday.
That is as it seems to me.  And it must be so, for if there was
a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I
should remember it.  It could be, of course, that it did happen,
and that I was not noticing.  Very well; I will be very watchful now,
and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it.
It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused,
for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be
important to the historian some day.  For I feel like an experiment,
I feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person
to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel
convinced that that is what I AM--an experiment; just an experiment,
and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it?  No, I think not;
I think the rest of it is part of it.  I am the main part of it,
but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter.  Is my
position assured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it?
The latter, perhaps.  Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance
is the price of supremacy.  [That is a good phrase, I think, for one
so young.]

Everything looks better today than it did yesterday.  In the rush of
finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition,
and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants
that the aspects were quite distressing.  Noble and beautiful works
of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world
is indeed a most noble and beautiful work.  And certainly marvelously
near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time.
There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others,
but that can be remedied presently, no doubt.  The moon got
loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the scheme
--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it.  There isn't
another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable
to it for beauty and finish.  It should have been fastened better.
If we can only get it back again--
But of course there is no telling where it went to.  And besides,
whoever gets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself.
I believe I can be honest in all other matters, but I already
begin to realize that the core and center of my nature is love
of the beautiful, a passion for the beautiful, and that it would
not be safe to trust me with a moon that belonged to another person
and that person didn't know I had it.  I could give up a moon that I
found in the daytime, because I should be afraid some one was looking;
but if I found it in the dark, I am sure I should find some kind
of an excuse for not saying anything about it.  For I do love moons,
they are so pretty and so romantic.  I wish we had five or six;
I would never go to bed; I should never get tired lying on the moss-bank
and looking up at them.

Stars are good, too.  I wish I could get some to put in my hair.
But I suppose I never can.  You would be surprised to find how far
off they are, for they do not look it.  When they first showed,
last night, I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach,
which astonished me; then I tried clods till I was all tired out,
but I never got one.  It was because I am left-handed and cannot
throw good.  Even when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I
couldn't hit the other one, though I did make some close shots,
for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into the midst of
the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them,
and if I could have held out a little longer maybe I could have
got one.

So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age,
and after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the
extreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground
and I could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway,
because I could gather them tenderly then, and not break them.
But it was farther than I thought, and at last I had go give it up;
I was so tired I couldn't drag my feet another step; and besides,
they were sore and hurt me very much.

I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold;
but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most
adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and pleasant,
because they live on strawberries.  I had never seen a tiger before,
but I knew them in a minute by the stripes.  If I could have one
of those skins, it would make a lovely gown.

Today I am getting better ideas about distances.  I was so eager
to get hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it,
sometimes when it was too far off, and sometimes when it was but
six inches away but seemed a foot--alas, with thorns between!
I learned a lesson; also I made an axiom, all out of my own head
--my very first one; THE SCRATCHED EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE THORN.
I think it is a very good one for one so young.

I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon,
at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could.  But I was
not able to make out.  I think it is a man.  I had never seen a man,
but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is.
I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any
of the other reptiles.  If it is a reptile, and I suppose it is;
for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile.
It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads
itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may
be architecture.

I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it
turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by
and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I
was not timid any more, but tracked it along, several hours,
about twenty yards behind, which made it nervous and unhappy.
At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a tree.  I waited
a good while, then gave it up and went home.

Today the same thing over.  I've got it up the tree again.

SUNDAY.--It is up there yet.  Resting, apparently.  But that is
a subterfuge:  Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is appointed
for that.  It looks to me like a creature that is more interested
in resting than it anything else.  It would tire me to rest so much.
It tires me just to sit around and watch the tree.  I do wonder
what it is for; I never see it do anything.

They returned the moon last night, and I was SO happy!  I think
it is very honest of them.  It slid down and fell off again,
but I was not distressed; there is no need to worry when one has
that kind of neighbors; they will fetch it back.  I wish I could
do something to show my appreciation.  I would like to send them
some stars, for we have more than we can use.  I mean I, not we,
for I can see that the reptile cares nothing for such things.

It has low tastes, and is not kind.  When I went there yesterday
evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch
the little speckled fishes that play in the pool, and I had
to clod it to make it go up the tree again and let them alone.
I wonder if THAT is what it is for?  Hasn't it any heart?
Hasn't it any compassion for those little creature?  Can it be
that it was designed and manufactured for such ungentle work?
It has the look of it.  One of the clods took it back of the ear,
and it used language.  It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I
had ever heard speech, except my own.  I did not understand the words,
but they seemed expressive.

When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for I
love to talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am
very interesting, but if I had another to talk to I could be twice
as interesting, and would never stop, if desired.

If this reptile is a man, it isn't an IT, is it?  That wouldn't
be grammatical, would it?  I think it would be HE.  I think so.
In that case one would parse it thus:  nominative, HE; dative, HIM;
possessive, HIS'N.  Well, I will consider it a man and call it he
until it turns out to be something else.  This will be handier
than having so many uncertainties.

NEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him and tried
to get acquainted.  I had to do the talking, because he was shy,
but I didn't mind it.  He seemed pleased to have me around, and I
used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him
to be included.

WEDNESDAY.--We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting
better and better acquainted.  He does not try to avoid me any more,
which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him.
That pleases me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can,
so as to increase his regard.  During the last day or two I
have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this
has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line,
and is evidently very grateful.  He can't think of a rational name
to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect.
Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time
to expose himself by an awkward silence.  In this way I have
saved him many embarrassments.  I have no defect like this.
The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is.  I don't
have to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly,
just as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am
sure it wasn't in me half a minute before.  I seem to know just
by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal
it is.

When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it
in his eye.  But I saved him.  And I was careful not to do it
in a way that could hurt his pride.  I just spoke up in a quite
natural way of pleasing surprise, and not as if I was dreaming
of conveying information, and said, "Well, I do declare, if there
isn't the dodo!"  I explained--without seeming to be explaining
--how I know it for a dodo, and although I thought maybe he was
a little piqued that I knew the creature when he didn't, it was
quite evident that he admired me.  That was very agreeable, and I
thought of it more than once with gratification before I slept.
How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have
earned it!

THURSDAY.--my first sorrow.  Yesterday he avoided me and seemed
to wish I would not talk to him.  I could not believe it,
and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be with him,
and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could
feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything?  But at last it
seemed true, so I went away and sat lonely in the place where I first
saw him the morning that we were made and I did not know what he
was and was indifferent about him; but now it was a mournful place,
and every little think spoke of him, and my heart was very sore.
I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new feeling; I had
not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and I could
not make it out.

But when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and went
to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done
that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again;
but he put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.

SUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were
heavy days; I do not think of them when I can help it.

I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to
throw straight.  I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him.
They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I
come to harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?

MONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.
But he did not care for it.  It is strange.  If he should tell me
his name, I would care.  I think it would be pleasanter in my ears
than any other sound.

He talks very little.  Perhaps it is because he is not bright,
and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it.  It is
such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing;
it is in the heart that the values lie.  I wish I could make him
understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough,
and that without it intellect is poverty.

Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable
vocabulary.  This morning he used a surprisingly good word.
He evidently recognized, himself, that it was a good one, for he
worked in in twice afterward, casually.  It was good casual art,
still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of perception.
Without a doubt that seed can be made to grow, if cultivated.

Where did he get that word?  I do not think I have ever used it.

No, he took no interest in my name.  I tried to hide my disappointment,
but I suppose I did not succeed.  I went away and sat on the
moss-bank with my feet in the water.  It is where I go when I hunger
for companionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to.
It is not enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool
--but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness.
It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with
its sympathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl;
I will be your friend."  It IS a good friend to me, and my only one;
it is my sister.

That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget that
--never, never.  My heart was lead in my body!  I said, "She was all
I had, and now she is gone!"  In my despair I said, "Break, my heart;
I cannot bear my life any more!" and hid my face in my hands,
and there was no solace for me.  And when I took them away,
after a little, there she was again, white and shining and beautiful,
and I sprang into her arms!

That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was
not like this, which was ecstasy.  I never doubted her afterward.
Sometimes she stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the
whole day, but I waited and did not doubt; I said, "She is busy,
or she is gone on a journey, but she will come."  And it was so:
she always did.  At night she would not come if it was dark, for she
was a timid little thing; but if there was a moon she would come.
I am not afraid of the dark, but she is younger than I am; she was
born after I was.  Many and many are the visits I have paid her;
she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard--and it is
mainly that.

TUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate;
and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get
lonely and come.  But he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all
about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,
those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the
sky and preserve it!  I gathered them, and made them into wreaths
and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon
--apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and wished and waited.
But he did not come.

But no matter.  Nothing would have come of it, for he does not
care for flowers.  He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one
from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.  He does
not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care
for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for,
except building shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain,
and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering
the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it
with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had,
and soon I got an awful fright.  A thin, transparent bluish film
rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and ran!  I thought
it was a spirit, and I WAS so frightened!  But I looked back, and it
was not coming; so I leaned against a rock and rested and panted,
and let my limps go on trembling until they got steady again;
then I crept warily back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there
was occasion; and when I was come near, I parted the branches
of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man was about,
I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.
I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole.
I put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it
out again.  It was a cruel pain.  I put my finger in my mouth;
and by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunting,
I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest, and began
to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was.  Suddenly the name of it
occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before.  It was FIRE!
I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world.
So without hesitation I named it that--fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added
a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this,
and was proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him
and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem
--but I reflected, and did not do it.  No--he would not care for it.
He would ask what it was good for, and what could I answer? for if it
was not GOOD for something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful--
So I sighed, and did not go.  For it wasn't good for anything;
it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could
not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness
and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words.
But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I love you,
you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL--and that is enough!"
and was going to gather it to my breast.  But refrained.
Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly
like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism:
"THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE."

I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied
it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home
and keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it
sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran.
When I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching
and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name
of it--SMOKE!--though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.

Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke,
and I named them in an instant--FLAMES--and I was right, too,
though these were the very first flames that had ever been
in the world.  They climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly
in and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke,
and I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture,
it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful!

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for
many minutes.  Then he asked what it was.  Ah, it was too bad that he
should ask such a direct question.  I had to answer it, of course,
and I did.  I said it was fire.  If it annoyed him that I should know
and he must ask; that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him.
After a pause he asked:

"How did it come?"

Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.

"I made it."

The fire was traveling farther and farther off.  He went to the edge
of the burned place and stood looking down, and said:

"What are these?"

"Fire-coals."

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it
down again.  Then he went away.  NOTHING interests him.

But I was interested.  There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate
and pretty--I knew what they were at once.  And the embers;
I knew the embers, too.  I found my apples, and raked them out,
and was glad; for I am very young and my appetite is active.
But I was disappointed; they were all burst open and spoiled.
Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better than raw ones.
Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I think.

FRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall,
but only for a moment.  I was hoping he would praise me for trying
to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard.
But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me.  He was also
displeased on another account:  I tried once more to persuade him
to stop going over the Falls.  That was because the fire had revealed
to me a new passion--quite new, and distinctly different from love,
grief, and those others which I had already discovered--FEAR.  And it
is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments,
it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder.
But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet,
and so he could not understand me.


Extract from Adam's Diary


Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and
make allowances.  She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world
is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for
delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it
and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it.
And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage,
blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains,
the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon
sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering
in the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value,
so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty,
that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them.
If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a time,
it would be a reposeful spectacle.  In that case I think I could
enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming
to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature
--lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once
when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder,
with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes,
watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she
was beautiful.

MONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is not
interested in it is not in my list.  There are animals that I am
indifferent to, but it is not so with her.  She has no discrimination,
she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures,
every new one is welcome.

When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded
it as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good
sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things.
She wanted to domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the
homestead and move out.  She believed it could be tamed by kind
treatment and would be a good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet
high and eighty-four feet long would be no proper thing to have
about the place, because, even with the best intentions and without
meaning any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it,
for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-minded.

Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she
couldn't give it up.  She thought we could start a dairy with it,
and wanted me to help milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky.
The sex wasn't right, and we hadn't any ladder anyway.  Then she
wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery.  Thirty or forty feet
of its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and she
thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken; when she got
to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and would
have hurt herself but for me.

Was she satisfied now?  No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration;
untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them.
It is the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the
influence of it; if I were with her more I think I should take it
up myself.  Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus:
she thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could
stand in the river and use him for a bridge.  It turned out that he
was already plenty tame enough--at least as far as she was concerned
--so she tried her theory, but it failed:  every time she got him
properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over him,
he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain.  Like the
other animals.  They all do that.


FRIDAY.--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today:  all without
seeing him.  It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better
to be alone than unwelcome.

I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made
friends with the animals.  They are just charming, and they have
the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour,
they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you
and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready
for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose.
I think they are perfect gentlemen.  All these days we have had such
good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for me, ever.  Lonesome!  No,
I should say not.  Why, there's always a swarm of them around
--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count them;
and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the
furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color
and frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes,
that you might think it was a lake, only you know it isn't;
and there's storms of sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings;
and when the sun strikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing
up of all the colors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.

We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;
almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler,
and the only one.  When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight
--there's nothing like it anywhere.  For comfort I ride a tiger
or a leopard, because it is soft and has a round back that fits me,
and because they are such pretty animals; but for long distance
or for scenery I ride the elephant.  He hoists me up with his trunk,
but I can get off myself; when we are ready to camp, he sits and I
slide down the back way.

The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there
are no disputes about anything.  They all talk, and they all talk
to me, but it must be a foreign language, for I cannot make out
a word they say; yet they often understand me when I talk back,
particularly the dog and the elephant.  It makes me ashamed.
It shows that they are brighter than I am, for I want to be the
principal Experiment myself--and I intend to be, too.

I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I
wasn't at first.  I was ignorant at first.  At first it used to vex
me because, with all my watching, I was never smart enough to be
around when the water was running uphill; but now I do not mind it.
I have experimented and experimented until now I know it never
does run uphill, except in the dark.  I know it does in the dark,
because the pool never goes dry, which it would, of course,
if the water didn't come back in the night.  It is best to prove
things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas if you depend
on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get educated.

Some things you CAN'T find out; but you will never know you can't
by guessing and supposing:  no, you have to be patient and go on
experimenting until you find out that you can't find out.  And it is
delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting.
If there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull.  Even trying
to find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying
to find out and finding out, and I don't know but more so.
The secret of the water was a treasure until I GOT it; then the
excitement all went away, and I recognized a sense of loss.

By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers,
and plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence
you know that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply
knowing it, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now.
But I shall find a way--then THAT excitement will go.  Such things
make me sad; because by and by when I have found out everything
there won't be any more excitements, and I do love excitements so!
The other night I couldn't sleep for thinking about it.

At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it
was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy
and thank the Giver of it all for devising it.  I think there are many
things to learn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying
too fast I think they will last weeks and weeks.  I hope so.  When you
cast up a feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight;
then you throw up a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time.
I have tried it and tried it, and it is always so.  I wonder why
it is?  Of course it DOESN'T come down, but why should it SEEM to?
I suppose it is an optical illusion.  I mean, one of them is.
I don't know which one.  It may be the feather, it may be the clod;
I can't prove which it is, I can only demonstrate that one or the other
is a fake, and let a person take his choice.

By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last.
I have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky.
Since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt,
they can all melt the same night.  That sorrow will come--I know it.
I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can
keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling fields on my memory,
so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my fancy restore
those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again,
and double them by the blur of my tears.


After the Fall


When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me.  It was beautiful,
surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost,
and I shall not see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content.
He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength
of my passionate nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth
and sex.  If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know,
and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind
of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one's
love for other reptiles and animals.  I think that this must be so.
I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam
on account of his singing--no, it is not that; the more he sings
the more I do not get reconciled to it.  Yet I ask him to sing,
because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in.
I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand it,
but now I can.  It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get
used to that kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is
not that.  He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is,
for he did not make it himself; he is as God make him, and that
is sufficient.  There was a wise purpose in it, THAT I know.
In time it will develop, though I think it will not be sudden;
and besides, there is no hurry; he is well enough just as he is.

It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and
his delicacy that I love him.  No, he has lacks in this regard,
but he is well enough just so, and is improving.

It is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it is
not that.  I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he
conceals it from me.  It is my only pain.  Otherwise he is frank
and open with me, now.  I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this.
It grieves me that he should have a secret from me, and sometimes it
spoils my sleep, thinking of it, but I will put it out of my mind;
it shall not trouble my happiness, which is otherwise full
to overflowing.

It is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is
not that.  He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude
of things, but they are not so.

It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not that.
He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex,
I think, and he did not make his sex.  Of course I would not have
told on him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity
of sex, too, and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make
my sex.

Then why is it that I love him?  MERELY BECAUSE HE IS MASCULINE,
I think.

At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love
him without it.  If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go
on loving him.  I know it.  It is a matter of sex, I think.

He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him
and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities.
He he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should
love him; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray
for him, and watch by his bedside until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is MINE and is MASCULINE.
There is no other reason, I suppose.  And so I think it is as I
first said:  that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings
and statistics.  It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot
explain itself.  And doesn't need to.

It is what I think.  But I am only a girl, the first that has
examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance
and inexperience I have not got it right.


Forty Years Later


It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this
life together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth,
but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves,
until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I;
for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is
to me--life without him would not be life; now could I endure it?
This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up
while my race continues.  I am the first wife; and in the last wife I
shall be repeated.


At Eve's Grave

ADAM:  Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.


End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)






A HORSE'S TALE



CHAPTER I--SOLDIER BOY--PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF

I am Buffalo Bill's horse.  I have spent my life under his saddle--with
him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his
clothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on
the war-path and has his batteries belted on.  He is over six feet, is
young, hasn't an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in
his motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair
dangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody
is braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself.  Yes, a
person that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded
buck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing
a hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out
behind from the shelter of his broad slouch.  Yes, he is a sight to look
at then--and I'm part of it myself.

I am his favorite horse, out of dozens.  Big as he is, I have carried him
eighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am
good for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time.  I am not large,
but I am built on a business basis.  I have carried him thousands and
thousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there's not a gorge,
nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a
buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great
Plains that we don't know as well as we know the bugle-calls.  He is
Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very
important.  In such a position as I hold in the military service one
needs to be of good family and possess an education much above the common
to be worthy of the place.  I am the best-educated horse outside of the
hippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered.  It may be so, it is
not for me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think.  Buffalo Bill
taught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I taught
myself the rest.  Lay a row of moccasins before me--Pawnee, Sioux,
Shoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you
please--and I can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of
it.  Name it in horse-talk, and could do it in American if I had speech.

I know some of the Indian signs--the signs they make with their hands,
and by signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day. Buffalo Bill
taught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line of fire with my
teeth; and I've done it, too; at least I've dragged HIM out of the battle
when he was wounded.  And not just once, but twice.  Yes, I know a lot of
things.  I remember forms, and gaits, and faces; and you can't disguise a
person that's done me a kindness so that I won't know him thereafter
wherever I find him. I know the art of searching for a trail, and I know
the stale track from the fresh.  I can keep a trail all by myself, with
Buffalo Bill asleep in the saddle; ask him--he will tell you so.  Many a
time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at dawn, "Take the
watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me."  Then he goes to sleep.  He
knows he can trust me, because I have a reputation.  A scout horse that
has a reputation does not play with it.

My mother was all American--no alkali-spider about HER, I can tell you;
she was of the best blood of Kentucky, the bluest Blue-grass aristocracy,
very proud and acrimonious--or maybe it is ceremonious.  I don't know
which it is.  But it is no matter; size is the main thing about a word,
and that one's up to standard.  She spent her military life as colonel of
the Tenth Dragoons, and saw a deal of rough service--distinguished
service it was, too.  I mean, she CARRIED the Colonel; but it's all the
same.  Where would he be without his horse?  He wouldn't arrive.  It
takes two to make a colonel of dragoons.  She was a fine dragoon horse,
but never got above that.  She was strong enough for the scout service,
and had the endurance, too, but she couldn't quite come up to the speed
required; a scout horse has to have steel in his muscle and lightning in
his blood.

My father was a bronco.  Nothing as to lineage--that is, nothing as to
recent lineage--but plenty good enough when you go a good way back.  When
Professor Marsh was out here hunting bones for the chapel of Yale
University he found skeletons of horses no bigger than a fox, bedded in
the rocks, and he said they were ancestors of my father.  My mother heard
him say it; and he said those skeletons were two million years old, which
astonished her and made her Kentucky pretensions look small and pretty
antiphonal, not to say oblique.  Let me see. . . . I used to know the
meaning of those words, but . . . well, it was years ago, and 'tisn't as
vivid now as it was when they were fresh.  That sort of words doesn't
keep, in the kind of climate we have out here.  Professor Marsh said
those skeletons were fossils.  So that makes me part blue grass and part
fossil; if there is any older or better stock, you will have to look for
it among the Four Hundred, I reckon.  I am satisfied with it.  And am a
happy horse, too, though born out of wedlock.

And now we are back at Fort Paxton once more, after a forty-day scout,
away up as far as the Big Horn.  Everything quiet.  Crows and Blackfeet
squabbling--as usual--but no outbreaks, and settlers feeling fairly easy.

The Seventh Cavalry still in garrison, here; also the Ninth Dragoons, two
artillery companies, and some infantry.  All glad to see me, including
General Alison, commandant.  The officers' ladies and children well, and
called upon me--with sugar.  Colonel Drake, Seventh Cavalry, said some
pleasant things; Mrs. Drake was very complimentary; also Captain and Mrs.
Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry; also the Chaplain, who is always kind
and pleasant to me, because I kicked the lungs out of a trader once.  It
was Tommy Drake and Fanny Marsh that furnished the sugar--nice children,
the nicest at the post, I think.

That poor orphan child is on her way from France--everybody is full of
the subject.  Her father was General Alison's brother; married a
beautiful young Spanish lady ten years ago, and has never been in America
since.  They lived in Spain a year or two, then went to France.  Both
died some months ago.  This little girl that is coming is the only child.
General Alison is glad to have her.  He has never seen her.  He is a very
nice old bachelor, but is an old bachelor just the same and isn't more
than about a year this side of retirement by age limit; and so what does
he know about taking care of a little maid nine years old?  If I could
have her it would be another matter, for I know all about children, and
they adore me.  Buffalo Bill will tell you so himself.

I have some of this news from over-hearing the garrison-gossip, the rest
of it I got from Potter, the General's dog.  Potter is the great Dane.
He is privileged, all over the post, like Shekels, the Seventh Cavalry's
dog, and visits everybody's quarters and picks up everything that is
going, in the way of news.  Potter has no imagination, and no great deal
of culture, perhaps, but he has a historical mind and a good memory, and
so he is the person I depend upon mainly to post me up when I get back
from a scout.  That is, if Shekels is out on depredation and I can't get
hold of him.



CHAPTER II--LETTER FROM ROUEN--TO GENERAL ALISON

My dear Brother-in-Law,--Please let me write again in Spanish, I cannot
trust my English, and I am aware, from what your brother used to say,
that army officers educated at the Military Academy of the United States
are taught our tongue.  It is as I told you in my other letter:  both my
poor sister and her husband, when they found they could not recover,
expressed the wish that you should have their little Catherine--as
knowing that you would presently be retired from the army--rather than
that she should remain with me, who am broken in health, or go to your
mother in California, whose health is also frail.

You do not know the child, therefore I must tell you something about her.
You will not be ashamed of her looks, for she is a copy in little of her
beautiful mother--and it is that Andalusian beauty which is not
surpassable, even in your country.  She has her mother's charm and grace
and good heart and sense of justice, and she has her father's vivacity
and cheerfulness and pluck and spirit of enterprise, with the
affectionate disposition and sincerity of both parents.

My sister pined for her Spanish home all these years of exile; she was
always talking of Spain to the child, and tending and nourishing the love
of Spain in the little thing's heart as a precious flower; and she died
happy in the knowledge that the fruitage of her patriotic labors was as
rich as even she could desire.

Cathy is a sufficiently good little scholar, for her nine years; her
mother taught her Spanish herself, and kept it always fresh upon her ear
and her tongue by hardly ever speaking with her in any other tongue; her
father was her English teacher, and talked with her in that language
almost exclusively; French has been her everyday speech for more than
seven years among her playmates here; she has a good working use of
governess--German and Italian.  It is true that there is always a faint
foreign fragrance about her speech, no matter what language she is
talking, but it is only just noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a
charm than a mar, I think.  In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is
neither before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say.  But I
can say this for her:  in love for her friends and in high-mindedness and
good-heartedness she has not many equals, and in my opinion no superiors.
And I beg of you, let her have her way with the dumb animals--they are
her worship.  It is an inheritance from her mother.  She knows but little
of cruelties and oppressions--keep them from her sight if you can.  She
would flare up at them and make trouble, in her small but quite decided
and resolute way; for she has a character of her own, and lacks neither
promptness nor initiative.  Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I
think her intentions are always right.  Once when she was a little
creature of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot down
upon the floor in an apparent outbreak of indignation, then fetched it a
backward wipe, and stooped down to examine the result.  Her mother said:

"Why, what is it, child?  What has stirred you so?"

"Mamma, the big ant was trying to kill the little one."

"And so you protected the little one."

"Yes, manure, because he had no friend, and I wouldn't let the big one
kill him."

"But you have killed them both."

Cathy was distressed, and her lip trembled.  She picked up the remains
and laid them upon her palm, and said:

"Poor little anty, I'm so sorry; and I didn't mean to kill you, but there
wasn't any other way to save you, it was such a hurry."

She is a dear and sweet little lady, and when she goes it will give me a
sore heart.  But she will be happy with you, and if your heart is old and
tired, give it into her keeping; she will make it young again, she will
refresh it, she will make it sing.  Be good to her, for all our sakes!

My exile will soon be over now.  As soon as I am a little stronger I
shall see my Spain again; and that will make me young again!

MERCEDES.



CHAPTER III--GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER

I am glad to know that you are all well, in San Bernardino.

. . . That grandchild of yours has been here--well, I do not quite know
how many days it is; nobody can keep account of days or anything else
where she is!  Mother, she did what the Indians were never able to do.
She took the Fort--took it the first day!  Took me, too; took the
colonels, the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes;
took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison--to the last
man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious
old Thunder-Bird and all.  Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my
gravity, my poise, my dignity? You would lose your own, in my
circumstances.  Mother, you never saw such a winning little devil.  She
is all energy, and spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and
everything, and pours out her prodigal love upon every creature that will
take it, high or low, Christian or pagan, feathered or furred; and none
has declined it to date, and none ever will, I think.  But she has a
temper, and sometimes it catches fire and flames up, and is likely to
burn whatever is near it; but it is soon over, the passion goes as
quickly as it comes.  Of course she has an Indian name already; Indians
always rechristen a stranger early.  Thunder-Bird attended to her case.
He gave her the Indian equivalent for firebug, or fire-fly.  He said:

"'Times, ver' quiet, ver' soft, like summer night, but when she mad she
blaze."

Isn't it good?  Can't you see the flare?  She's beautiful, mother,
beautiful as a picture; and there is a touch of you in her face, and of
her father--poor George! and in her unresting activities, and her
fearless ways, and her sunbursts and cloudbursts, she is always bringing
George back to me.  These impulsive natures are dramatic.  George was
dramatic, so is this Lightning-Bug, so is Buffalo Bill.  When Cathy first
arrived--it was in the forenoon--Buffalo Bill was away, carrying orders
to Major Fuller, at Five Forks, up in the Clayton Hills.  At
mid-afternoon I was at my desk, trying to work, and this sprite had been
making it impossible for half an hour.  At last I said:

"Oh, you bewitching little scamp, CAN'T you be quiet just a minute or
two, and let your poor old uncle attend to a part of his duties?"

"I'll try, uncle; I will, indeed," she said.

"Well, then, that's a good child--kiss me.  Now, then, sit up in that
chair, and set your eye on that clock.  There--that's right. If you
stir--if you so much as wink--for four whole minutes, I'll bite you!"

It was very sweet and humble and obedient she looked, sitting there,
still as a mouse; I could hardly keep from setting her free and telling
her to make as much racket as she wanted to.  During as much as two
minutes there was a most unnatural and heavenly quiet and repose, then
Buffalo Bill came thundering up to the door in all his scout finery,
flung himself out of the saddle, said to his horse, "Wait for me, Boy,"
and stepped in, and stopped dead in his tracks--gazing at the child.  She
forgot orders, and was on the floor in a moment, saying:

"Oh, you are so beautiful!  Do you like me?"

"No, I don't, I love you!" and he gathered her up with a hug, and then
set her on his shoulder--apparently nine feet from the floor.

She was at home.  She played with his long hair, and admired his big
hands and his clothes and his carbine, and asked question after question,
as fast as he could answer, until I excused them both for half an hour,
in order to have a chance to finish my work.  Then I heard Cathy
exclaiming over Soldier Boy; and he was worthy of her raptures, for he is
a wonder of a horse, and has a reputation which is as shining as his own
silken hide.



CHAPTER IV--CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES

Oh, it is wonderful here, aunty dear, just paradise!  Oh, if you could
only see it! everything so wild and lovely; such grand plains, stretching
such miles and miles and miles, all the most delicious velvety sand and
sage-brush, and rabbits as big as a dog, and such tall and noble
jackassful ears that that is what they name them by; and such vast
mountains, and so rugged and craggy and lofty, with cloud-shawls wrapped
around their shoulders, and looking so solemn and awful and satisfied;
and the charming Indians, oh, how you would dote on them, aunty dear, and
they would on you, too, and they would let you hold their babies, the way
they do me, and they ARE the fattest, and brownest, and sweetest little
things, and never cry, and wouldn't if they had pins sticking in them,
which they haven't, because they are poor and can't afford it; and the
horses and mules and cattle and dogs--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,
and not an animal that you can't do what you please with, except uncle
Thomas, but _I_ don't mind him, he's lovely; and oh, if you could hear
the bugles: TOO--TOO--TOO-TOO--TOO--TOO, and so on--perfectly beautiful!
Do you recognize that one?  It's the first toots of the reveille; it
goes, dear me, SO early in the morning!--then I and every other soldier
on the whole place are up and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who
is most unaccountably lazy, I don't know why, but I have talked to him
about it, and I reckon it will be better, now.  He hasn't any faults
much, and is charming and sweet, like Buffalo Bill, and Thunder-Bird, and
Mammy Dorcas, and Soldier Boy, and Shekels, and Potter, and Sour-Mash,
and--well, they're ALL that, just angels, as you may say.

The very first day I came, I don't know how long ago it was, Buffalo Bill
took me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird's camp, not the big one which is
out on the plain, which is White Cloud's, he took me to THAT one next
day, but this one is four or five miles up in the hills and crags, where
there is a great shut-in meadow, full of Indian lodges and dogs and
squaws and everything that is interesting, and a brook of the clearest
water running through it, with white pebbles on the bottom and trees all
along the banks cool and shady and good to wade in, and as the sun goes
down it is dimmish in there, but away up against the sky you see the big
peaks towering up and shining bright and vivid in the sun, and sometimes
an eagle sailing by them, not flapping a wing, the same as if he was
asleep; and young Indians and girls romping and laughing and carrying on,
around the spring and the pool, and not much clothes on except the girls,
and dogs fighting, and the squaws busy at work, and the bucks busy
resting, and the old men sitting in a bunch smoking, and passing the pipe
not to the left but to the right, which means there's been a row in the
camp and they are settling it if they can, and children playing JUST the
same as any other children, and little boys shooting at a mark with bows,
and I cuffed one of them because he hit a dog with a club that wasn't
doing anything, and he resented it but before long he wished he hadn't:
but this sentence is getting too long and I will start another.
Thunder-Bird put on his Sunday-best war outfit to let me see him, and he
was splendid to look at, with his face painted red and bright and intense
like a fire-coal and a valance of eagle feathers from the top of his head
all down his back, and he had his tomahawk, too, and his pipe, which has
a stem which is longer than my arm, and I never had such a good time in
an Indian camp in my life, and I learned a lot of words of the language,
and next day BB took me to the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I
had another good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and dogs;
and the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave me a pretty little
bow and arrows and I gave him my red sash-ribbon, and in four days I
could shoot very well with it and beat any white boy of my size at the
post; and I have been to those camps plenty of times since; and I have
learned to ride, too, BB taught me, and every day he practises me and
praises me, and every time I do better than ever he lets me have a
scamper on Soldier Boy, and THAT'S the last agony of pleasure! for he is
the charmingest horse, and so beautiful and shiny and black, and hasn't
another color on him anywhere, except a white star in his forehead, not
just an imitation star, but a real one, with four points, shaped exactly
like a star that's hand-made, and if you should cover him all up but his
star you would know him anywhere, even in Jerusalem or Australia, by
that.  And I got acquainted with a good many of the Seventh Cavalry, and
the dragoons, and officers, and families, and horses, in the first few
days, and some more in the next few and the next few and the next few,
and now I know more soldiers and horses than you can think, no matter how
hard you try.  I am keeping up my studies every now and then, but there
isn't much time for it.  I love you so! and I send you a hug and a kiss.

CATHY.

P.S.--I belong to the Seventh Cavalry and Ninth Dragoons, I am an
officer, too, and do not have to work on account of not getting any
wages.



CHAPTER V--GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES

She has been with us a good nice long time, now.  You are troubled about
your sprite because this is such a wild frontier, hundreds of miles from
civilization, and peopled only by wandering tribes of savages?  You fear
for her safety?  Give yourself no uneasiness about her.  Dear me, she's
in a nursery! and she's got more than eighteen hundred nurses.  It would
distress the garrison to suspect that you think they can't take care of
her.  They think they can. They would tell you so themselves.  You see,
the Seventh Cavalry has never had a child of its very own before, and
neither has the Ninth Dragoons; and so they are like all new mothers,
they think there is no other child like theirs, no other child so
wonderful, none that is so worthy to be faithfully and tenderly looked
after and protected.  These bronzed veterans of mine are very good
mothers, I think, and wiser than some other mothers; for they let her
take lots of risks, and it is a good education for her; and the more
risks she takes and comes successfully out of, the prouder they are of
her.  They adopted her, with grave and formal military ceremonies of
their own invention--solemnities is the truer word; solemnities that were
so profoundly solemn and earnest, that the spectacle would have been
comical if it hadn't been so touching. It was a good show, and as stately
and complex as guard-mount and the trooping of the colors; and it had its
own special music, composed for the occasion by the bandmaster of the
Seventh; and the child was as serious as the most serious war-worn
soldier of them all; and finally when they throned her upon the shoulder
of the oldest veteran, and pronounced her "well and truly adopted," and
the bands struck up and all saluted and she saluted in return, it was
better and more moving than any kindred thing I have seen on the stage,
because stage things are make-believe, but this was real and the players'
hearts were in it.

It happened several weeks ago, and was followed by some additional
solemnities.  The men created a couple of new ranks, thitherto unknown to
the army regulations, and conferred them upon Cathy, with ceremonies
suitable to a duke.  So now she is Corporal-General of the Seventh
Cavalry, and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, with the privilege
(decreed by the men) of writing U.S.A. after her name!  Also, they
presented her a pair of shoulder-straps--both dark blue, the one with F.
L. on it, the other with C. G.  Also, a sword.  She wears them.  Finally,
they granted her the salute.  I am witness that that ceremony is
faithfully observed by both parties--and most gravely and decorously,
too.  I have never seen a soldier smile yet, while delivering it, nor
Cathy in returning it.

Ostensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am ignorant of
them; but I was where I could see.  I was afraid of one thing--the
jealousy of the other children of the post; but there is nothing of that,
I am glad to say.  On the contrary, they are proud of their comrade and
her honors.  It is a surprising thing, but it is true.  The children are
devoted to Cathy, for she has turned their dull frontier life into a sort
of continuous festival; also they know her for a stanch and steady
friend, a friend who can always be depended upon, and does not change
with the weather.

She has become a rather extraordinary rider, under the tutorship of a
more than extraordinary teacher--BB, which is her pet name for Buffalo
Bill.  She pronounces it beeby.  He has not only taught her seventeen
ways of breaking her neck, but twenty-two ways of avoiding it.  He has
infused into her the best and surest protection of a
horseman--CONFIDENCE.  He did it gradually, systematically, little by
little, a step at a time, and each step made sure before the next was
essayed.  And so he inched her along up through terrors that had been
discounted by training before she reached them, and therefore were not
recognizable as terrors when she got to them.  Well, she is a daring
little rider, now, and is perfect in what she knows of horsemanship.
By-and-by she will know the art like a West Point cadet, and will
exercise it as fearlessly.  She doesn't know anything about side-saddles.
Does that distress you?  And she is a fine performer, without any saddle
at all.  Does that discomfort you?  Do not let it; she is not in any
danger, I give you my word.

You said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it, and you
said truly.  I do not know how I got along without her, before.  I was a
forlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming vine has wound itself
about me and become the life of my life, it is very different.  As a
furnisher of business for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly
competent, but I like my share of it and of course Dorcas likes hers, for
Dorcas "raised" George, and Cathy is George over again in so many ways
that she brings back Dorcas's youth and the joys of that long-vanished
time.  My father tried to set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still
lived in Virginia, but without success; she considered herself a member
of the family, and wouldn't go.  And so, a member of the family she
remained, and has held that position unchallenged ever since, and holds
it now; for when my mother sent her here from San Bernardino when we
learned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one division of the
family to the other.  She has the warm heart of her race, and its lavish
affections, and when Cathy arrived the pair were mother and child in five
minutes, and that is what they are to date and will continue.  Dorcas
really thinks she raised George, and that is one of her prides, but
perhaps it was a mutual raising, for their ages were the same--thirteen
years short of mine.  But they were playmates, at any rate; as regards
that, there is no room for dispute.

Cathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except herself. She
could not pay any one a higher compliment than that, and Dorcas could not
receive one that would please her better.  Dorcas is satisfied that there
has never been a more wonderful child than Cathy.  She has conceived the
curious idea that Cathy is TWINS, and that one of them is a boy-twin and
failed to get segregated--got submerged, is the idea.  To argue with her
that this is nonsense is a waste of breath--her mind is made up, and
arguments do not affect it.  She says:

"Look at her; she loves dolls, and girl-plays, and everything a girl
loves, and she's gentle and sweet, and ain't cruel to dumb brutes--now
that's the girl-twin, but she loves boy-plays, and drums and fifes and
soldiering, and rough-riding, and ain't afraid of anybody or
anything--and that's the boy-twin; 'deed you needn't tell ME she's only
ONE child; no, sir, she's twins, and one of them got shet up out of
sight.  Out of sight, but that don't make any difference, that boy is in
there, and you can see him look out of her eyes when her temper is up."

Then Dorcas went on, in her simple and earnest way, to furnish
illustrations.

"Look at that raven, Marse Tom.  Would anybody befriend a raven but that
child?  Of course they wouldn't; it ain't natural.  Well, the Injun boy
had the raven tied up, and was all the time plaguing it and starving it,
and she pitied the po' thing, and tried to buy it from the boy, and the
tears was in her eyes.  That was the girl-twin, you see.  She offered him
her thimble, and he flung it down; she offered him all the doughnuts she
had, which was two, and he flung them down; she offered him half a paper
of pins, worth forty ravens, and he made a mouth at her and jabbed one of
them in the raven's back.  That was the limit, you know.  It called for
the other twin.  Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a
wild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn't
anything but an allegory.  That was most undoubtedly the other twin, you
see, coming to the front.  No, sir; don't tell ME he ain't in there.
I've seen him with my own eyes--and plenty of times, at that."

"Allegory?  What is an allegory?"

"I don't know, Marse Tom, it's one of her words; she loves the big ones,
you know, and I pick them up from her; they sound good and I can't help
it."

"What happened after she had converted the boy into an allegory?"

"Why, she untied the raven and confiscated him by force and fetched him
home, and left the doughnuts and things on the ground.  Petted him, of
course, like she does with every creature.  In two days she had him so
stuck after her that she--well, YOU know how he follows her everywhere,
and sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages--all
of which is the girl-twin to the front, you see--and he does what he
pleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance
in the kitchen.  Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn't if it was
another person's bird."

Here she began to chuckle comfortably, and presently she said:

"Well, you know, she's a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she IS so busy,
and into everything, like that bird.  It's all just as innocent, you
know, and she don't mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it ain't
her fault, it's her nature; her interest is always a-working and always
red-hot, and she can't keep quiet. Well, yesterday it was 'Please, Miss
Cathy, don't do that'; and, 'Please, Miss Cathy, let that alone'; and,
'Please, Miss Cathy, don't make so much noise'; and so on and so on, till
I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen minutes; then she
looked up at me with her big brown eyes that can plead so, and said in
that odd little foreign way that goes to your heart,

"'Please, mammy, make me a compliment."

"And of course you did it, you old fool?"

"Marse Tom, I just grabbed her up to my breast and says, 'Oh, you po'
dear little motherless thing, you ain't got a fault in the world, and you
can do anything you want to, and tear the house down, and yo' old black
mammy won't say a word!'"

"Why, of course, of course--_I_ knew you'd spoil the child."

She brushed away her tears, and said with dignity:

"Spoil the child? spoil THAT child, Marse Tom?  There can't ANYBODY spoil
her.  She's the king bee of this post, and everybody pets her and is her
slave, and yet, as you know, your own self, she ain't the least little
bit spoiled."  Then she eased her mind with this retort:  "Marse Tom, she
makes you do anything she wants to, and you can't deny it; so if she
could be spoilt, she'd been spoilt long ago, because you are the very
WORST!  Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and you sitting on a
candle-box, just as patient; it's because they're her cats."

If Dorcas were a soldier, I could punish her for such large frankness as
that.  I changed the subject, and made her resume her illustrations.  She
had scored against me fairly, and I wasn't going to cheapen her victory
by disputing it.  She proceeded to offer this incident in evidence on her
twin theory:

"Two weeks ago when she got her finger mashed open, she turned pretty
pale with the pain, but she never said a word.  I took her in my lap, and
the surgeon sponged off the blood and took a needle and thread and began
to sew it up; it had to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her
scrunch a little, but she never let go a sound.  At last the surgeon was
so full of admiration that he said, 'Well, you ARE a brave little thing!'
and she said, just as ca'm and simple as if she was talking about the
weather, 'There isn't anybody braver but the Cid!'  You see? it was the
boy-twin that the surgeon was a-dealing with.

"Who is the Cid?"

"I don't know, sir--at least only what she says.  She's always talking
about him, and says he was the bravest hero Spain ever had, or any other
country.  They have it up and down, the children do, she standing up for
the Cid, and they working George Washington for all he is worth."

"Do they quarrel?"

"No; it's only disputing, and bragging, the way children do.  They want
her to be an American, but she can't be anything but a Spaniard, she
says.  You see, her mother was always longing for home, po' thing! and
thinking about it, and so the child is just as much a Spaniard as if
she'd always lived there.  She thinks she remembers how Spain looked, but
I reckon she don't, because she was only a baby when they moved to
France.  She is very proud to be a Spaniard."

Does that please you, Mercedes?  Very well, be content; your niece is
loyal to her allegiance:  her mother laid deep the foundations of her
love for Spain, and she will go back to you as good a Spaniard as you are
yourself.  She has made me promise to take her to you for a long visit
when the War Office retires me.

I attend to her studies myself; has she told you that?  Yes, I am her
school-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think, everything
considered.  Everything considered--being translated--means holidays.
But the fact is, she was not born for study, and it comes hard.  Hard for
me, too; it hurts me like a physical pain to see that free spirit of the
air and the sunshine laboring and grieving over a book; and sometimes
when I find her gazing far away towards the plain and the blue mountains
with the longing in her eyes, I have to throw open the prison doors; I
can't help it.  A quaint little scholar she is, and makes plenty of
blunders.  Once I put the question:

"What does the Czar govern?"

She rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand and took that
problem under deep consideration.  Presently she looked up and answered,
with a rising inflection implying a shade of uncertainty,

"The dative case?"

Here are a couple of her expositions which were delivered with tranquil
confidence:

"CHAPLAIN, diminutive of chap.  LASS is masculine, LASSIE is feminine."

She is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they all make
mistakes of that sort.  There is a glad light in her eye which is pretty
to see when she finds herself able to answer a question promptly and
accurately, without any hesitation; as, for instance, this morning:

"Cathy dear, what is a cube?"

"Why, a native of Cuba."

She still drops a foreign word into her talk now and then, and there is
still a subtle foreign flavor or fragrance about even her exactest
English--and long may this abide! for it has for me a charm that is very
pleasant.  Sometimes her English is daintily prim and bookish and
captivating.  She has a child's sweet tooth, but for her health's sake I
try to keep its inspirations under cheek.  She is obedient--as is proper
for a titled and recognized military personage, which she is--but the
chain presses sometimes. For instance, we were out for a walk, and passed
by some bushes that were freighted with wild goose-berries.  Her face
brightened and she put her hands together and delivered herself of this
speech, most feelingly:

"Oh, if I was permitted a vice it would be the gourmandise!"

Could I resist that?  No.  I gave her a gooseberry.

You ask about her languages.  They take care of themselves; they will not
get rusty here; our regiments are not made up of natives alone--far from
it.  And she is picking up Indian tongues diligently.



CHAPTER VI--SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG

"When did you come?"

"Arrived at sundown."

"Where from?"

"Salt Lake."

"Are you in the service?"

"No.  Trade."

"Pirate trade, I reckon."

"What do you know about it?"

"I saw you when you came.  I recognized your master.  He is a bad sort.
Trap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, renegado--Hank Butters--I know him
very well.  Stole you, didn't he?"

"Well, it amounted to that."

"I thought so.  Where is his pard?"

"He stopped at White Cloud's camp."

"He is another of the same stripe, is Blake Haskins."  (Aside.) They are
laying for Buffalo Bill again, I guess.  (Aloud.)  "What is your name?"

"Which one?"

"Have you got more than one?"

"I get a new one every time I'm stolen.  I used to have an honest name,
but that was early; I've forgotten it.  Since then I've had thirteen
aliases."

"Aliases?  What is alias?"

"A false name."

"Alias.  It's a fine large word, and is in my line; it has quite a
learned and cerebrospinal incandescent sound.  Are you educated?"

"Well, no, I can't claim it.  I can take down bars, I can distinguish
oats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-boil with the college-bred,
and I know a few other things--not many; I have had no chance, I have
always had to work; besides, I am of low birth and no family.  You speak
my dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you are a
gentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course."

"Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate.  I am a fossil."

"A which?"

"Fossil.  The first horses were fossils.  They date back two million
years."

"Gr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?"

"Yes, it is true.  The bones of my ancestors are held in reverence and
worship, even by men.  They do not leave them exposed to the weather when
they find them, but carry them three thousand miles and enshrine them in
their temples of learning, and worship them."

"It is wonderful!  I knew you must be a person of distinction, by your
fine presence and courtly address, and by the fact that you are not
subjected to the indignity of hobbles, like myself and the rest.  Would
you tell me your name?"

"You have probably heard of it--Soldier Boy."

"What!--the renowned, the illustrious?"

"Even so."

"It takes my breath!  Little did I dream that ever I should stand face to
face with the possessor of that great name.  Buffalo Bill's horse!  Known
from the Canadian border to the deserts of Arizona, and from the eastern
marches of the Great Plains to the foot-hills of the Sierra!  Truly this
is a memorable day.  You still serve the celebrated Chief of Scouts?"

"I am still his property, but he has lent me, for a time, to the most
noble, the most gracious, the most excellent, her Excellency Catherine,
Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant Ninth Dragoons,
U.S.A.,--on whom be peace!"

"Amen.  Did you say HER Excellency?"

"The same.  A Spanish lady, sweet blossom of a ducal house.  And truly a
wonder; knowing everything, capable of everything; speaking all the
languages, master of all sciences, a mind without horizons, a heart of
gold, the glory of her race!  On whom be peace!"

"Amen.  It is marvellous!"

"Verily.  I knew many things, she has taught me others.  I am educated.
I will tell you about her."

"I listen--I am enchanted."

"I will tell a plain tale, calmly, without excitement, without eloquence.
When she had been here four or five weeks she was already erudite in
military things, and they made her an officer--a double officer.  She
rode the drill every day, like any soldier; and she could take the bugle
and direct the evolutions herself. Then, on a day, there was a grand
race, for prizes--none to enter but the children.  Seventeen children
entered, and she was the youngest.  Three girls, fourteen boys--good
riders all.  It was a steeplechase, with four hurdles, all pretty high.
The first prize was a most cunning half-grown silver bugle, and mighty
pretty, with red silk cord and tassels.  Buffalo Bill was very anxious;
for he had taught her to ride, and he did most dearly want her to win
that race, for the glory of it.  So he wanted her to ride me, but she
wouldn't; and she reproached him, and said it was unfair and unright, and
taking advantage; for what horse in this post or any other could stand a
chance against me? and she was very severe with him, and said, 'You ought
to be ashamed--you are proposing to me conduct unbecoming an officer and
a gentleman.'  So he just tossed her up in the air about thirty feet and
caught her as she came down, and said he was ashamed; and put up his
handkerchief and pretended to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she
petted him, and begged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything
in the world he could ask but that; but he said he ought to go hang
himself, and he MUST, if he could get a rope; it was nothing but right he
should, for he never, never could forgive himself; and then SHE began to
cry, and they both sobbed, the way you could hear him a mile, and she
clinging around his neck and pleading, till at last he was comforted a
little, and gave his solemn promise he wouldn't hang himself till after
the race; and wouldn't do it at all if she won it, which made her happy,
and she said she would win it or die in the saddle; so then everything
was pleasant again and both of them content.  He can't help playing jokes
on her, he is so fond of her and she is so innocent and unsuspecting; and
when she finds it out she cuffs him and is in a fury, but presently
forgives him because it's him; and maybe the very next day she's caught
with another joke; you see she can't learn any better, because she hasn't
any deceit in her, and that kind aren't ever expecting it in another
person.

"It was a grand race.  The whole post was there, and there was such
another whooping and shouting when the seventeen kids came flying down
the turf and sailing over the hurdles--oh, beautiful to see! Half-way
down, it was kind of neck and neck, and anybody's race and nobody's.
Then, what should happen but a cow steps out and puts her head down to
munch grass, with her broadside to the battalion, and they a-coming like
the wind; they split apart to flank her, but SHE?--why, she drove the
spurs home and soared over that cow like a bird! and on she went, and
cleared the last hurdle solitary and alone, the army letting loose the
grand yell, and she skipped from the horse the same as if he had been
standing still, and made her bow, and everybody crowded around to
congratulate, and they gave her the bugle, and she put it to her lips and
blew 'boots and saddles' to see how it would go, and BB was as proud as
you can't think!  And he said, 'Take Soldier Boy, and don't pass him back
till I ask for him!' and I can tell you he wouldn't have said that to any
other person on this planet.  That was two months and more ago, and
nobody has been on my back since but the Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry
and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,--on whom be peace!"

"Amen.  I listen--tell me more."

"She set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it the First
Battalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and she wanted to be bugler,
but they elected her Lieutenant-General and Bugler.  So she ranks her
uncle the commandant, who is only a Brigadier.  And doesn't she train
those little people!  Ask the Indians, ask the traders, ask the soldiers;
they'll tell you.  She has been at it from the first day.  Every morning
they go clattering down into the plain, and there she sits on my back
with her bugle at her mouth and sounds the orders and puts them through
the evolutions for an hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything
to see those ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz
about, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always
graceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near by,
sometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you know, and
sometimes she can't hold herself any longer, but sounds the 'charge,' and
turns me loose! and you can take my word for it, if the battalion hasn't
too much of a start we catch up and go over the breastworks with the
front line.

"Yes, they are soldiers, those little people; and healthy, too, not
ailing any more, the way they used to be sometimes.  It's because of her
drill.  She's got a fort, now--Fort Fanny Marsh. Major-General Tommy
Drake planned it out, and the Seventh and Dragoons built it.  Tommy is
the Colonel's son, and is fifteen and the oldest in the Battalion; Fanny
Marsh is Brigadier-General, and is next oldest--over thirteen.  She is
daughter of Captain Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry.
Lieutenant-General Alison is the youngest by considerable; I think she is
about nine and a half or three-quarters.  Her military rig, as
Lieutenant-General, isn't for business, it's for dress parade, because
the ladies made it.  They say they got it out of the Middle Ages--out of
a book--and it is all red and blue and white silks and satins and
velvets; tights, trunks, sword, doublet with slashed sleeves, short cape,
cap with just one feather in it; I've heard them name these things; they
got them out of the book; she's dressed like a page, of old times, they
say.  It's the daintiest outfit that ever was--you will say so, when you
see it.  She's lovely in it--oh, just a dream!  In some ways she is just
her age, but in others she's as old as her uncle, I think.  She is very
learned.  She teaches her uncle his book.  I have seen her sitting by
with the book and reciting to him what is in it, so that he can learn to
do it himself.

"Every Saturday she hires little Injuns to garrison her fort; then she
lays siege to it, and makes military approaches by make-believe trenches
in make-believe night, and finally at make-believe dawn she draws her
sword and sounds the assault and takes it by storm. It is for practice.
And she has invented a bugle-call all by herself, out of her own head,
and it's a stirring one, and the prettiest in the service.  It's to call
ME--it's never used for anything else.  She taught it to me, and told me
what it says:  'IT IS I, SOLDIER--COME!' and when those thrilling notes
come floating down the distance I hear them without fail, even if I am
two miles away; and then--oh, then you should see my heels get down to
business!

"And she has taught me how to say good-morning and good-night to her,
which is by lifting my right hoof for her to shake; and also how to say
good-bye; I do that with my left foot--but only for practice, because
there hasn't been any but make-believe good-byeing yet, and I hope there
won't ever be.  It would make me cry if I ever had to put up my left foot
in earnest.  She has taught me how to salute, and I can do it as well as
a soldier.  I bow my head low, and lay my right hoof against my cheek.
She taught me that because I got into disgrace once, through ignorance.
I am privileged, because I am known to be honorable and trustworthy, and
because I have a distinguished record in the service; so they don't
hobble me nor tie me to stakes or shut me tight in stables, but let me
wander around to suit myself.  Well, trooping the colors is a very solemn
ceremony, and everybody must stand uncovered when the flag goes by, the
commandant and all; and once I was there, and ignorantly walked across
right in front of the band, which was an awful disgrace:  Ah, the
Lieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so distressed that I should have
done such a thing before all the world, that she couldn't keep the tears
back; and then she taught me the salute, so that if I ever did any other
unmilitary act through ignorance I could do my salute and she believed
everybody would think it was apology enough and would not press the
matter. It is very nice and distinguished; no other horse can do it;
often the men salute me, and I return it.  I am privileged to be present
when the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like
the children, and I salute when the flag goes by.  Of course when she
goes to her fort her sentries sing out 'Turn out the guard!' and then . .
. do you catch that refreshing early-morning whiff from the
mountain-pines and the wild flowers?  The night is far spent; we'll hear
the bugles before long.  Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice;
she takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General
Alison's mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieutenant-General.
That is what Shekels says.  At least it is what I think he says, though I
never can understand him quite clearly. He--"

"Who is Shekels?"

"The Seventh Cavalry dog.  I mean, if he IS a dog.  His father was a
coyote and his mother was a wild-cat.  It doesn't really make a dog out
of him, does it?"

"Not a real dog, I should think.  Only a kind of a general dog, at most,
I reckon.  Though this is a matter of ichthyology, I suppose; and if it
is, it is out of my depth, and so my opinion is not valuable, and I don't
claim much consideration for it."

"It isn't ichthyology; it is dogmatics, which is still more difficult and
tangled up.  Dogmatics always are."

"Dogmatics is quite beyond me, quite; so I am not competing.  But on
general principles it is my opinion that a colt out of a coyote and a
wild-cat is no square dog, but doubtful.  That is my hand, and I stand
pat."

"Well, it is as far as I can go myself, and be fair and conscientious.  I
have always regarded him as a doubtful dog, and so has Potter.  Potter is
the great Dane.  Potter says he is no dog, and not even poultry--though I
do not go quite so far as that.

"And I wouldn't, myself.  Poultry is one of those things which no person
can get to the bottom of, there is so much of it and such variety.  It is
just wings, and wings, and wings, till you are weary:  turkeys, and
geese, and bats, and butterflies, and angels, and grasshoppers, and
flying-fish, and--well, there is really no end to the tribe; it gives me
the heaves just to think of it.  But this one hasn't any wings, has he?"

"No."

"Well, then, in my belief he is more likely to be dog than poultry. I
have not heard of poultry that hadn't wings.  Wings is the SIGN of
poultry; it is what you tell poultry by.  Look at the mosquito."

"What do you reckon he is, then?  He must be something."

"Why, he could be a reptile; anything that hasn't wings is a reptile."

"Who told you that?"

"Nobody told me, but I overheard it."

"Where did you overhear it?"

"Years ago.  I was with the Philadelphia Institute expedition in the Bad
Lands under Professor Cope, hunting mastodon bones, and I overheard him
say, his own self, that any plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium
that hadn't wings and was uncertain was a reptile.  Well, then, has this
dog any wings?  No.  Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium?
Maybe so, maybe not; but without ever having seen him, and judging only
by his illegal and spectacular parentage, I will bet the odds of a bale
of hay to a bran mash that he looks it.  Finally, is he uncertain?  That
is the point--is he uncertain?  I will leave it to you if you have ever
heard of a more uncertainer dog than what this one is?"

"No, I never have."

"Well, then, he's a reptile.  That's settled."

"Why, look here, whatsyourname"

"Last alias, Mongrel."

"A good one, too.  I was going to say, you are better educated than you
have been pretending to be.  I like cultured society, and I shall
cultivate your acquaintance.  Now as to Shekels, whenever you want to
know about any private thing that is going on at this post or in White
Cloud's camp or Thunder-Bird's, he can tell you; and if you make friends
with him he'll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks up all the
tittle-tattle.  Being the whole Seventh Cavalry's reptile, he doesn't
belong to anybody in particular, and hasn't any military duties; so he
comes and goes as he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and
other authentic sources of private information.  He understands all the
languages, and talks them all, too.  With an accent like gritting your
teeth, it is true, and with a grammar that is no improvement on
blasphemy--still, with practice you get at the meat of what he says, and
it serves. . . Hark!  That's the reveille. . . .

[THE REVEILLE]

"Faint and far, but isn't it clear, isn't it sweet?  There's no music
like the bugle to stir the blood, in the still solemnity of the morning
twilight, with the dim plain stretching away to nothing and the spectral
mountains slumbering against the sky.  You'll hear another note in a
minute--faint and far and clear, like the other one, and sweeter still,
you'll notice.  Wait . . . listen.  There it goes!  It says, 'IT IS I,
SOLDIER--COME!' . . .

[SOLDIER BOY'S BUGLE CALL]

. . . Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!"



CHAPTER VII--SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS

"Did you do as I told you?  Did you look up the Mexican Plug?"

"Yes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his friendship."

"I liked him.  Did you?"

"Not at first.  He took me for a reptile, and it troubled me, because I
didn't know whether it was a compliment or not.  I couldn't ask him,
because it would look ignorant.  So I didn't say anything, and soon liked
him very well indeed.  Was it a compliment, do you think?"

"Yes, that is what it was.  They are very rare, the reptiles; very few
left, now-a-days."

"Is that so?  What is a reptile?"

"It is a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn't any
wings and is uncertain."

"Well, it--it sounds fine, it surely does."

"And it IS fine.  You may be thankful you are one."

"I am.  It seems wonderfully grand and elegant for a person that is so
humble as I am; but I am thankful, I am indeed, and will try to live up
to it.  It is hard to remember.  Will you say it again, please, and say
it slow?"

"Plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn't any wings and is
uncertain."

"It is beautiful, anybody must grant it; beautiful, and of a noble sound.
I hope it will not make me proud and stuck-up--I should not like to be
that.  It is much more distinguished and honorable to be a reptile than a
dog, don't you think, Soldier?"

"Why, there's no comparison.  It is awfully aristocratic.  Often a duke
is called a reptile; it is set down so, in history."

"Isn't that grand!  Potter wouldn't ever associate with me, but I reckon
he'll be glad to when he finds out what I am."

"You can depend upon it."

"I will thank Mongrel for this. He is a very good sort, for a Mexican
Plug.  Don't you think he is?"

"It is my opinion of him; and as for his birth, he cannot help that.  We
cannot all be reptiles, we cannot all be fossils; we have to take what
comes and be thankful it is no worse.  It is the true philosophy."

"For those others?"

"Stick to the subject, please.  Did it turn out that my suspicions were
right?"

"Yes, perfectly right.  Mongrel has heard them planning.  They are after
BB's life, for running them out of Medicine Bow and taking their stolen
horses away from them."

"Well, they'll get him yet, for sure."

"Not if he keeps a sharp look-out."

"HE keep a sharp lookout!  He never does; he despises them, and all their
kind.  His life is always being threatened, and so it has come to be
monotonous."

"Does he know they are here?"

"Oh yes, he knows it.  He is always the earliest to know who comes and
who goes.  But he cares nothing for them and their threats; he only
laughs when people warn him.  They'll shoot him from behind a tree the
first he knows.  Did Mongrel tell you their plans?"

"Yes.  They have found out that he starts for Fort Clayton day after
to-morrow, with one of his scouts; so they will leave to-morrow, letting
on to go south, but they will fetch around north all in good time."

"Shekels, I don't like the look of it."



CHAPTER VIII--THE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON

BB (saluting).  "Good! handsomely done!  The Seventh couldn't beat it!
You do certainly handle your Rangers like an expert, General. And where
are you bound?"

"Four miles on the trail to Fort Clayton."

"Glad am I, dear!  What's the idea of it?"

"Guard of honor for you and Thorndike."

"Bless--your--HEART!  I'd rather have it from you than from the
Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, you incomparable
little soldier!--and I don't need to take any oath to that, for you to
believe it."

"I THOUGHT you'd like it, BB."

"LIKE it?  Well, I should say so!  Now then--all ready--sound the
advance, and away we go!"



CHAPTER IX--SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN

"Well, this is the way it happened.  We did the escort duty; then we
came back and struck for the plain and put the Rangers through a rousing
drill--oh, for hours!  Then we sent them home under Brigadier-General
Fanny Marsh; then the Lieutenant-General and I went off on a gallop over
the plains for about three hours, and were lazying along home in the
middle of the afternoon, when we met Jimmy Slade, the drummer-boy, and he
saluted and asked the Lieutenant-General if she had heard the news, and
she said no, and he said:

"'Buffalo Bill has been ambushed and badly shot this side of Clayton, and
Thorndike the scout, too; Bill couldn't travel, but Thorndike could, and
he brought the news, and Sergeant Wilkes and six men of Company B are
gone, two hours ago, hotfoot, to get Bill. And they say--'

"'GO!' she shouts to me--and I went."

"Fast?"

"Don't ask foolish questions.  It was an awful pace.  For four hours
nothing happened, and not a word said, except that now and then she said,
'Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we'll save him!'  I kept it up.
Well, when the dark shut down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap
had been tearing around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack
knee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully
afraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I
could stop, she hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last over
she went!

"Ah, that was a fix to be in I for she lay there and didn't stir, and
what was I to do?  I couldn't leave her to fetch help, on account of the
wolves.  There was nothing to do but stand by.  It was dreadful.  I was
afraid she was killed, poor little thing!  But she wasn't.  She came to,
by-and-by, and said, 'Kiss me, Soldier,' and those were blessed words.  I
kissed her--often; I am used to that, and we like it.  But she didn't get
up, and I was worried. She fondled my nose with her hand, and talked to
me, and called me endearing names--which is her way--but she caressed
with the same hand all the time.  The other arm was broken, you see, but
I didn't know it, and she didn't mention it.  She didn't want to distress
me, you know.

"Soon the big gray wolves came, and hung around, and you could hear them
snarl, and snap at each other, but you couldn't see anything of them
except their eyes, which shone in the dark like sparks and stars.  The
Lieutenant-General said, 'If I had the Rocky Mountain Rangers here, we
would make those creatures climb a tree.'  Then she made believe that the
Rangers were in hearing, and put up her bugle and blew the 'assembly';
and then, 'boots and saddles'; then the 'trot'; 'gallop'; 'charge!'  Then
she blew the 'retreat,' and said, 'That's for you, you rebels; the
Rangers don't ever retreat!'

"The music frightened them away, but they were hungry, and kept coming
back.  And of course they got bolder and bolder, which is their way.  It
went on for an hour, then the tired child went to sleep, and it was
pitiful to hear her moan and nestle, and I couldn't do anything for her.
All the time I was laying for the wolves.  They are in my line; I have
had experience.  At last the boldest one ventured within my lines, and I
landed him among his friends with some of his skull still on him, and
they did the rest. In the next hour I got a couple more, and they went
the way of the first one, down the throats of the detachment.  That
satisfied the survivors, and they went away and left us in peace.

"We hadn't any more adventures, though I kept awake all night and was
ready.  From midnight on the child got very restless, and out of her
head, and moaned, and said, 'Water, water--thirsty'; and now and then,
'Kiss me, Soldier'; and sometimes she was in her fort and giving orders
to her garrison; and once she was in Spain, and thought her mother was
with her.  People say a horse can't cry; but they don't know, because we
cry inside.

"It was an hour after sunup that I heard the boys coming, and recognized
the hoof-beats of Pomp and Caesar and Jerry, old mates of mine; and a
welcomer sound there couldn't ever be.

Buffalo Bill was in a horse-litter, with his leg broken by a bullet, and
Mongrel and Blake Haskins's horse were doing the work. Buffalo Bill and
Thorndike had lolled both of those toughs.

"When they got to us, and Buffalo Bill saw the child lying there so
white, he said, 'My God!' and the sound of his voice brought her to
herself, and she gave a little cry of pleasure and struggled to get up,
but couldn't, and the soldiers gathered her up like the tenderest women,
and their eyes were wet and they were not ashamed, when they saw her arm
dangling; and so were Buffalo Bill's, and when they laid her in his arms
he said, 'My darling, how does this come?' and she said, 'We came to save
you, but I was tired, and couldn't keep awake, and fell off and hurt
myself, and couldn't get on again.'  'You came to save me, you dear
little rat?  It was too lovely of you!'  'Yes, and Soldier stood by me,
which you know he would, and protected me from the wolves; and if he got
a chance he kicked the life out of some of them--for you know he would,
BB.' The sergeant said, 'He laid out three of them, sir, and here's the
bones to show for it.'  'He's a grand horse,' said BB; 'he's the grandest
horse that ever was! and has saved your life, Lieutenant-General Alison,
and shall protect it the rest of his life--he's yours for a kiss!'  He
got it, along with a passion of delight, and he said, 'You are feeling
better now, little Spaniard--do you think you could blow the advance?'
She put up the bugle to do it, but he said wait a minute first.  Then he
and the sergeant set her arm and put it in splints, she wincing but not
whimpering; then we took up the march for home, and that's the end of the
tale; and I'm her horse.  Isn't she a brick, Shekels?

"Brick?  She's more than a brick, more than a thousand bricks--she's a
reptile!"

"It's a compliment out of your heart, Shekels.  God bless you for it!"



CHAPTER X--GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS

"Too much company for her, Marse Tom.  Betwixt you, and Shekels, the
Colonel's wife, and the Cid--"

"The Cid?  Oh, I remember--the raven."

"--and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence the baby COYOTES,
and Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus and her kittens--hang these
names she gives the creatures, they warp my jaw--and Potter:  you--all
sitting around in the house, and Soldier Boy at the window the entire
time, it's a wonder to me she comes along as well as she does.  She--"

"You want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!"

"Marse Tom, you know better.  It's too much company.  And then the idea
of her receiving reports all the time from her officers, and acting upon
them, and giving orders, the same as if she was well! It ain't good for
her, and the surgeon don't like it, and tried to persuade her not to and
couldn't; and when he ORDERED her, she was that outraged and indignant,
and was very severe on him, and accused him of insubordination, and said
it didn't become him to give orders to an officer of her rank.  Well, he
saw he had excited her more and done more harm than all the rest put
together, so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still.
Doctors DON'T know much, and that's a fact.  She's too much interested in
things--she ought to rest more.  She's all the time sending messages to
BB, and to soldiers and Injuns and whatnot, and to the animals."

"To the animals?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who carries them?"

"Sometimes Potter, but mostly it's Shekels."

"Now come! who can find fault with such pretty make-believe as that?"

"But it ain't make-believe, Marse Tom.  She does send them."

"Yes, I don't doubt that part of it."

"Do you doubt they get them, sir?"

"Certainly.  Don't you?"

"No, sir.  Animals talk to one another.  I know it perfectly well, Marse
Tom, and I ain't saying it by guess."

"What a curious superstition!"

"It ain't a superstition, Marse Tom.  Look at that Shekels--look at him,
NOW.  Is he listening, or ain't he?  NOW you see! he's turned his head
away.  It's because he was caught--caught in the act. I'll ask you--could
a Christian look any more ashamed than what he looks now?--LAY DOWN!  You
see? he was going to sneak out.  Don't tell ME, Marse Tom!  If animals
don't talk, I miss MY guess.  And Shekels is the worst.  He goes and
tells the animals everything that happens in the officers' quarters; and
if he's short of facts, he invents them.  He hasn't any more principle
than a blue jay; and as for morals, he's empty.  Look at him now; look at
him grovel. He knows what I am saying, and he knows it's the truth.  You
see, yourself, that he can feel shame; it's the only virtue he's got.
It's wonderful how they find out everything that's going on--the animals.
They--"

"Do you really believe they do, Dorcas?"

"I don't only just believe it, Marse Tom, I know it.  Day before
yesterday they knew something was going to happen.  They were that
excited, and whispering around together; why, anybody could see that
they--But my! I must get back to her, and I haven't got to my errand
yet."

"What is it, Dorcas?"

"Well, it's two or three things.  One is, the doctor don't salute when he
comes . . . Now, Marse Tom, it ain't anything to laugh at, and so--"

"Well, then, forgive me; I didn't mean to laugh--I got caught
unprepared."

"You see, she don't want to hurt the doctor's feelings, so she don't say
anything to him about it; but she is always polite, herself, and it hurts
that kind for people to be rude to them."

"I'll have that doctor hanged."

"Marse Tom, she don't WANT him hanged.  She--"

"Well, then, I'll have him boiled in oil."

"But she don't WANT him boiled.  I--"

"Oh, very well, very well, I only want to please her; I'll have him
skinned."

"Why, SHE don't want him skinned; it would break her heart.  Now--"

"Woman, this is perfectly unreasonable.  What in the nation DOES she
want?"

"Marse Tom, if you would only be a little patient, and not fly off the
handle at the least little thing.  Why, she only wants you to speak to
him."

"Speak to him!  Well, upon my word!  All this unseemly rage and row about
such a--a--Dorcas, I never saw you carry on like this before.  You have
alarmed the sentry; he thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there's
a mutiny, a revolt, an insurrection; he--"

"Marse Tom, you are just putting on; you know it perfectly well; I don't
know what makes you act like that--but you always did, even when you was
little, and you can't get over it, I reckon.  Are you over it now, Marse
Tom?"

"Oh, well, yes; but it would try anybody to be doing the best he could,
offering every kindness he could think of, only to have it rejected with
contumely and . . . Oh, well, let it go; it's no matter--I'll talk to the
doctor.  Is that satisfactory, or are you going to break out again?"

"Yes, sir, it is; and it's only right to talk to him, too, because it's
just as she says; she's trying to keep up discipline in the Rangers, and
this insubordination of his is a bad example for them--now ain't it so,
Marse Tom?"

"Well, there IS reason in it, I can't deny it; so I will speak to him,
though at bottom I think hanging would be more lasting.  What is the rest
of your errand, Dorcas?"

"Of course her room is Ranger headquarters now, Marse Tom, while she's
sick.  Well, soldiers of the cavalry and the dragoons that are off duty
come and get her sentries to let them relieve them and serve in their
place.  It's only out of affection, sir, and because they know military
honors please her, and please the children too, for her sake; and they
don't bring their muskets; and so--"

"I've noticed them there, but didn't twig the idea.  They are standing
guard, are they?"

"Yes, sir, and she is afraid you will reprove them and hurt their
feelings, if you see them there; so she begs, if--if you don't mind
coming in the back way--"

"Bear me up, Dorcas; don't let me faint."

"There--sit up and behave, Marse Tom.  You are not going to faint; you
are only pretending--you used to act just so when you was little; it does
seem a long time for you to get grown up."

"Dorcas, the way the child is progressing, I shall be out of my job
before long--she'll have the whole post in her hands.  I must make a
stand, I must not go down without a struggle.  These encroachments. . . .
Dorcas, what do you think she will think of next?"

"Marse Tom, she don't mean any harm."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Yes, Marse Tom."

"You feel sure she has no ulterior designs?"

"I don't know what that is, Marse Tom, but I know she hasn't."

"Very well, then, for the present I am satisfied.  What else have you
come about?"

"I reckon I better tell you the whole thing first, Marse Tom, then tell
you what she wants.  There's been an emeute, as she calls it. It was
before she got back with BB.  The officer of the day reported it to her
this morning.  It happened at her fort.  There was a fuss betwixt
Major-General Tommy Drake and Lieutenant-Colonel Agnes Frisbie, and he
snatched her doll away, which is made of white kid stuffed with sawdust,
and tore every rag of its clothes off, right before them all, and is
under arrest, and the charge is conduct un--"

"Yes, I know--conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman--a plain
case, too, it seems to me.  This is a serious matter.  Well, what is her
pleasure?"

"Well, Marse Tom, she has summoned a court-martial, but the doctor don't
think she is well enough to preside over it, and she says there ain't
anybody competent but her, because there's a major-general concerned; and
so she--she--well, she says, would you preside over it for her? . . .
Marse Tom, SIT up!  You ain't any more going to faint than Shekels is."

"Look here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful.  Be persuasive; don't
fret her; tell her it's all right, the matter is in my hands, but it
isn't good form to hurry so grave a matter as this.  Explain to her that
we have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new.  In
fact, you can say I know that nothing just like it has happened in our
army, therefore I must be guided by European precedents, and must go
cautiously and examine them carefully. Tell her not to be impatient, it
will take me several days, but it will all come out right, and I will
come over and report progress as I go along.  Do you get the idea,
Dorcas?"

"I don't know as I do, sir."

"Well, it's this.  You see, it won't ever do for me, a brigadier in the
regular army, to preside over that infant court-martial--there isn't any
precedent for it, don't you see.  Very well.  I will go on examining
authorities and reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out
of this scrape by presiding herself.  Do you get it now?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I get it, and it's good, I'll go and fix it with her.  LAY
DOWN! and stay where you are."

"Why, what harm is he doing?"

"Oh, it ain't any harm, but it just vexes me to see him act so."

"What was he doing?"

"Can't you see, and him in such a sweat?  He was starting out to spread
it all over the post.  NOW I reckon you won't deny, any more, that they
go and tell everything they hear, now that you've seen it with yo' own
eyes."

"Well, I don't like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I don't see how I can
consistently stick to my doubts in the face of such overwhelming proof as
this dog is furnishing."

"There, now, you've got in yo' right mind at last!  I wonder you can be
so stubborn, Marse Tom.  But you always was, even when you was little.
I'm going now."

"Look here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my judgment that
she ought to enlarge the accused on his parole."

"Yes, sir, I'll tell her.  Marse Tom?"

"Well?"

"She can't get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all the time, down in
the mouth and lonesome; and she says will you shake hands with him and
comfort him?  Everybody does."

"It's a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right, I will."



CHAPTER XI--SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE

"Thorndike, isn't that Plug you're riding an assert of the scrap you and
Buffalo Bill had with the late Blake Haskins and his pal a few months
back?"

"Yes, this is Mongrel--and not a half-bad horse, either."

"I've noticed he keeps up his lick first-rate.  Say--isn't it a gaudy
morning?"

"Right you are!"

"Thorndike, it's Andalusian! and when that's said, all's said."

"Andalusian AND Oregonian, Antonio!  Put it that way, and you have my
vote.  Being a native up there, I know.  You being Andalusian-born--"

"Can speak with authority for that patch of paradise?  Well, I can. Like
the Don! like Sancho!  This is the correct Andalusian dawn now--crisp,
fresh, dewy, fragrant, pungent--"

"'What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle--'

--GIT up, you old cow! stumbling like that when we've just been praising
you! out on a scout and can't live up to the honor any better than that?
Antonio, how long have you been out here in the Plains and the Rockies?"

"More than thirteen years."

"It's a long time.  Don't you ever get homesick?"

"Not till now."

"Why NOW?--after such a long cure."

"These preparations of the retiring commandant's have started it up."

"Of course.  It's natural."

"It keeps me thinking about Spain.  I know the region where the Seventh's
child's aunt lives; I know all the lovely country for miles around; I'll
bet I've seen her aunt's villa many a time; I'll bet I've been in it in
those pleasant old times when I was a Spanish gentleman."

"They say the child is wild to see Spain."

"It's so; I know it from what I hear."

"Haven't you talked with her about it?"

"No.  I've avoided it.  I should soon be as wild as she is.  That would
not be comfortable."

"I wish I was going, Antonio.  There's two things I'd give a lot to see.
One's a railroad."

"She'll see one when she strikes Missouri."

"The other's a bull-fight."

"I've seen lots of them; I wish I could see another."

"I don't know anything about it, except in a mixed-up, foggy way,
Antonio, but I know enough to know it's grand sport."

"The grandest in the world!  There's no other sport that begins with it.
I'll tell you what I've seen, then you can judge.  It was my first, and
it's as vivid to me now as it was when I saw it.  It was a Sunday
afternoon, and beautiful weather, and my uncle, the priest, took me as a
reward for being a good boy and because of my own accord and without
anybody asking me I had bankrupted my savings-box and given the money to
a mission that was civilizing the Chinese and sweetening their lives and
softening their hearts with the gentle teachings of our religion, and I
wish you could have seen what we saw that day, Thorndike.

"The amphitheatre was packed, from the bull-ring to the highest
row--twelve thousand people in one circling mass, one slanting, solid
mass--royalties, nobles, clergy, ladies, gentlemen, state officials,
generals, admirals, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, thieves, merchants,
brokers, cooks, housemaids, scullery-maids, doubtful women, dudes,
gamblers, beggars, loafers, tramps, American ladies, gentlemen,
preachers, English ladies, gentlemen, preachers, German ditto, French
ditto, and so on and so on, all the world represented:  Spaniards to
admire and praise, foreigners to enjoy and go home and find fault--there
they were, one solid, sloping, circling sweep of rippling and flashing
color under the downpour of the summer sun--just a garden, a gaudy,
gorgeous flower-garden! Children munching oranges, six thousand fans
fluttering and glimmering, everybody happy, everybody chatting gayly with
their intimates, lovely girl-faces smiling recognition and salutation to
other lovely girl-faces, gray old ladies and gentlemen dealing in the
like exchanges with each other--ah, such a picture of cheery contentment
and glad anticipation! not a mean spirit, nor a sordid soul, nor a sad
heart there--ah, Thorndike, I wish I could see it again.

"Suddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and murmur--clear
the ring!

"They clear it.  The great gate is flung open, and the procession marches
in, splendidly costumed and glittering:  the marshals of the day, then
the picadores on horseback, then the matadores on foot, each surrounded
by his quadrille of chulos.  They march to the box of the city fathers,
and formally salute.  The key is thrown, the bull-gate is unlocked.
Another bugle blast--the gate flies open, the bull plunges in, furious,
trembling, blinking in the blinding light, and stands there, a
magnificent creature, centre of those multitudinous and admiring eyes,
brave, ready for battle, his attitude a challenge.  He sees his enemy:
horsemen sitting motionless, with long spears in rest, upon blindfolded
broken-down nags, lean and starved, fit only for sport and sacrifice,
then the carrion-heap.

"The bull makes a rush, with murder in his eye, but a picador meets him
with a spear-thrust in the shoulder.  He flinches with the pain, and the
picador skips out of danger.  A burst of applause for the picador, hisses
for the bull.  Some shout 'Cow!' at the bull, and call him offensive
names.  But he is not listening to them, he is there for business; he is
not minding the cloak-bearers that come fluttering around to confuse him;
he chases this way, he chases that way, and hither and yon, scattering
the nimble banderillos in every direction like a spray, and receiving
their maddening darts in his neck as they dodge and fly--oh, but it's a
lively spectacle, and brings down the house!  Ah, you should hear the
thundering roar that goes up when the game is at its wildest and
brilliant things are done!

"Oh, that first bull, that day, was great!  From the moment the spirit of
war rose to flood-tide in him and he got down to his work, he began to do
wonders.  He tore his way through his persecutors, flinging one of them
clear over the parapet; he bowled a horse and his rider down, and plunged
straight for the next, got home with his horns, wounding both horse and
man; on again, here and there and this way and that; and one after
another he tore the bowels out of two horses so that they gushed to the
ground, and ripped a third one so badly that although they rushed him to
cover and shoved his bowels back and stuffed the rents with tow and rode
him against the bull again, he couldn't make the trip; he tried to
gallop, under the spur, but soon reeled and tottered and fell, all in a
heap.  For a while, that bull-ring was the most thrilling and glorious
and inspiring sight that ever was seen.  The bull absolutely cleared it,
and stood there alone! monarch of the place. The people went mad for
pride in him, and joy and delight, and you couldn't hear yourself think,
for the roar and boom and crash of applause."

"Antonio, it carries me clear out of myself just to hear you tell it; it
must have been perfectly splendid.  If I live, I'll see a bull-fight yet
before I die.  Did they kill him?"

"Oh yes; that is what the bull is for.  They tired him out, and got him
at last.  He kept rushing the matador, who always slipped smartly and
gracefully aside in time, waiting for a sure chance; and at last it came;
the bull made a deadly plunge for him--was avoided neatly, and as he sped
by, the long sword glided silently into him, between left shoulder and
spine--in and in, to the hilt. He crumpled down, dying."

"Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was.  I would give a year
of my life to see it.  Is the bull always killed?"

"Yes.  Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place,
and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat.  Then everybody despises
him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they
hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see
him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into
hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my
cheeks to see it.  When he has furnished all the sport he can, he is not
any longer useful, and is killed."

"Well, it is perfectly grand, Antonio, perfectly beautiful. Burning a
nigger don't begin."



CHAPTER XII--MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE

"Sage-Brush, you have been listening?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it strange?"

"Well, no, Mongrel, I don't know that it is."

"Why don't you?"

"I've seen a good many human beings in my time.  They are created as they
are; they cannot help it.  They are only brutal because that is their
make; brutes would be brutal if it was THEIR make."

"To me, Sage-Brush, man is most strange and unaccountable.  Why should he
treat dumb animals that way when they are not doing any harm?"

"Man is not always like that, Mongrel; he is kind enough when he is not
excited by religion."

"Is the bull-fight a religious service?"

"I think so.  I have heard so.  It is held on Sunday."

(A reflective pause, lasting some moments.)  Then:

"When we die, Sage-Brush, do we go to heaven and dwell with man?"

"My father thought not.  He believed we do not have to go there unless we
deserve it."





PART II--IN SPAIN



CHAPTER XIII--GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER

It was a prodigious trip, but delightful, of course, through the Rockies
and the Black Hills and the mighty sweep of the Great Plains to
civilization and the Missouri border--where the railroading began and the
delightfulness ended.  But no one is the worse for the journey; certainly
not Cathy, nor Dorcas, nor Soldier Boy; and as for me, I am not
complaining.

Spain is all that Cathy had pictured it--and more, she says.  She is in a
fury of delight, the maddest little animal that ever was, and all for
joy.  She thinks she remembers Spain, but that is not very likely, I
suppose.  The two--Mercedes and Cathy--devour each other.  It is a
rapture of love, and beautiful to see.  It is Spanish; that describes it.
Will this be a short visit?

No.  It will be permanent.  Cathy has elected to abide with Spain and her
aunt.  Dorcas says she (Dorcas) foresaw that this would happen; and also
says that she wanted it to happen, and says the child's own country is
the right place for her, and that she ought not to have been sent to me,
I ought to have gone to her.  I thought it insane to take Soldier Boy to
Spain, but it was well that I yielded to Cathy's pleadings; if he had
been left behind, half of her heart would have remained with him, and she
would not have been contented.  As it is, everything has fallen out for
the best, and we are all satisfied and comfortable.  It may be that
Dorcas and I will see America again some day; but also it is a case of
maybe not.

We left the post in the early morning.  It was an affecting time. The
women cried over Cathy, so did even those stern warriors, the Rocky
Mountain Rangers; Shekels was there, and the Cid, and Sardanapalus, and
Potter, and Mongrel, and Sour-Mash, Famine, and Pestilence, and Cathy
kissed them all and wept; details of the several arms of the garrison
were present to represent the rest, and say good-bye and God bless you
for all the soldiery; and there was a special squad from the Seventh,
with the oldest veteran at its head, to speed the Seventh's Child with
grand honors and impressive ceremonies; and the veteran had a touching
speech by heart, and put up his hand in salute and tried to say it, but
his lips trembled and his voice broke, but Cathy bent down from the
saddle and kissed him on the mouth and turned his defeat to victory, and
a cheer went up.

The next act closed the ceremonies, and was a moving surprise.  It may be
that you have discovered, before this, that the rigors of military law
and custom melt insensibly away and disappear when a soldier or a
regiment or the garrison wants to do something that will please Cathy.
The bands conceived the idea of stirring her soldierly heart with a
farewell which would remain in her memory always, beautiful and unfading,
and bring back the past and its love for her whenever she should think of
it; so they got their project placed before General Burnaby, my
successor, who is Cathy's newest slave, and in spite of poverty of
precedents they got his permission.  The bands knew the child's favorite
military airs.  By this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn't.
She was asked to sound the "reveille," which she did.

[REVEILLE]

With the last note the bands burst out with a crash:  and woke the
mountains with the "Star-Spangled Banner" in a way to make a body's heart
swell and thump and his hair rise!  It was enough to break a person all
up, to see Cathy's radiant face shining out through her gladness and
tears.  By request she blew the "assembly," now. . . .

[THE ASSEMBLY]

. . . Then the bands thundered in, with "Rally round the flag, boys,
rally once again!"  Next, she blew another call ("to the Standard") . . .

[TO THE STANDARD]

. . . and the bands responded with "When we were marching through
Georgia."  Straightway she sounded "boots and saddles," that thrilling
and most expediting call. . . .

[BOOTS AND SADDLES]

and the bands could hardly hold in for the final note; then they turned
their whole strength loose on "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are
marching," and everybody's excitement rose to blood-heat.

Now an impressive pause--then the bugle sang "TAPS"--translatable, this
time, into "Good-bye, and God keep us all!" for taps is the soldier's
nightly release from duty, and farewell:  plaintive, sweet, pathetic, for
the morning is never sure, for him; always it is possible that he is
hearing it for the last time. . . .

[TAPS]

. . . Then the bands turned their instruments towards Cathy and burst in
with that rollicking frenzy of a tune, "Oh, we'll all get blind drunk
when Johnny comes marching home--yes, we'll all get blind drunk when
Johnny comes marching home!" and followed it instantly with "Dixie," that
antidote for melancholy, merriest and gladdest of all military music on
any side of the ocean--and that was the end.  And so--farewell!

I wish you could have been there to see it all, hear it all, and feel it:
and get yourself blown away with the hurricane huzza that swept the place
as a finish.

When we rode away, our main body had already been on the road an hour or
two--I speak of our camp equipage; but we didn't move off alone:  when
Cathy blew the "advance" the Rangers cantered out in column of fours, and
gave us escort, and were joined by White Cloud and Thunder-Bird in all
their gaudy bravery, and by Buffalo Bill and four subordinate scouts.
Three miles away, in the Plains, the Lieutenant-General halted, sat her
horse like a military statue, the bugle at her lips, and put the Rangers
through the evolutions for half an hour; and finally, when she blew the
"charge," she led it herself.  "Not for the last time," she said, and got
a cheer, and we said good-bye all around, and faced eastward and rode
away.

Postscript.  A Day Later.  Soldier Boy was stolen last night. Cathy is
almost beside herself, and we cannot comfort her. Mercedes and I are not
much alarmed about the horse, although this part of Spain is in something
of a turmoil, politically, at present, and there is a good deal of
lawlessness.  In ordinary times the thief and the horse would soon be
captured.  We shall have them before long, I think.



CHAPTER XIV--SOLDIER BOY--TO HIMSELF

It is five months.  Or is it six?  My troubles have clouded my memory.
I have been all over this land, from end to end, and now I am back again
since day before yesterday, to that city which we passed through, that
last day of our long journey, and which is near her country home.  I am a
tottering ruin and my eyes are dim, but I recognized it.  If she could
see me she would know me and sound my call.  I wish I could hear it once
more; it would revive me, it would bring back her face and the mountains
and the free life, and I would come--if I were dying I would come!  She
would not know ME, looking as I do, but she would know me by my star. But
she will never see me, for they do not let me out of this shabby
stable--a foul and miserable place, with most two wrecks like myself for
company.

How many times have I changed hands?  I think it is twelve times--I
cannot remember; and each time it was down a step lower, and each time I
got a harder master.  They have been cruel, every one; they have worked
me night and day in degraded employments, and beaten me; they have fed me
ill, and some days not at all.  And so I am but bones, now, with a rough
and frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken body--that skin
which was once so glossy, that skin which she loved to stroke with her
hand.  I was the pride of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a
scarecrow and despised.  These piteous wrecks that are my comrades here
say we have reached the bottom of the scale, the final humiliation; they
say that when a horse is no longer worth the weeds and discarded rubbish
they feed to him, they sell him to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy,
to make sport for the people and perish for their pleasure.

To die--that does not disturb me; we of the service never care for death.
But if I could see her once more! if I could hear her bugle sing again
and say, "It is I, Soldier--come!"



CHAPTER XV--GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL'S WIFE

To return, now, to where I was, and tell you the rest.  We shall never
know how she came to be there; there is no way to account for it.  She
was always watching for black and shiny and spirited horses--watching,
hoping, despairing, hoping again; always giving chase and sounding her
call, upon the meagrest chance of a response, and breaking her heart over
the disappointment; always inquiring, always interested in sales-stables
and horse accumulations in general.  How she got there must remain a
mystery.

At the point which I had reached in a preceding paragraph of this
account, the situation was as follows:  two horses lay dying; the bull
had scattered his persecutors for the moment, and stood raging, panting,
pawing the dust in clouds over his back, when the man that had been
wounded returned to the ring on a remount, a poor blindfolded wreck that
yet had something ironically military about his bearing--and the next
moment the bull had ripped him open and his bowls were dragging upon the
ground:  and the bull was charging his swarm of pests again.  Then came
pealing through the air a bugle-call that froze my blood--"IT IS I,
SOLDIER--COME!"  I turned; Cathy was flying down through the massed
people; she cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that
riderless horse, who staggered forward towards the remembered sound; but
his strength failed, and he fell at her feet, she lavishing kisses upon
him and sobbing, the house rising with one impulse, and white with
horror!  Before help could reach her the bull was back again--

She was never conscious again in life.  We bore her home, all mangled and
drenched in blood, and knelt by her and listened to her broken and
wandering words, and prayed for her passing spirit, and there was no
comfort--nor ever will be, I think.  But she was happy, for she was far
away under another sky, and comrading again with her Rangers, and her
animal friends, and the soldiers.  Their names fell softly and
caressingly from her lips, one by one, with pauses between.  She was not
in pain, but lay with closed eyes, vacantly murmuring, as one who dreams.
Sometimes she smiled, saying nothing; sometimes she smiled when she
uttered a name--such as Shekels, or BB, or Potter.  Sometimes she was at
her fort, issuing commands; sometimes she was careering over the plain at
the head of her men; sometimes she was training her horse; once she said,
reprovingly, "You are giving me the wrong foot; give me the left--don't
you know it is good-bye?"

After this, she lay silent some time; the end was near.  By-and-by she
murmured, "Tired . . . sleepy . . . take Cathy, mamma."  Then, "Kiss me,
Soldier."  For a little time, she lay so still that we were doubtful if
she breathed.  Then she put out her hand and began to feel gropingly
about; then said, "I cannot find it; blow 'taps.'"  It was the end.


End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Horse's Tale
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)






CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

by Mark Twain



PREFACE

Book I of this volume occupies a quarter or a third of the volume,
and consists of matter written about four years ago, but not hitherto
published in book form.  It contained errors of judgment and of fact.
I have now corrected these to the best of my ability and later knowledge.


Book II was written at the beginning of 1903, and has not until
now appeared in any form.  In it my purpose has been to present a
character-portrait of Mrs. Eddy, drawn from her own acts and words
solely, not from hearsay and rumor; and to explain the nature and scope
of her Monarchy, as revealed in the Laws by which she governs it, and
which she wrote herself.

MARK TWAIN
NEW YORK.  January, 1907.





BOOK I CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

     "It is the first time since the dawn-days of Creation that
     a Voice has gone crashing through space with such
     placid and complacent confidence and command."



CHAPTER I
VIENNA 1899.

This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the
Appetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and
broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was
found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the
nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed
farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning
little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored
flowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room,
separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the
front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the
manure-pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring
that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables
a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars.

There was a village a mile away, and a horse doctor lived there, but
there was no surgeon.  It seemed a bad outlook; mine was distinctly a
surgery case.  Then it was remembered that a lady from Boston was
summering in that village, and she was a Christian Science doctor and
could cure anything.  So she was sent for.  It was night by this time,
and she could not conveniently come, but sent word that it was no matter,
there was no hurry, she would give me "absent treatment" now, and come
in the morning; meantime she begged me to make myself tranquil and
comfortable and remember that there was nothing the matter with me.
I thought there must be some mistake.

"Did you tell her I walked off a cliff seventy-five feet high?"

"Yes."

"And struck a boulder at the bottom and bounced?"

"Yes."

"And struck another one and bounced again?"

"Yes."

"And struck another one and bounced yet again?"

"Yes."

"And broke the boulders?"

"Yes."

"That accounts for it; she is thinking of the boulders.  Why didn't you
tell her I got hurt, too?"

"I did.  I told her what you told me to tell her: that you were now but
an incoherent series of compound fractures extending from your scalp-lock
to your heels, and that the comminuted projections caused you to look
like a hat-rack."

"And it was after this that she wished me to remember that there was
nothing the matter with me?"

"Those were her words."

"I do not understand it.  I believe she has not diagnosed the case with
sufficient care.  Did she look like a person who was theorizing, or did
she look like one who has fallen off precipices herself and brings to the
aid of abstract science the confirmations of personal experience?"

"Bitte?"

It was too large a contract for the Stubenmadchen's vocabulary; she
couldn't call the hand.  I allowed the subject to rest there, and asked
for something to eat and smoke, and something hot to drink, and a basket
to pile my legs in; but I could not have any of these things.

"Why?"

"She said you would need nothing at all."

"But I am hungry and thirsty, and in desperate pain."

"She said you would have these delusions, but must pay no attention to
them.  She wants you to particularly remember that there are no such
things as hunger and thirst and pain.''

"She does does she?"

"It is what she said."

Does she seem to be in full and functionable possession of her
intellectual plant, such as it is?"

"Bitte?"

"Do they let her run at large, or do they tie her up?"

"Tie her up?"

"There, good-night, run along, you are a good girl, but your mental
Geschirr is not arranged for light and airy conversation.  Leave me to my
delusions."




CHAPTER II

It was a night of anguish, of course--at least, I supposed it was, for it
had all the symptoms of it--but it passed at last, and the Christian
Scientist came, and I was glad She was middle-aged, and large and bony,
and erect, and had an austere face and a resolute jaw and a Roman beak
and was a widow in the third degree, and her name was Fuller.  I was
eager to get to business and find relief, but she was distressingly
deliberate.  She unpinned and unhooked and uncoupled her upholsteries one
by one, abolished the wrinkles with a flirt of her hand, and hung the
articles up; peeled off her gloves and disposed of them, got a book out
of her hand-bag, then drew a chair to the bedside, descended into it
without hurry, and I hung out my tongue.  She said, with pity but without
passion:

"Return it to its receptacle.  We deal with the mind only, not with its
dumb servants."

I could not offer my pulse, because the connection was broken; but she
detected the apology before I could word it, and indicated by a negative
tilt of her head that the pulse was another dumb servant that she had no
use for.  Then I thought I would tell her my symptoms and how I felt, so
that she would understand the case; but that was another inconsequence,
she did not need to know those things; moreover, my remark about how I
felt was an abuse of language, a misapplication of terms.

"One does not feel," she explained; "there is no such thing as feeling:
therefore, to speak of a non-existent thing as existent is a
contradiction.  Matter has no existence; nothing exists but mind; the
mind cannot feel pain, it can only imagine it."

"But if it hurts, just the same--"

"It doesn't.  A thing which is unreal cannot exercise the functions of
reality.  Pain is unreal; hence, pain cannot hurt."

In making a sweeping gesture to indicate the act of shooing the illusion
of pain out of the mind, she raked her hand on a pin in her dress, said
"Ouch!" and went tranquilly on with her talk.  "You should never allow
yourself to speak of how you feel, nor permit others to ask you how you
are feeling; you should never concede that you are ill, nor permit others
to talk about disease or pain or death or similar nonexistences in your
presence.  Such talk only encourages the mind to continue its empty
imaginings."  Just at that point the Stuben-madchen trod on the cat's
tail, and the cat let fly a frenzy of cat-profanity.  I asked, with
caution:

"Is a cat's opinion about pain valuable?"

"A cat has no opinion; opinions proceed from mind only; the lower
animals, being eternally perishable, have not been granted mind; without
mind, opinion is impossible."

"She merely imagined she felt a pain--the cat?"

"She cannot imagine a pain, for imagining is an effect of mind; without
mind, there is no imagination.  A cat has no imagination."

"Then she had a real pain?"

"I have already told you there is no such thing as real pain."

"It is strange and interesting.  I do wonder what was the matter with the
cat.  Because, there being no such thing as a real pain, and she not
being able to imagine an imaginary one, it would seem that God in His
pity has compensated the cat with some kind of a mysterious emotion
usable when her tail is trodden on which, for the moment, joins cat and
Christian in one common brotherhood of--"

She broke in with an irritated--

"Peace!  The cat feels nothing, the Christian feels nothing.  Your empty
and foolish imaginings are profanation and blasphemy, and can do you an
injury.  It is wiser and better and holier to recognize and confess that
there is no such thing as disease or pain or death."

"I am full of imaginary tortures," I said, "but I do not think I could be
any more uncomfortable if they were real ones.  What must I do to get rid
of them?"

"There is no occasion to get rid of them since they do not exist.  They
are illusions propagated by matter, and matter has no existence; there is
no such thing as matter."

"It sounds right and clear, but yet it seems in a degree elusive; it
seems to slip through, just when you think you are getting a grip on it."

"Explain."

"Well, for instance: if there is no such thing as matter, how can matter
propagate things?"

In her compassion she almost smiled.  She would have smiled if there were
any such thing as a smile.

"It is quite simple," she said; "the fundamental propositions of
Christian Science explain it, and they are summarized in the four
following self-evident propositions:
1.  God is All in all.
2.  God is good.  Good is Mind
3.  God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter
4.  Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease.

"There--now you see."

It seemed nebulous; it did not seem to say anything about the difficulty
in hand--how non-existent matter can propagate illusions I said, with
some hesitancy:

"Does--does it explain?"

"Doesn't it?  Even if read backward it will do it."

With a budding hope, I asked her to do it backwards.

"Very well.  Disease sin evil death deny Good omnipotent God life matter
is nothing all being Spirit God Mind is Good good is God all in All is
God.  There do you understand now?

"It--it--well, it is plainer than it was before; still--"

"Well?"

"Could you try it some more ways?"

"As many as you like; it always means the same.  Interchanged in any way
you please it cannot be made to mean anything different from what it
means when put in any other way.  Because it is perfect.  You can jumble
it all up, and it makes no difference: it always comes out the way it was
before.  It was a marvelous mind that produced it.  As a mental tour de
force it is without a mate, it defies alike the simple, the concrete, and
the occult."

"It seems to be a corker."

I blushed for the word, but it was out before I could stop it.

"A what?"

"A--wonderful structure--combination, so to speak, of profound thoughts
--unthinkable ones--um--"

It is true.  Read backward, or forward, or perpendicularly, or at any
given angle, these four propositions will always be found to agree in
statement and proof."

"Ah--proof.  Now we are coming at it.  The statements agree; they agree
with--with--anyway, they agree; I noticed that; but what is it they prove
I mean, in particular?"

"Why, nothing could be clearer.  They prove:

"1.  GOD--Principle, Life,
Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.  Do you get that?"

"I--well, I seem to.  Go on, please."

"2.  MAN--God's universal idea, individual, perfect, eternal.  Is it
clear?"

"It--I think so.  Continue."

"3.  IDEA--An image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding.
There it is--the whole sublime Arcana of Christian Science in a nutshell.
Do you find a weak place in it anywhere?"

"Well--no; it seems strong."

"Very well There is more.  Those three constitute the Scientific
Definition of Immortal Mind.  Next, we have the Scientific Definition of
Mortal Mind.  Thus.  FIRST DEGREE: Depravity I.  Physical-Passions and
appetites, fear, depraved will, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge,
sin, disease, death."

"Phantasms, madam--unrealities, as I understand it."

"Every one.  SECOND DEGREE: Evil Disappearing.  I.  Moral-Honesty,
affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.  Is it clear?"

"Crystal."

"THIRD DEGREE: Spiritual Salvation.  I.  Spiritual-Faith, wisdom, power,
purity, understanding, health, love.  You see how searchingly and
co-ordinately interdependent and anthropomorphous it all is.  In this
Third Degree, as we know by the revelations of Christian Science, mortal
mind disappears."

"Not earlier?"

"No, not until the teaching and preparation for the Third Degree are
completed."

"It is not until then that one is enabled to take hold of Christian
Science effectively, and with the right sense of sympathy and kinship,
as I understand you.  That is to say, it could not succeed during the
processes of the Second Degree, because there would still be remains of
mind left; and therefore--but I interrupted you.  You were about to
further explain the good results proceeding from the erosions and
disintegrations effected by the Third Degree.  It is very interesting;
go on, please."

"Yes, as I was saying, in this Third Degree mortal mind disappears.
Science so reverses the evidence before the corporeal human senses as to
make this scriptural testimony true in our hearts, 'the last shall be
first and the first shall be last,' that God and His idea may be to us
--what divinity really is, and must of necessity be all-inclusive."

"It is beautiful.  And with what exhaustive exactness your choice and
arrangement of words confirm and establish what you have claimed for the
powers and functions of the Third Degree.  The Second could probably
produce only temporary absence of mind; it is reserved to the Third to
make it permanent.  A sentence framed under the auspices of the Second
could have a kind of meaning--a sort of deceptive semblance of it
--whereas it is only under the magic of the Third that that defect would
disappear.  Also, without doubt, it is the Third Degree that contributes
another remarkable specialty to Christian Science--viz., ease and flow
and lavishness of words, and rhythm and swing and smoothness.  There must
be a special reason for this?"

"Yes--God--all, all--God, good God, non-Matter, Matteration, Spirit,
Bones, Truth."

"That explains it."

"There is nothing in Christian Science that is not explicable; for God is
one, Time is one, Individuality is one, and may be one of a series, one
of many, as an individual man, individual horse; whereas God is one, not
one of a series, but one alone and without an equal."

"These are noble thoughts.  They make one burn to know more.  How does
Christian Science explain the spiritual relation of systematic duality to
incidental deflection?"

"Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body--as
astronomy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solar
system--and makes body tributary to the Mind.  As it is the earth which
is in motion, While the sun is at rest, though in viewing the sun rise
one finds it impossible to believe the sun not to be really rising, so
the body is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it seems
otherwise to finite sense; but we shall never understand this while we
admit that soul is in body, or mind in matter, and that man is included
in non-intelligence.  Soul is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man
coexists with and reflects Soul, for the All-in-all is the Altogether,
and the Altogether embraces the All-one, Soul-Mind, Mind-Soul, Love,
Spirit, Bones, Liver, one of a series, alone and without an equal."

"What is the origin of Christian Science?  Is it a gift of God, or did it
just happen?"

"In a sense, it is a gift of God.  That is to say, its powers are from
Him, but the credit of the discovery of the powers and what they are for
is due to an American lady."

"Indeed?  When did this occur?"

"In 1866.  That is the immortal date when pain and disease and death
disappeared from the earth to return no more forever.  That is, the
fancies for which those terms stand disappeared.  The things themselves
had never existed; therefore, as soon as it was perceived that there were
no such things, they were easily banished.  The history and nature of the
great discovery are set down in the book here, and--"

"Did the lady write the book?"

"Yes, she wrote it all, herself.  The title is Science and Health, with
Key to the Scriptures--for she explains the Scriptures; they were not
understood before.  Not even by the twelve Disciples.  She begins thus
--I will read it to you."

But she had forgotten to bring her glasses.

"Well, it is no matter," she said.  "I remember the words--indeed, all
Christian Scientists know the book by heart; it is necessary in our
practice.  We should otherwise make mistakes and do harm.  She begins
thus: 'In the year 1866 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical
Healing, and named it Christian Science.'  And She says quite beautifully,
I think--'Through Christian Science, religion and medicine are inspired
with a diviner nature and essence, fresh pinions are given to faith and
understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently with God.'
Her very words."

"It is elegant.  And it is a fine thought, too--marrying religion to
medicine, instead of medicine to the undertaker in the old way; for
religion and medicine properly belong together, they being the basis of
all spiritual and physical health.  What kind of medicine do you give for
the ordinary diseases, such as--"

"We never give medicine in any circumstances whatever!  We--"

"But, madam, it says--"

"I don't care what it says, and I don't wish to talk about it."

"I am sorry if I have offended, but you see the mention seemed in some
way inconsistent, and--"

"There are no inconsistencies in Christian Science.  The thing is
impossible, for the Science is absolute.  It cannot be otherwise, since
it proceeds directly from the All-in-all and the Everything-in-Which,
also Soul, Bones, Truth, one of a series, alone and without equal.  It is
Mathematics purified from material dross and made spiritual."

"I can see that, but--"

"It rests upon the immovable basis of an Apodictical Principle."

The word flattened itself against my mind in trying to get in, and
disordered me a little, and before I could inquire into its pertinency,
she was already throwing the needed light:

"This Apodictical Principle is the absolute Principle of Scientific
Mind-healing, the sovereign Omnipotence which delivers the children of
men from pain, disease, decay, and every ill that flesh is heir to."

"Surely not every ill, every decay?"

"Every one; there are no exceptions; there is no such thing as decay--it
is an unreality, it has no existence."

"But without your glasses your failing eyesight does not permit you to--"

"My eyesight cannot fail; nothing can fail; the Mind is master, and the
Mind permits no retrogression."

She was under the inspiration of the Third Degree, therefore there could
be no profit in continuing this part of the subject.  I shifted to other
ground and inquired further concerning the Discoverer of the Science.

"Did the discovery come suddenly, like Klondike, or after long study and
calculation, like America?"

"The comparisons are not respectful, since they refer to trivialities
--but let it pass.  I will answer in the Discoverer's own words: 'God had
been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a
final revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing.'"

"Many years.  How many?"

"Eighteen centuries!"

"All--God, God--good, good--God, Truth, Bones, Liver, one of a series,
alone and without equal--it is amazing!"

"You may well say it, sir.  Yet it is but the truth This American lady,
our revered and sacred Founder, is distinctly referred to, and her coming
prophesied, in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse; she could not have
been more plainly indicated by St. John without actually mentioning her
name."

"How strange, how wonderful!"

"I will quote her own words, from her Key to the Scriptures: 'The twelfth
chapter of the Apocalypse has a special suggestiveness in connection with
this nineteenth century.' There--do you note that?  Think--note it well."


"But--what does it mean?"

"Listen, and you will know.  I quote her inspired words again: 'In the
opening of the Sixth Seal, typical of six thousand years since Adam,
there is one distinctive feature which has special reference to the
present age.  Thus:

"'Revelation xii.  I.  And there appeared a great wonder in heaven--a
woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her
head a crown of twelve stars.'

"That is our Head, our Chief, our Discoverer of Christian Science
--nothing can be plainer, nothing surer.  And note this:

"'Revelation xii.  6.  And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she
had a place prepared of God.'

"That is Boston.  I recognize it, madam.  These are sublime things, and
impressive; I never understood these passages before; please go on with
the--with the--proofs."

"Very well.  Listen:

"'And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a
cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the
sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.  And he held in his hand a little
book.'

"A little book, merely a little book--could words be modester?  Yet how
stupendous its importance!  Do you know what book that was?"

"Was it--"

"I hold it in my hand--Christian Science!"

"Love, Livers, Lights, Bones, Truth, Kidneys, one of a series, alone and
without equal--it is beyond imagination for wonder!"

"Hear our Founder's eloquent words: 'Then will a voice from harmony cry,
"Go and take the little book: take it and eat it up, and it shall make
thy belly bitter; but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."  Mortal,
obey the heavenly evangel.  Take up Divine Science.  Read it from
beginning to end.  Study it, ponder it.  It will be, indeed, sweet at its
first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find
its digestion bitter.' You now know the history of our dear and holy
Science, sir, and that its origin is not of this earth, but only its
discovery.  I will leave the book with you and will go, now; but give
yourself no uneasiness--I will give you absent treatment from now till I
go to bed."




CHAPTER III

Under the powerful influence of the near treatment and the absent
treatment together, my bones were gradually retreating inward and
disappearing from view.  The good work took a brisk start, now, and went
on swiftly.  My body was diligently straining and stretching, this way
and that, to accommodate the processes of restoration, and every minute
or two I heard a dull click inside and knew that the two ends of a
fracture had been successfully joined.  This muffled clicking and
gritting and grinding and rasping continued during the next three hours,
and then stopped--the connections had all been made.  All except
dislocations; there were only seven of these: hips, shoulders, knees,
neck; so that was soon over; one after another they slipped into their
sockets with a sound like pulling a distant cork, and I jumped up as good
as new, as to framework, and sent for the horse-doctor.

I was obliged to do this because I had a stomach-ache and a cold in the
head, and I was not willing to trust these things any longer in the hands
of a woman whom I did not know, and whose ability to successfully treat
mere disease I had lost all confidence.  My position was justified by the
fact that the cold and the ache had been in her charge from the first,
along with the fractures, but had experienced not a shade of relief; and,
indeed, the ache was even growing worse and worse, and more and more
bitter, now, probably on account of the protracted abstention from food
and drink.

The horse-doctor came, a pleasant man and full of hope and professional
interest in the case.  In the matter of smell he was pretty aromatic--in
fact, quite horsy--and I tried to arrange with him for absent treatment,
but it was not in his line, so, out of delicacy, I did not press it.  He
looked at my teeth and examined my hock, and said my age and general
condition were favorable to energetic measures; therefore he would give
me something to turn the stomach-ache into the botts and the cold in the
head into the blind staggers; then he should be on his own beat and would
know what to do.  He made up a bucket of bran-mash, and said a dipperful
of it every two hours, alternated with a drench with turpentine and
axle-grease in it, would either knock my ailments out of me in twenty-four
hours, or so interest me in other ways as to make me forget they were on
the premises.  He administered my first dose himself, then took his
leave, saying I was free to eat and drink anything I pleased and in any
quantity I liked.  But I was not hungry any more, and did not care for
food.

I took up the Christian Science book and read half of it, then took a
dipperful of drench and read the other half.  The resulting experiences
were full of interest and adventure.  All through the rumblings and
grindings and quakings and effervescings accompanying the evolution of
the ache into the botts and the cold into the blind staggers I could note
the generous struggle for mastery going on between the mash and the
drench and the literature; and often I could tell which was ahead, and
could easily distinguish the literature from the others when the others
were separate, though not when they were mixed; for when a bran-mash and
an eclectic drench are mixed together they look just like the Apodictical
Principle out on a lark, and no one can tell it from that.  The finish
was reached at last, the evolutions were complete, and a fine success,
but I think that this result could have been achieved with fewer
materials.  I believe the mash was necessary to the conversion of the
stomach-ache into the botts, but I think one could develop the blind
staggers out of the literature by itself; also, that blind staggers
produced in this way would be of a better quality and more lasting than
any produced by the artificial processes of the horse-doctor.

For of all the strange and frantic and incomprehensible and
uninterpretable books which the imagination of man has created, surely
this one is the prize sample.  It is written with a limitless confidence
and complacency, and with a dash and stir and earnestness which often
compel the effects of eloquence, even when the words do not seem to have
any traceable meaning.  There are plenty of people who imagine they
understand the book; I know this, for I have talked with them; but in all
cases they were people who also imagined that there were no such things
as pain, sickness, and death, and no realities in the world; nothing
actually existent but Mind.  It seems to me to modify the value of their
testimony.  When these people talk about Christian Science they do as
Mrs. Fuller did: they do not use their own language, but the book's; they
pour out the book's showy incoherences, and leave you to find out later
that they were not originating, but merely quoting; they seem to know the
volume by heart, and to revere it as they would a Bible--another Bible,
perhaps I ought to say.  Plainly the book was written under the mental
desolations of the Third Degree, and I feel sure that none but the
membership of that Degree can discover meanings in it.  When you read it
you seem to be listening to a lively and aggressive and oracular speech
delivered in an unknown tongue, a speech whose spirit you get but not the
particulars; or, to change the figure, you seem to be listening to a
vigorous instrument which is making a noise which it thinks is a tune,
but which, to persons not members of the band, is only the martial
tooting of a trombone, and merrily stirs the soul through the noise, but
does not convey a meaning.

The book's serenities of self-satisfaction do almost seem to smack of a
heavenly origin--they have no blood-kin in the earth.  It is more than
human to be so placidly certain about things, and so finely superior, and
so airily content with one's performance.  Without ever presenting
anything which may rightfully be called by the strong name of Evidence,
and sometimes without even mentioning a reason for a deduction at all, it
thunders out the startling words, "I have Proved" so and so.  It takes
the Pope and all the great guns of his Church in battery assembled to
authoritatively settle and establish the meaning of a sole and single
unclarified passage of Scripture, and this at vast cost of time and study
and reflection, but the author of this work is superior to all that: she
finds the whole Bible in an unclarified audition, and at small expense of
time and no expense of mental effort she clarifies it from lid to lid,
reorganizes and improves the meanings, then authoritatively settles and
establishes them with formulas which you cannot tell from "Let there be
light!" and "Here you have it!" It is the first time since the dawn-days
of Creation that a Voice has gone crashing through space with such placid
and complacent confidence and command.

[January, 1903.  The first reading of any book whose terminology is
new and strange is nearly sure to leave the reader in a bewildered and
sarcastic state of mind.  But now that, during the past two months, I
have, by diligence gained a fair acquaintanceship with Science and Health
technicalities, I no longer find the bulk of that work hard to
understand.--M.  T.]

P.S.  The wisdom harvested from the foregoing thoughts has already done
me a service and saved me a sorrow.  Nearly a month ago there came to me
from one of the universities a tract by Dr.  Edward Anthony Spitzka on
the "Encephalic Anatomy of the Races."  I judged that my opinion was
desired by the university, and I was greatly pleased with this attention
and wrote and said I would furnish it as soon as I could.  That night I
put my plodding and disheartening Christian Science mining aside and took
hold of the matter.  I wrote an eager chapter, and was expecting to
finish my opinion the next day, but was called away for a week, and my
mind was soon charged with other interests.  It was not until to-day,
after the lapse of nearly a month, that I happened upon my Encephalic
chapter again.  Meantime, the new wisdom had come to me, and I read it
with shame.  I recognized that I had entered upon that work in far from
the right temper--far from the respectful and judicial spirit which was
its due of reverence.  I had begun upon it with the following paragraph
for fuel:

"FISSURES OF THE PARIETAL AND OCCIPITAL LOBES (LATERAL SURFACE).--The
Postcentral Fissural Complex--In this hemicerebrum, the postcentral and
subcentral are combined to form a continuous fissure, attaining a length
of 8.5 cm.  Dorsally, the fissure bifurcates, embracing the gyre indented
by the caudal limb of the paracentral.  The caudal limb of the
postcentral is joined by a transparietal piece.  In all, five additional
rami spring from the combined fissure.  A vadum separates it from the
parietal; another from the central."

It humiliates me, now, to see how angry I got over that; and how
scornful.  I said that the style was disgraceful; that it was labored and
tumultuous, and in places violent, that the treatment was involved and
erratic, and almost, as a rule, bewildering; that to lack of simplicity
was added a lack of vocabulary; that there was quite too much feeling
shown; that if I had a dog that would get so excited and incoherent over
a tranquil subject like Encephalic Anatomy I would not pay his tax; and
at that point I got excited myself and spoke bitterly of these mongrel
insanities, and said a person might as well try to understand Science and
Health.

[I know, now, where the trouble was, and am glad of the interruption that
saved me from sending my verdict to the university.  It makes me cold to
think what those people might have thought of me.--M.  T.]




CHAPTER IV

No one doubts--certainly not I--that the mind exercises a powerful
influence over the body.  From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, the
interpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the
wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the
hypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them in their
work.  They have all recognized the potency and availability of that
force.  Physicians cure many patients with a bread pill; they know that
where the disease is only a fancy, the patient's confidence in the doctor
will make the bread pill effective.

Faith in the doctor.  Perhaps that is the entire thing.  It seems to look
like it.  In old times the King cured the king's evil by the touch of the
royal hand.  He frequently made extraordinary cures.  Could his footman
have done it?  No--not in his own clothes.  Disguised as the King, could
he have done it?  I think we may not doubt it.  I think we may feel sure
that it was not the King's touch that made the cure in any instance, but
the patient's faith in the efficacy of a King's touch.  Genuine and
remarkable cures have been achieved through contact with the relics of a
saint.  Is it not likely that any other bones would have done as well if
the substitution had been concealed from the patient?  When I was a boy a
farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a
faith-doctor--that was what she called herself.  Sufferers came to her
from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith
--it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments.
She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers.  She
said that the patient's faith in her did the work.  Several times I saw
her make immediate cures of severe toothaches.  My mother was the
patient.  In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this
sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients.  He
gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but
his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is
unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high.  In Bavaria
there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire
from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of
his constantly increasing body of customers.  He goes on from year to
year doing his miracles, and has become very rich.  He pretends to no
religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in
his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is
this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power
issuing from himself.

Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects of curers
have appeared under various names and have done notable things in the way
of healing ailments without the use of medicines.  There are the Mind
Cure the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, and the
Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracles with
the same old, powerful instrument--the patient's imagination.  Differing
names, but no difference in the process.  But they do not give that
instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs from the
ways of the others.

They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and the Faith
Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since
they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicines if he
wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cure every
conceivable human ailment through the application of their mental forces
alone.  There would seem to be an element of danger here.  It has the
look of claiming too much, I think.  Public confidence would probably be
increased if less were claimed.

The Christian Scientist was not able to cure my stomach-ache and my cold;
but the horse-doctor did it.  This convinces me that Christian Science
claims too much.  In my opinion it ought to let diseases alone and
confine itself to surgery.  There it would have everything its own way.

The horse-doctor charged me thirty kreutzers, and I paid him; in fact, I
doubled it and gave him a shilling.  Mrs. Fuller brought in an itemized
bill for a crate of broken bones mended in two hundred and thirty-four
places--one dollar per fracture.

"Nothing exists but Mind?"

"Nothing," she answered.  "All else is substanceless, all else is
imaginary."

I gave her an imaginary check, and now she is suing me for substantial
dollars.  It looks inconsistent.




CHAPTER V

Let us consider that we are all partially insane.  It will explain us to
each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple
many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and
obscurities now.

Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there,
are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars.  I think we
must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded.  I
think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, as
regards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound.  Now there are
really several things which we do all see alike; things which we all
accept, and about which we do not dispute.  For instance, we who are
outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun
gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that six
times six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eight and
seven are fifteen.  These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreed
about; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value,
because they make an infallible standard of sanity.  Whosoever accepts
them him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the
working essentials, sane.  Whoever disputes a single one of them him we
know to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum.

Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitled to
go at large.  But that is concession enough.  We cannot go any further
than that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same man
is insane--just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was.
We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where
his opinion differs from ours.

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember.  When I, a thoughtful and
unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any
question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious
matters.  When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the
Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually
insane.  I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can
prove anything to a lunatic--for that is a part of his insanity and the
evidence of it.  He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has
the same defect that afflicts his.  All Democrats are insane, but not one
of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it.  All the
Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive
it.  The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are
insane.  When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many
people are mad.  To mention only a few:

The Atheist, The Theosophists, The Infidel, The Swedenborgians, The
Agnostic, The Shakers, The Baptist, The Millerites, The Methodist, The
Mormons, The Christian Scientist, The Laurence Oliphant Harrisites, The
Catholic, and the 115 Christian sects, the Presbyterian excepted, The
Grand Lama's people, The Monarchists, The Imperialists, The 72 Mohammedan
sects, The Democrats, The Republicans (but not the Mugwumps), The
Buddhist, The Blavatsky-Buddhist, The Mind-Curists, The Faith-Curists,
The Nationalist, The Mental Scientists, The Confucian, The Spiritualist,
The Allopaths, The 2000 East Indian sects, The Homeopaths, The
Electropaths, The Peculiar People, The--

But there's no end to the list; there are millions of them!  And all
insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but
otherwise sane and rational.  This should move us to be charitable
towards one another's lunacies.  I recognize that in his special belief
the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do;
but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane
from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine
and worth as much.  That is to say, worth a brass farthing.  Upon a great
religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the
world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the
world--a brass farthing.  How do we arrive at this?  It is simple.  The
affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative
opinion of his stupid neighbor no decision is reached; the affirmative
opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the
negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman--no decision is
reached.  Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any
but a dead person knows that much.  This obliges us to admit the truth of
the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above--that, in disputed
matters political and religious, one man's opinion is worth no more than
his peer's, and hence it followers that no man's opinion possesses any
real value.  It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around
it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.

It is a mere plain, simple fact--as clear and as certain as that eight
and seven make fifteen.  And by it we recognize that we are all insane,
as concerns those matters.  If we were sane, we should all see a
political or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: it
would be a case of eight and seven--just as it is in heaven, where all
are sane and none insane.  There there is but one religion, one belief;
the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note.

Under protection of these preliminaries, I suppose I may now repeat
without offence that the Christian Scientist is insane.  I mean him no
discourtesy, and I am not charging--nor even imagining--that he is
insaner than the rest of the human race.  I think he is more
picturesquely insane than some of us.  At the same time, I am quite sure
that in one important and splendid particular he is much saner than is
the vast bulk of the race.

Why is he insane?  I told you before: it is because his opinions are not
ours.  I know of no other reason, and I do not need any other; it is the
only way we have of discovering insanity when it is not violent.  It is
merely the picturesqueness of his insanity that makes it more interesting
than my kind or yours.  For instance, consider his "little book"; the
"little book" exposed in the sky eighteen centuries ago by the flaming
angel of the Apocalypse, and handed down in our day to Mrs. Mary Baker G.
Eddy, of New Hampshire, and translated by her, word for word, into
English (with help of a polisher), and now published and distributed in
hundreds of editions by her at a clear profit per volume, above cost, of
seven hundred per cent.!--a profit which distinctly belongs to the angel
of the Apocalypse, and let him collect it if he can; a "little book"
which the C.S.  very frequently calls by just that name, and always
enclosed in quotation-marks to keep its high origin exultantly in mind; a
"little book" which "explains" and reconstructs and new-paints and
decorates the Bible, and puts a mansard roof on it and a lightning-rod
and all the other modern improvements; a "little book" which for the
present affects to travel in yoke with the Bible and be friendly to it,
and within half a century will hitch the Bible in the rear and
thenceforth travel tandem, itself in the lead, in the coming great march
of Christian Scientism through the Protestant dominions of the planet.




CHAPTER VI

"Hungry ones throng to hear the Bible read in connection with the
text-book of Christian Science, Science and Health, with Key to the
Scriptures, by Mary Baker G. Eddy.  These are our only preachers.  They
are the word of God."  "Christian Science Journal", October, 1898.

Is that picturesque?  A lady has told me that in a chapel of the Mosque
in Boston there is a picture or image of Mrs. Eddy, and that before it
burns a never-extinguished light.  Is that picturesque?  How long do you
think it will be before the Christian Scientist will be worshipping that
picture or image and praying to it?  How long do you think it will be
before it is claimed that Mrs. Eddy is a Redeemer, a Christ, and Christ's
equal?  Already her army of disciples speak of her reverently as "Our
Mother."

How long will it be before they place her on the steps of the Throne
beside the Virgin--and, later, a step higher?  First, Mary the Virgin and
Mary the Matron; later, with a change of precedence, Mary the Matron and
Mary the Virgin.  Let the artist get ready with his canvas and his
brushes; the new Renaissance is on its way, and there will be money in
altar-canvases--a thousand times as much as the Popes and their Church
ever spent on the Old Masters; for their riches were poverty as
compared with what is going to pour into the treasure-chest of the
Christian-Scientist Papacy by-and-by, let us not doubt it.  We will
examine the financial outlook presently and see what it promises.  A
favorite subject of the new Old Master will be the first verse of the
twelfth chapter of Revelation--a verse which Mrs. Eddy says (in her
Annex to the Scriptures) has "one distinctive feature which has special
reference to the present age"--and to her, as is rather pointedly
indicated:

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet," etc.

The woman clothed with the sun will be a portrait of Mrs. Eddy.

Is it insanity to believe that Christian-Scientism is destined to make
the most formidable show that any new religion has made in the world
since the birth and spread of Mohammedanism, and that within a century
from now it may stand second to Rome only, in numbers and power in
Christendom?

If this is a wild dream it will not be easy to prove it so just yet,
I think.  There seems argument that it may come true.  The
Christian-Science "boom," proper, is not yet five years old; yet
already it has two hundred and fifty churches.

It has its start, you see, and it is a phenomenally good one.  Moreover,
it is latterly spreading with a constantly accelerating swiftness.  It
has a better chance to grow and prosper and achieve permanency than any
other existing "ism"; for it has more to offer than any other.  The past
teaches us that in order to succeed, a movement like this must not be a
mere philosophy, it must be a religion; also, that it must not claim
entire originality, but content itself with passing for an improvement on
an existing religion, and show its hand later, when strong and
prosperous--like Mohammedanism.

Next, there must be money--and plenty of it.

Next, the power and authority and capital must be concentrated in the
grip of a small and irresponsible clique, with nobody outside privileged
to ask questions or find fault.

Next, as before remarked, it must bait its hook with some new and
attractive advantages over the baits offered by its competitors.  A new
movement equipped with some of these endowments--like spiritualism, for
instance may count upon a considerable success; a new movement equipped
with the bulk of them--like Mohammedanism, for instance--may count upon
a widely extended conquest.  Mormonism had all the requisites but one it
had nothing new and nothing valuable to bait with.  Spiritualism lacked
the important detail of concentration of money and authority in the hands
of an irresponsible clique.

The above equipment is excellent, admirable, powerful, but not perfect.
There is yet another detail which is worth the whole of it put together
and more; a detail which has never been joined (in the beginning of a
religious movement) to a supremely good working equipment since the world
began, until now: a new personage to worship.  Christianity had the
Saviour, but at first and for generations it lacked money and
concentrated power.  In Mrs. Eddy, Christian Science possesses the new
personage for worship, and in addition--here in the very beginning--a
working equipment that has not a flaw in it.  In the beginning,
Mohammedanism had no money; and it has never had anything to offer its
client but heaven--nothing here below that was valuable.  In addition to
heaven hereafter, Christian Science has present health and a cheerful
spirit to offer; and in comparison with this bribe all other this-world
bribes are poor and cheap.  You recognize that this estimate is
admissible, do you not?

To whom does Bellamy's "Nationalism" appeal?  Necessarily to the few:
people who read and dream, and are compassionate, and troubled for the
poor and the hard-driven.  To whom does Spiritualism appeal?  Necessarily
to the few; its "boom" has lasted for half a century, and I believe it
claims short of four millions of adherents in America.  Who are attracted
by Swedenborgianism and some of the other fine and delicate "isms"?  The
few again: educated people, sensitively organized, with superior mental
endowments, who seek lofty planes of thought and find their contentment
there.  And who are attracted by Christian Science?  There is no limit;
its field is horizonless; its appeal is as universal as is the appeal of
Christianity itself.  It appeals to the rich, the poor, the high, the
low, the cultured, the ignorant, the gifted, the stupid, the modest, the
vain, the wise, the silly, the soldier, the civilian, the hero, the
coward, the idler, the worker, the godly, the godless, the freeman, the
slave, the adult, the child; they who are ailing in body or mind, they
who have friends that are ailing in body or mind.  To mass it in a
phrase, its clientage is the Human Race.  Will it march?  I think so.

Remember its principal great offer: to rid the Race of pain and disease.
Can it do so?  In large measure, yes.  How much of the pain and disease
in the world is created by the imaginations of the sufferers, and then
kept alive by those same imaginations?  Four-fifths?  Not anything short
of that, I should think.  Can Christian Science banish that four-fifths?
I think so.  Can any other (organized) force do it?  None that I know of.
Would this be a new world when that was accomplished?  And a pleasanter
one--for us well people, as well as for those fussy and fretting sick
ones?  Would it seem as if there was not as much gloomy weather as there
used to be?  I think so.

In the mean time, would the Scientist kill off a good many patients?
I think so.  More than get killed off now by the legalized methods?
I will take up that question presently.

At present, I wish to ask you to examine some of the Scientist's
performances, as registered in his magazine, The Christian Science
Journal--October number, 1898.  First, a Baptist clergyman gives us this
true picture of "the average orthodox Christian"--and he could have added
that it is a true picture of the average (civilized) human being:

"He is a worried and fretted and fearful man; afraid of himself and his
propensities, afraid of colds and fevers, afraid of treading on serpents
or drinking deadly things."

Then he gives us this contrast:

"The average Christian Scientist has put all anxiety and fretting under
his feet.  He does have a victory over fear and care that is not achieved
by the average orthodox Christian."

He has put all anxiety and fretting under his feet.  What proportion of
your earnings or income would you be willing to pay for that frame of
mind, year in, year out?  It really outvalues any price that can be put
upon it.  Where can you purchase it, at any outlay of any sort, in any
Church or out of it, except the Scientist's?

Well, it is the anxiety and fretting about colds, and fevers, and
draughts, and getting our feet wet, and about forbidden food eaten in
terror of indigestion, that brings on the cold and the fever and the
indigestion and the most of our other ailments; and so, if the Science
can banish that anxiety from the world I think it can reduce the world's
disease and pain about four-fifths.

In this October number many of the redeemed testify and give thanks; and
not coldly, but with passionate gratitude.  As a rule they seem drunk
with health, and with the surprise of it, the wonder of it, the
unspeakable glory and splendor of it, after a long, sober spell spent in
inventing imaginary diseases and concreting them with doctor-stuff.  The
first witness testifies that when "this most beautiful Truth first dawned
on him" he had "nearly all the ills that flesh is heir to"; that those he
did not have he thought he had--and this made the tale about complete.
What was the natural result?  Why, he was a dump-pit "for all the
doctors, druggists, and patent medicines of the country."  Christian
Science came to his help, and "the old sick conditions passed away," and
along with them the "dismal forebodings" which he had been accustomed to
employ in conjuring up ailments.  And so he was a healthy and cheerful
man, now, and astonished.

But I am not astonished, for from other sources I know what must have
been his method of applying Christian Science.  If I am in the right, he
watchfully and diligently diverted his mind from unhealthy channels and
compelled it to travel in healthy ones.  Nothing contrivable by human
invention could be more formidably effective than that, in banishing
imaginary ailments and in closing the entrances against sub-sequent
applicants of their breed.  I think his method was to keep saying, "I am
well!  I am sound!--sound and well! well and sound!  Perfectly sound,
perfectly well!  I have no pain; there's no such thing as pain!  I have
no disease; there's no such thing as disease!  Nothing is real but Mind;
all is Mind, All-Good Good-Good, Life, Soul, Liver, Bones, one of a
series, ante and pass the buck!"

I do not mean that that was exactly the formula used, but that it
doubtless contains the spirit of it.  The Scientist would attach value to
the exact formula, no doubt, and to the religious spirit in which it was
used.  I should think that any formula that would divert the mind from
unwholesome channels and force it into healthy ones would answer every
purpose with some people, though not with all.  I think it most likely
that a very religious man would find the addition of the religious spirit
a powerful reinforcement in his case.

The second witness testifies that the Science banished "an old organic
trouble," which the doctor and the surgeon had been nursing with drugs
and the knife for seven years.

He calls it his "claim."  A surface-miner would think it was not his
claim at all, but the property of the doctor and his pal the surgeon--for
he would be misled by that word, which is Christian-Science slang for
"ailment."  The Christian Scientist has no ailment; to him there is no
such thing, and he will not use the hateful word.  All that happens to
him is that upon his attention an imaginary disturbance sometimes
obtrudes itself which claims to be an ailment but isn't.

This witness offers testimony for a clergyman seventy years old who had
preached forty years in a Christian church, and has now gone over to the
new sect.  He was "almost blind and deaf."  He was treated by the C. S.
method, and "when he heard the voice of Truth he saw spiritually."  Saw
spiritually?  It is a little indefinite; they had better treat him again.
Indefinite testimonies might properly be waste-basketed, since there is
evidently no lack of definite ones procurable; but this C. S.  magazine
is poorly edited, and so mistakes of this kind must be expected.

The next witness is a soldier of the Civil War.  When Christian Science
found him, he had in stock the following claims:

Indigestion,
Rheumatism,
Catarrh,
Chalky deposits in
Shoulder-joints,
Arm-joints,
Hand-joints,
Insomnia,
Atrophy of the muscles of
Arms.
Shoulders,
Stiffness of all those joints,
Excruciating pains most of the time.

These claims have a very substantial sound.  They came of exposure in the
campaigns.  The doctors did all they could, but it was little.  Prayers
were tried, but "I never realized any physical relief from that source."
After thirty years of torture, he went to a Christian Scientist and took
an hour's treatment and went home painless.  Two days later, he "began to
eat like a well man."  Then "the claims vanished--some at once, others
more gradually"; finally, "they have almost entirely disappeared."  And
--a thing which is of still greater value--he is now "contented and
happy." That is a detail which, as earlier remarked, is a Scientist
Church specialty.  And, indeed, one may go further and assert with
little or no exaggeration that it is a Christian-Science monopoly.  With
thirty-one years' effort, the Methodist Church had not succeeded in
furnishing it to this harassed soldier.

And so the tale goes on.  Witness after witness bulletins his claims,
declares their prompt abolishment, and gives Mrs. Eddy's Discovery the
praise.  Milk-leg is cured; nervous prostration is cured; consumption is
cured; and St.  Vitus's dance is made a pastime.  Even without a fiddle.
And now and then an interesting new addition to the Science slang appears
on the page.  We have "demonstrations over chilblains" and such things.
It seems to be a curtailed way of saying "demonstrations of the power of
Christian-Science Truth over the fiction which masquerades under the name
of Chilblains."  The children, as well as the adults, share in the
blessings of the Science.  "Through the study of the 'little book' they
are learning how to be healthful, peaceful, and wise."  Sometimes they
are cured of their little claims by the professional healer, and
sometimes more advanced children say over the formula and cure
themselves.

A little Far-Western girl of nine, equipped with an adult vocabulary,
states her age and says, "I thought I would write a demonstration to
you."  She had a claim, derived from getting flung over a pony's head and
landed on a rockpile.  She saved herself from disaster by remembering to
say "God is All" while she was in the air.  I couldn't have done it.  I
shouldn't even have thought of it.  I should have been too excited.
Nothing but Christian Science could have enabled that child to do that
calm and thoughtful and judicious thing in those circumstances.  She came
down on her head, and by all the rules she should have broken it; but the
intervention of the formula prevented that, so the only claim resulting
was a blackened eye.  Monday morning it was still swollen and shut.  At
school "it hurt pretty badly--that is, it seemed to."  So "I was excused,
and went down to the basement and said, 'Now I am depending on mamma
instead of God, and I will depend on God instead of mamma.'" No doubt
this would have answered; but, to make sure, she added Mrs. Eddy to the
team and recited "the Scientific Statement of Being," which is one of the
principal incantations, I judge.  Then "I felt my eye opening."  Why,
dear, it would have opened an oyster.  I think it is one of the
touchingest things in child-history, that pious little rat down cellar
pumping away at the Scientific Statement of Being.

There is a page about another good child--little Gordon.  Little Gordon
"came into the world without the assistance of surgery or anaesthetics."
He was a "demonstration."  A painless one; therefore, his coming evoked
"joy and thankfulness to God and the Discoverer of Christian Science."
It is a noticeable feature of this literature--the so frequent linking
together of the Two Beings in an equal bond; also of Their Two Bibles.
When little Gordon was two years old, "he was playing horse on the bed,
where I had left my 'little book.' I noticed him stop in his play, take
the book carefully in his little hands, kiss it softly, then look about
for the highest place of safety his arms could reach, and put it there."
This pious act filled the mother "with such a train of thought as I had
never experienced before.  I thought of the sweet mother of long ago who
kept things in her heart," etc.  It is a bold comparison; however,
unconscious profanations are about as common in the mouths of the lay
member ship of the new Church as are frank and open ones in the mouths of
its consecrated chiefs.

Some days later, the family library--Christian-Science books--was lying
in a deep-seated window.  This was another chance for the holy child to
show off.  He left his play and went there and pushed all the books to
one side, except the Annex "It he took in both hands, slowly raised it to
his lips, then removed it carefully, and seated himself in the window."
It had seemed to the mother too wonderful to be true, that first time;
but now she was convinced that "neither imagination nor accident had
anything to do with it."  Later, little Gordon let the author of his
being see him do it.  After that he did it frequently; probably every
time anybody was looking.  I would rather have that child than a chromo.
If this tale has any object, it is to intimate that the inspired book was
supernaturally able to convey a sense of its sacred and awful character
to this innocent little creature, without the intervention of outside
aids.  The magazine is not edited with high-priced discretion.  The
editor has a "claim," and he ought to get it treated.

Among other witnesses there is one who had a "jumping toothache," which
several times tempted her to "believe that there was sensation in matter,
but each time it was overcome by the power of Truth."  She would not
allow the dentist to use cocaine, but sat there and let him punch and
drill and split and crush the tooth, and tear and slash its ulcerations,
and pull out the nerve, and dig out fragments of bone; and she wouldn't
once confess that it hurt.  And to this day she thinks it didn't, and I
have not a doubt that she is nine-tenths right, and that her Christian
Science faith did her better service than she could have gotten out of
cocaine.

There is an account of a boy who got broken all up into small bits by an
accident, but said over the Scientific Statement of Being, or some of the
other incantations, and got well and sound without having suffered any
real pain and without the intrusion of a surgeon.

Also, there is an account of the restoration to perfect health, in a
single night, of a fatally injured horse, by the application of Christian
Science.  I can stand a good deal, but I recognize that the ice is
getting thin, here.  That horse had as many as fifty claims; how could
he demonstrate over them?  Could he do the All-Good, Good-Good,
Good-Gracious, Liver, Bones, Truth, All down but Nine, Set them up on the
Other Alley?  Could he intone the Scientific Statement of Being?  Now,
could he?  Wouldn't it give him a relapse?  Let us draw the line at
horses.  Horses and furniture.

There is plenty of other testimonies in the magazine, but these quoted
samples will answer.  They show the kind of trade the Science is driving.
Now we come back to the question, Does the Science kill a patient here
and there and now and then?  We must concede it.  Does it compensate for
this?  I am persuaded that it can make a plausible showing in that
direction.  For instance: when it lays its hand upon a soldier who has
suffered thirty years of helpless torture and makes him whole in body and
mind, what is the actual sum of that achievement?  This, I think: that it
has restored to life a subject who had essentially died ten deaths a year
for thirty years, and each of them a long and painful one.  But for its
interference that man in the three years which have since elapsed, would
have essentially died thirty times more.  There are thousands of young
people in the land who are now ready to enter upon a life-long death
similar to that man's.  Every time the Science captures one of these and
secures to him life-long immunity from imagination-manufactured disease,
it may plausibly claim that in his person it has saved three hundred
lives.  Meantime, it will kill a man every now and then.  But no matter,
it will still be ahead on the credit side.

[NOTE.--I have received several letters (two from educated and ostensibly
intelligent persons), which contained, in substance, this protest: "I
don't object to men and women chancing their lives with these people, but
it is a burning shame that the law should allow them to trust their
helpless little children in their deadly hands."  Isn't it touching?
Isn't it deep?  Isn't it modest?  It is as if the person said: "I know
that to a parent his child is the core of his heart, the apple of his
eye, a possession so dear, so precious that he will trust its life in no
hands but those which he believes, with all his soul, to be the very best
and the very safest, but it is a burning shame that the law does not
require him to come to me to ask what kind of healer I will allow him to
call."  The public is merely a multiplied "me."--M.T.]




CHAPTER VII

"We consciously declare that Science and Health, with Key to the
Scriptures, was foretold, as well as its author, Mary Baker Eddy, in
Revelation x.  She is the 'mighty angel,' or God's highest thought to
this age (verse 1), giving us the spiritual interpretation of the Bible
in the 'little book open' (verse 2).  Thus we prove that Christian
Science is the second coming of Christ-Truth-Spirit."--Lecture by Dr.
George Tomkins, D.D. C.S.

There you have it in plain speech.  She is the mighty angel; she is the
divinely and officially sent bearer of God's highest thought.  For the
present, she brings the Second Advent.  We must expect that before she
has been in her grave fifty years she will be regarded by her following
as having been herself the Second Advent.  She is already worshiped, and
we must expect this feeling to spread, territorially, and also to deepen
in intensity.

Particularly after her death; for then, as any one can foresee,
Eddy-Worship will be taught in the Sunday-schools and pulpits of the
cult.  Already whatever she puts her trade-mark on, though it be only a
memorial-spoon, is holy and is eagerly and gratefully bought by the
disciple, and becomes a fetish in his house.  I say bought, for the
Boston Christian-Science Trust gives nothing away; everything it has is
for sale.  And the terms are cash; and not only cash, but cash in
advance.  Its god is Mrs. Eddy first, then the Dollar.  Not a spiritual
Dollar, but a real one.  From end to end of the Christian Science
literature not a single (material) thing in the world is conceded to be
real, except the Dollar.  But all through and through its advertisements
that reality is eagerly and persistently recognized.

The Dollar is hunted down in all sorts of ways; the Christian-Science
Mother-Church and Bargain-Counter in Boston peddles all kinds of
spiritual wares to the faithful, and always on the one condition--cash,
cash in advance.  The Angel of the Apocalypse could not go there and get
a copy of his own pirated book on credit.  Many, many precious Christian
Science things are to be had there for cash: Bible Lessons; Church
Manual; C. S.  Hymnal; History of the building of the Mother-Church; lot
of Sermons; Communion Hymn, "Saw Ye My Saviour," by Mrs. Eddy, half a
dollar a copy, "words used by special permission of Mrs. Eddy."  Also we
have Mrs. Eddy's and the Angel's little Blue-Annex in eight styles of
binding at eight kinds of war-prices; among these a sweet thing in
"levant, divinity circuit, leather lined to edge, round corners, gold
edge, silk sewed, each, prepaid, $6," and if you take a million you get
them a shilling cheaper--that is to say, "prepaid, $5.75."  Also we have
Mrs. Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings, at 'andsome big prices, the
divinity-circuit style heading the exertions, shilling discount where
you take an edition Next comes Christ and Christmas, by the fertile Mrs.
Eddy--a poem--would God I could see it!--price $3, cash in advance.
Then follow five more books by Mrs. Eddy, at highwayman's rates, some of
them in "leatherette covers," some of them in "pebble cloth," with
divinity-circuit, compensation-balance, twin-screw, and the other modern
improvements; and at the same bargain-counter can be had The Christian
Science Journal.

Christian-Science literary discharges are a monopoly of the Mother-Church
Headquarters Factory in Boston; none genuine without the trade-mark of
the Trust.  You must apply there and not elsewhere.

One hundred dollars for it.  And I have a case among my statistics where
the student had a three weeks' course and paid three hundred for it.

The Trust does love the Dollar, when it isn't a spiritual one.

In order to force the sale of Mrs Eddy's Bible-Annex, no healer,
Metaphysical-College-bred or other, is allowed to practice the game
unless he possesses a copy of that book.  That means a large and
constantly augmenting income for the Trust.  No C.S.  family would
consider itself loyal or pious or pain-proof without an Annex or two in
the house.  That means an income for the Trust, in the near future, of
millions; not thousands-millions a year.

No member, young or old, of a branch Christian-Scientist church can
acquire and retain membership in the Mother-Church unless he pay
"capitation tax" (of "not less than a dollar," say the By-Laws) to the
Boston Trust every year.  That means an income for the Trust, in the near
future, of--let us venture to say--millions more per year.

It is a reasonably safe guess that in America in 1920 there will be ten
million Christian Scientists, and three millions in Great Britain; that
these figures will be trebled in 1930; that in America in 1920 the
Christian Scientists will be a political force, in 1930 politically
formidable, and in 1940 the governing power in the Republic--to remain
that, permanently.  And I think it a reasonable guess that the Trust
(which is already in our day pretty brusque in its ways) will then be the
most insolent and unscrupulous and tyrannical politico-religious master
that has dominated a people since the palmy days of the Inquisition.  And
a stronger master than the strongest of bygone times, because this one
will have a financial strength not dreamed of by any predecessor; as
effective a concentration of irresponsible power as any predecessor has
had; in the railway, the telegraph, and the subsidized newspaper, better
facilities for watching and managing his empire than any predecessor has
had; and, after a generation or two, he will probably divide Christendom
with the Catholic Church.

The Roman Church has a perfect organization, and it has an effective
centralization of power--but not of its cash.  Its multitude of Bishops
are rich, but their riches remain in large measure in their own hands.
They collect from two hundred millions of people, but they keep the bulk
of the result at home.  The Boston Pope of by-and-by will draw his
dollar-a-head capitation-tax from three hundred millions of the human
race, and the Annex and the rest of his book-shop stock will fetch in as
much more; and his Metaphysical Colleges, the annual Pilgrimage to Mrs.
Eddy's tomb, from all over the world-admission, the Christian-Science
Dollar (payable in advance)--purchases of consecrated glass beads,
candles, memorial spoons, aureoled chrome-portraits and bogus autographs
of Mrs. Eddy; cash offerings at her shrine no crutches of cured cripples
received, and no imitations of miraculously restored broken legs and
necks allowed to be hung up except when made out of the Holy Metal and
proved by fire-assay; cash for miracles worked at the tomb: these
money-sources, with a thousand to be yet invented and ambushed upon the
devotee, will bring the annual increment well up above a billion.  And
nobody but the Trust will have the handling of it.  In that day, the
Trust will monopolize the manufacture and sale of the Old and New
Testaments as well as the Annex, and raise their price to Annex rates,
and compel the devotee to buy (for even to-day a healer has to have the
Annex and the Scriptures or he is not allowed to work the game), and that
will bring several hundred million dollars more.  In those days, the
Trust will have an income approaching five million dollars a day, and no
expenses to be taken out of it; no taxes to pay, and no charities to
support.  That last detail should not be lightly passed over by the
reader; it is well entitled to attention.

No charities to support.  No, nor even to contribute to.  One searches in
vain the Trust's advertisements and the utterances of its organs for any
suggestion that it spends a penny on orphans, widows, discharged
prisoners, hospitals, ragged schools, night missions, city missions,
libraries, old people's homes, or any other object that appeals to a
human being's purse through his heart.

I have hunted, hunted, and hunted, by correspondence and otherwise, and
have not yet got upon the track of a farthing that the Trust has spent
upon any worthy object.  Nothing makes a Scientist so uncomfortable as to
ask him if he knows of a case where Christian Science has spent money on
a benevolence, either among its own adherents or elsewhere.  He is
obliged to say "No" And then one discovers that the person questioned has
been asked the question many times before, and that it is getting to be a
sore subject with him.  Why a sore subject?  Because he has written his
chiefs and asked with high confidence for an answer that will confound
these questioners--and the chiefs did not reply.  He has written again,
and then again--not with confidence, but humbly, now--and has begged for
defensive ammunition in the voice of supplication.  A reply does at last
come to this effect: "We must have faith in Our Mother, and rest content
in the conviction that whatever She does with the money it is in
accordance with orders from Heaven, for She does no act of any kind
without first 'demonstrating over' it."

That settles it--as far as the disciple is concerned.  His mind is
satisfied with that answer; he gets down his Annex and does an
incantation or two, and that mesmerizes his spirit and puts that to
sleep--brings it peace.  Peace and comfort and joy, until some inquirer
punctures the old sore again.

Through friends in America I asked some questions, and in some cases got
definite and informing answers; in other cases the answers were not
definite and not valuable.  To the question, "Does any of the money go to
charities?" the answer from an authoritative source was: "No, not in the
sense usually conveyed by this word."  (The italics are mine.) That
answer is cautious.  But definite, I think--utterly and unassailably
definite--although quite Christian-Scientifically foggy in its phrasing.
Christian-Science testimony is generally foggy, generally diffuse,
generally garrulous.  The writer was aware that the first word in his
phrase answered the question which I was asking, but he could not help
adding nine dark words.  Meaningless ones, unless explained by him.  It
is quite likely, as intimated by him, that Christian Science has invented
a new class of objects to apply the word "charity" to, but without an
explanation we cannot know what they are.  We quite easily and naturally
and confidently guess that they are in all cases objects which will
return five hundred per cent. on the Trust's investment in them, but
guessing is not knowledge; it is merely, in this case, a sort of
nine-tenths certainty deducible from what we think we know of the
Trust's trade principles and its sly and furtive and shifty ways.

Sly?  Deep?  Judicious?  The Trust understands its business.  The Trust
does not give itself away.  It defeats all the attempts of us
impertinents to get at its trade secrets.  To this day, after all our
diligence, we have not been able to get it to confess what it does with
the money.  It does not even let its own disciples find out.  All it says
is, that the matter has been "demonstrated over."  Now and then a lay
Scientist says, with a grateful exultation, that Mrs. Eddy is enormously
rich, but he stops there; as to whether any of the money goes to other
charities or not, he is obliged to admit that he does not know.  However,
the Trust is composed of human beings; and this justifies the conjecture
that if it had a charity on its list which it was proud of, we should
soon hear of it.

"Without money and without price."  Those used to be the terms.  Mrs.
Eddy's Annex cancels them.  The motto of Christian Science is, "The
laborer is worthy of his hire."  And now that it has been "demonstrated
over," we find its spiritual meaning to be, "Do anything and everything
your hand may find to do; and charge cash for it, and collect the money
in advance."  The Scientist has on his tongue's end a cut-and-dried,
Boston-supplied set of rather lean arguments, whose function is to show
that it is a Heaven-commanded duty to do this, and that the croupiers of
the game have no choice but to obey.

The Trust seems to be a reincarnation.  Exodus xxxii. 4.

I have no reverence for the Trust, but I am not lacking in reverence for
the sincerities of the lay membership of the new Church.  There is every
evidence that the lay members are entirely sincere in their faith, and I
think sincerity is always entitled to honor and respect, let the
inspiration of the sincerity be what it may.  Zeal and sincerity can
carry a new religion further than any other missionary except fire and
sword, and I believe that the new religion will conquer the half of
Christendom in a hundred years.  I am not intending this as a compliment
to the human race; I am merely stating an opinion.  And yet I think that
perhaps it is a compliment to the race.  I keep in mind that saying of an
orthodox preacher--quoted further back.  He conceded that this new
Christianity frees its possessor's life from frets, fears, vexations,
bitterness, and all sorts of imagination-propagated maladies and pains,
and fills his world with sunshine and his heart with gladness.  If
Christian Science, with this stupendous equipment--and final salvation
added--cannot win half the Christian globe, I must be badly mistaken in
the make-up of the human race.

I think the Trust will be handed down like Me other Papacy, and will
always know how to handle its limitless cash.  It will press the button;
the zeal, the energy, the sincerity, the enthusiasm of its countless
vassals will do the rest.




CHAPTER VIII

The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make
it sick is a force which none of us is born without.  The first man had
it, the last one will possess it.  If left to himself, a man is most
likely to use only the mischievous half of the force--the half which
invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them; and if he is one
of these--very wise people, he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent
half of the force and deny its existence.  And so, to heal or help that
man, two imaginations are required: his own and some outsider's.  The
outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing-power
that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so.  I think it is not
so, at all; but no matter, the cure is effected, and that is the main
thing.  The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable; so valuable that
it may fairly be likened to the essential work performed by the engineer
when he handles the throttle and turns on the steam; the actual power is
lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine were left alone it
would never start of itself.  Whether the engineer be named Jim, or Bob,
or Tom, it is all one--his services are necessary, and he is entitled to
such wage as he can get you to pay.  Whether he be named Christian
Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or Mind Curist, or King's-Evil Expert, or
Hypnotist, it is all one; he is merely the Engineer; he simply turns on
the same old steam and the engine does the whole work.

The Christian-Scientist engineer drives exactly the same trade as the
other engineers, yet he out-prospers the whole of them put together.

Is it because he has captured the takingest name?  I think that that is
only a small part of it.  I think that the secret of his high prosperity
lies elsewhere.

The Christian Scientist has organized the business.  Now that was
certainly a gigantic idea.  Electricity, in limitless volume, has existed
in the air and the rocks and the earth and everywhere since time began
--and was going to waste all the while.  In our time we have organized
that scattered and wandering force and set it to work, and backed the
business with capital, and concentrated it in few and competent hands,
and the results are as we see.

The Christian Scientist has taken a force which has been lying idle in
every member of the human race since time began, and has organized it,
and backed the business with capital, and concentrated it at Boston
headquarters in the hands of a small and very competent Trust, and there
are results.

Therein lies the promise that this monopoly is going to extend its
commerce wide in the earth.  I think that if the business were conducted
in the loose and disconnected fashion customary with such things, it
would achieve but little more than the modest prosperity usually secured
by unorganized great moral and commercial ventures; but I believe that so
long as this one remains compactly organized and closely concentrated in
a Trust, the spread of its dominion will continue.




CHAPTER IX

Four years ago I wrote the preceding chapters.  I was assured by the wise
that Christian Science was a fleeting craze and would soon perish.  This
prompt and all-competent stripe of prophet is always to be had in the
market at ground-floor rates.  He does not stop to load, or consider, or
take aim, but lets fly just as he stands.  Facts are nothing to him, he
has no use for such things; he works wholly by inspiration.  And so, when
he is asked why he considers a new movement a passing fad and quickly
perishable, he finds himself unprepared with a reason and is more or less
embarrassed.  For a moment.  Only for a moment.  Then he waylays the
first spectre of a reason that goes flitting through the desert places of
his mind, and is at once serene again and ready for conflict.  Serene and
confident.  Yet he should not be so, since he has had no chance to
examine his catch, and cannot know whether it is going to help his
contention or damage it.

The impromptu reason furnished by the early prophets of whom I have
spoken was this:

"There is nothing to Christian Science; there is nothing about it that
appeals to the intellect; its market will be restricted to the
unintelligent, the mentally inferior, the people who do not think."

They called that a reason why the cult would not flourish and endure.  It
seems the equivalent of saying:

"There is no money in tinware; there is nothing about it that appeals to
the rich; its market will be restricted to the poor."

It is like bringing forward the best reason in the world why Christian
Science should flourish and live, and then blandly offering it as a
reason why it should sicken and die.

That reason was furnished me by the complacent and unfrightened prophets
four years ago, and it has been furnished me again to-day.  If
conversions to new religions or to old ones were in any considerable
degree achieved through the intellect, the aforesaid reason would be
sound and sufficient, no doubt; the inquirer into Christian Science might
go away unconvinced and unconverted.  But we all know that conversions
are seldom made in that way; that such a thing as a serious and
painstaking and fairly competent inquiry into the claims of a religion or
of a political dogma is a rare occurrence; and that the vast mass of men
and women are far from being capable of making such an examination.  They
are not capable, for the reason that their minds, howsoever good they may
be, are not trained for such examinations.  The mind not trained for that
work is no more competent to do it than are lawyers and farmers competent
to make successful clothes without learning the tailor's trade.  There
are seventy-five million men and women among us who do not know how to
cut out and make a dress-suit, and they would not think of trying; yet
they all think they can competently think out a political or religious
scheme without any apprenticeship to the business, and many of them
believe they have actually worked that miracle.  But, indeed, the truth
is, almost all the men and women of our nation or of any other get their
religion and their politics where they get their astronomy--entirely at
second hand.  Being untrained, they are no more able to intelligently
examine a dogma or a policy than they are to calculate an eclipse.

Men are usually competent thinkers along the lines of their specialized
training only.  Within these limits alone are their opinions and
judgments valuable; outside of these limits they grope and are lost
--usually without knowing it.  In a church assemblage of five hundred
persons, there will be a man or two whose trained minds can seize upon
each detail of a great manufacturing scheme and recognize its value or
its lack of value promptly; and can pass the details in intelligent
review, section by section, and finally as a whole, and then deliver a
verdict upon the scheme which cannot be flippantly set aside nor easily
answered.  And there will be one or two other men there who can do the
same thing with a great and complicated educational project; and one or
two others who can do the like with a large scheme for applying
electricity in a new and unheard-of way; and one or two others who can do
it with a showy scheme for revolutionizing the scientific world's
accepted notions regarding geology.  And so on, and so on.  But the
manufacturing experts will not be competent to examine the educational
scheme intelligently, and their opinion about it would not be valuable;
neither of these two groups will be able to understand and pass upon the
electrical scheme; none of these three batches of experts will be able to
understand and pass upon the geological revolution; and probably not one
man in the entire lot will be competent to examine, capably, the
intricacies of a political or religious scheme, new or old, and deliver a
judgment upon it which any one need regard as precious.

There you have the top crust.  There will be four hundred and
seventy-five men and women present who can draw upon their training and
deliver incontrovertible judgments concerning cheese, and leather, and
cattle, and hardware, and soap, and tar, and candles, and patent
medicines, and dreams, and apparitions, and garden trucks, and cats, and
baby food, and warts, and hymns, and time-tables, and freight-rates, and
summer resorts, and whiskey, and law, and surgery, and dentistry, and
blacksmithing, and shoemaking, and dancing, and Huyler's candy, and
mathematics, and dog fights, and obstetrics, and music, and sausages, and
dry goods, and molasses, and railroad stocks, and horses, and literature,
and labor unions, and vegetables, and morals, and lamb's fries, and
etiquette, and agriculture.  And not ten among the five hundred--let
their minds be ever so good and bright--will be competent, by grace of
the requisite specialized mental training, to take hold of a complex
abstraction of any kind and make head or tail of it.

The whole five hundred are thinkers, and they are all capable thinkers
--but only within the narrow limits of their specialized trainings.  Four
hundred and ninety of them cannot competently examine either a religious
plan or a political one.  A scattering few of them do examine both--that
is, they think they do.  With results as precious as when I examine the
nebular theory and explain it to myself.

If the four hundred and ninety got their religion through their minds,
and by weighed and measured detail, Christian Science would not be a
scary apparition.  But they don't; they get a little of it through their
minds, more of it through their feelings, and the overwhelming bulk of it
through their environment.

Environment is the chief thing to be considered when one is proposing to
predict the future of Christian Science.  It is not the ability to reason
that makes the Presbyterian, or the Baptist, or the Methodist, or the
Catholic, or the Mohammedan, or the Buddhist, or the Mormon; it is
environment.  If religions were got by reasoning, we should have the
extraordinary spectacle of an American family with a Presbyterian in it,
and a Baptist, a Methodist, a Catholic, a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, and a
Mormon.  A Presbyterian family does not produce Catholic families or
other religious brands, it produces its own kind; and not by intellectual
processes, but by association.  And so also with Mohammedanism, the cult
which in our day is spreading with the sweep of a world-conflagration
through the Orient, that native home of profound thought and of subtle
intellectual fence, that fertile womb whence has sprung every great
religion that exists.  Including our own; for with all our brains we
cannot invent a religion and market it.

The language of my quoted prophets recurs to us now, and we wonder to
think how small a space in the world the mighty Mohammedan Church would
be occupying now, if a successful trade in its line of goods had been
conditioned upon an exhibit that would "appeal to the intellect" instead
of to "the unintelligent, the mentally inferior, the people who do not
think."

The Christian Science Church, like the Mohammedan Church, makes no
embarrassing appeal to the intellect, has no occasion to do it, and can
get along quite well without it.

Provided.  Provided what?  That it can secure that thing which is worth
two or three hundred thousand times more than an "appeal to the
intellect"--an environment.  Can it get that?  Will it be a menace to
regular Christianity if it gets that?  Is it time for regular
Christianity to get alarmed?  Or shall regular Christianity smile a smile
and turn over and take another nap?  Won't it be wise and proper for
regular Christianity to do the old way, Me customary way, the historical
way--lock the stable-door after the horse is gone?  Just as Protestantism
has smiled and nodded this long time (while the alert and diligent
Catholic was slipping in and capturing the public schools), and is now
beginning to hunt around for the key when it is too late?

Will Christian Science get a chance to show its wares?  It has already
secured that chance.  Will it flourish and spread and prosper if it shall
create for itself the one thing essential to those conditions--an
environment?  It has already created an environment.  There are families
of Christian Scientists in every community in America, and each family is
a factory; each family turns out a Christian Science product at the
customary intervals, and contributes it to the Cause in the only way in
which contributions of recruits to Churches are ever made on a large
scale--by the puissant forces of personal contact and association.  Each
family is an agency for the Cause, and makes converts among the
neighbors, and starts some more factories.

Four years ago there were six Christian Scientists in a certain town that
I am acquainted with; a year ago there were two hundred and fifty there;
they have built a church, and its membership now numbers four hundred.
This has all been quietly done; done without frenzied revivals, without
uniforms, brass bands, street parades, corner oratory, or any of the
other customary persuasions to a godly life.  Christian Science, like
Mohammedanism, is "restricted" to the "unintelligent, the people who do
not think."  There lies the danger.  It makes Christian Science
formidable.  It is "restricted" to ninety-nine one-hundredths of the
human race, and must be reckoned with by regular Christianity.  And will
be, as soon as it is too late.






BOOK II

"There were remarkable things about the stranger called the Man
--Mystery-things so very extraordinary that they monopolized attention
and made all of him seem extraordinary; but this was not so, the most of
his qualities being of the common, every-day size and like anybody
else's.  It was curious.  He was of the ordinary stature, and had the
ordinary aspects; yet in him were hidden such strange contradictions and
disproportions! He was majestically fearless and heroic; he had the
strength of thirty men and the daring of thirty thousand; handling
armies, organizing states, administering governments--these were pastimes
to him; he publicly and ostentatiously accepted the human race at its own
valuation--as demigods--and privately and successfully dealt with it at
quite another and juster valuation--as children and slaves; his ambitions
were stupendous, and his dreams had no commerce with the humble plain,
but moved with the cloud-rack among the snow-summits.  These features of
him were, indeed, extraordinary, but the rest of him was ordinary and
usual. He was so mean-minded, in the matter of jealousy, that it was
thought he was descended from a god; he was vain in little ways, and had
a pride in trivialities; he doted on ballads about moonshine and bruised
hearts; in education he was deficient, he was indifferent to literature,
and knew nothing of art; he was dumb upon all subjects but one,
indifferent to all except that one--the Nebular Theory.  Upon that one
his flow of words was full and free, he was a geyser.  The official
astronomers disputed his facts and deeded his views, and said that he had
invented both, they not being findable in any of the books.  But many of
the laity, who wanted their nebulosities fresh, admired his doctrine and
adopted it, and it attained to great prosperity in spite of the hostility
of the experts."--The Legend of the Man-Mystery, ch. i.




CHAPTER I

JANUARY, 1903.  When we do not know a public man personally, we guess him
out by the facts of his career.  When it is Washington, we all arrive at
about one and the same result.  We agree that his words and his acts
clearly interpret his character to us, and that they never leave us in
doubt as to the motives whence the words and acts proceeded.  It is the
same with Joan of Arc, it is the same with two or three or five or six
others among the immortals.  But in the matter of motives and of a few
details of character we agree to disagree upon Napoleon, Cromwell, and
all the rest; and to this list we must add Mrs. Eddy.  I think we can
peacefully agree as to two or three extraordinary features of her
make-up, but not upon the other features of it.  We cannot peacefully
agree as to her motives, therefore her character must remain crooked to
some of us and straight to the others.

No matter, she is interesting enough without an amicable agreement.  In
several ways she is the most interesting woman that ever lived, and the
most extraordinary.  The same may be said of her career, and the same may
be said of its chief result.  She started from nothing.  Her enemies
charge that she surreptitiously took from Quimby a peculiar system of
healing which was mind-cure with a Biblical basis.  She and her friends
deny that she took anything from him.  This is a matter which we can
discuss by-and-by.  Whether she took it or invented it, it was
--materially--a sawdust mine when she got it, and she has turned it into
a Klondike; its spiritual dock had next to no custom, if any at all: from
it she has launched a world-religion which has now six hundred and
sixty-three churches, and she charters a new one every four days.  When
we do not know a person--and also when we do--we have to judge his size
by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the
achievements of others in his special line of business--there is no other
way.  Measured by this standard, it is thirteen hundred years since the
world has produced any one who could reach up to Mrs. Eddy's waistbelt.

Figuratively speaking, Mrs. Eddy is already as tall as the Eiffel tower.
She is adding surprisingly to her stature every day.  It is quite within
the probabilities that a century hence she will be the most imposing
figure that has cast its shadow across the globe since the inauguration
of our era.  I grant that after saying these strong things, it is
necessary that I offer some details calculated to satisfactorily
demonstrate the proportions which I have claimed for her.  I will do that
presently; but before exhibiting the matured sequoia gigantea, I believe
it will be best to exhibit the sprout from which it sprang.  It may save
the reader from making miscalculations.  The person who imagines that a
Big Tree sprout is bigger than other kinds of sprouts is quite mistaken.
It is the ordinary thing; it makes no show, it compels no notice, it
hasn't a detectible quality in it that entitles it to attention, or
suggests the future giant its sap is suckling.  That is the kind of
sprout Mrs. Eddy was.

From her childhood days up to where she was running a half-century a
close race and gaining on it, she was most humanly commonplace.

She is the witness I am drawing this from.  She has revealed it in her
autobiography not intentionally, of course--I am not claiming that.  An
autobiography is the most treacherous thing there is.  It lets out every
secret its author is trying to keep; it lets the truth shine unobstructed
through every harmless little deception he tries to play; it pitilessly
exposes him as a tin hero worshipping himself as Big Metal every time he
tries to do the modest-unconsciousness act before the reader.  This is
not guessing; I am speaking from autobiographical personal experience; I
was never able to refrain from mentioning, with a studied casualness that
could deceive none but the most incautious reader, that an ancestor of
mine was sent ambassador to Spain by Charles I., nor that in a remote
branch of my family there exists a claimant to an earldom, nor that an
uncle of mine used to own a dog that was descended from the dog that was
in the Ark; and at the same time I was never able to persuade myself to
call a gibbet by its right name when accounting for other ancestors of
mine, but always spoke of it as the "platform"--puerilely intimating that
they were out lecturing when it happened.

It is Mrs. Eddy over again.  As regards her minor half, she is as
commonplace as the rest of us.  Vain of trivial things all the first half
of her life, and still vain of them at seventy and recording them with
naive satisfaction--even rescuing some early rhymes of hers of the sort
that we all scribble in the innocent days of our youth--rescuing them and
printing them without pity or apology, just as the weakest and commonest
of us do in our gray age.  More--she still frankly admires them; and in
her introduction of them profanely confers upon them the holy name of
"poetry."  Sample:

     "And laud the land whose talents rock
     The cradle of her power,
     And wreaths are twined round Plymouth Rock
     From erudition's bower."

     "Minerva's silver sandals still
     Are loosed and not effete."

You note it is not a shade above the thing which all human beings churn
out in their youth.

You would not think that in a little wee primer--for that is what the
Autobiography is--a person with a tumultuous career of seventy years
behind her could find room for two or three pages of padding of this
kind, but such is the case.  She evidently puts narrative together with
difficulty and is not at home in it, and is glad to have something
ready-made to fill in with.  Another sample:

     "Here fame-honored Hickory rears his bold form,
     And bears a brave breast to the lightning and storm,
     While Palm, Bay, and Laurel in classical glee,
     Chase Tulip, Magnolia, and fragrant Fringe-tree."

Vivid?  You can fairly see those trees galloping around.  That she could
still treasure up, and print, and manifestly admire those Poems,
indicates that the most daring and masculine and masterful woman that has
appeared in the earth in centuries has the same soft, girly-girly places
in her that the rest of us have.

When it comes to selecting her ancestors she is still human, natural,
vain, commonplace--as commonplace as I am myself when I am sorting
ancestors for my autobiography.  She combs out some creditable Scots, and
labels them and sets them aside for use, not overlooking the one to whom
Sir William Wallace gave "a heavy sword encased in a brass scabbard," and
naively explaining which Sir William Wallace it was, lest we get the
wrong one by the hassock; this is the one "from whose patriotism and
bravery comes that heart-stirring air, 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.'"
Hannah More was related to her ancestors.  She explains who Hannah More
was.

Whenever a person informs us who Sir William Wallace was, or who wrote
"Hamlet," or where the Declaration of Independence was fought, it fills
us with a suspicion wellnigh amounting to conviction, that that person
would not suspect us of being so empty of knowledge if he wasn't
suffering from the same "claim" himself.  Then we turn to page 20 of the
Autobiography and happen upon this passage, and that hasty suspicion
stands rebuked:

"I gained book-knowledge with far less labor than is usually requisite.
At ten years of age I was as familiar with Lindley Murray's Grammar as
with the Westminster Catechism; and the latter I had to repeat every
Sunday.  My favorite studies were Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Moral
Science.  From my brother Albert I received lessons in the ancient
tongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin."

You catch your breath in astonishment, and feel again and still again the
pang of that rebuke.  But then your eye falls upon the next sentence but
one, and the pain passes away and you set up the suspicion again with
evil satisfaction:

"After my discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge I had
gleaned from school-books vanished like a dream."

That disappearance accounts for much in her miscellaneous writings.  As I
was saying, she handles her "ancestral shadows," as she calls them, just
as I do mine.  It is remarkable.  When she runs across "a relative of my
Grandfather Baker, General Henry Knox, of Revolutionary fame," she sets
him down; when she finds another good one, "the late Sir John Macneill,
in the line of my Grandfather Baker's family," she sets him down, and
remembers that he "was prominent in British politics, and at one time
held the position of ambassador to Persia"; when she discovers that her
grandparents "were likewise connected with Captain John Lovewell, whose
gallant leadership and death in the Indian troubles of 1722-25 caused
that prolonged contest to be known historically as Lovewell's War," she
sets the Captain down; when it turns out that a cousin of her grandmother
"was John Macneill, the New Hampshire general, who fought at Lundy's Lane
and won distinction in 1814 at the battle of Chippewa," she catalogues
the General.  (And tells where Chippewa was.) And then she skips all her
platform people; never mentions one of them.  It shows that she is just
as human as any of us.

Yet, after all, there is something very touching in her pride in these
worthy small-fry, and something large and fine in her modesty in not
caring to remember that their kinship to her can confer no distinction
upon her, whereas her mere mention of their names has conferred upon them
a faceless earthly immortality.




CHAPTER II

When she wrote this little biography her great life-work had already been
achieved, she was become renowned; to multitudes of reverent disciples
she was a sacred personage, a familiar of God, and His inspired channel
of communication with the human race.  Also, to them these following
things were facts, and not doubted:

She had written a Bible in middle age, and had published it; she had
recast it, enlarged it, and published it again; she had not stopped
there, but had enlarged it further, polished its phrasing, improved its
form, and published it yet again.  It was at last become a compact,
grammatical, dignified, and workman-like body of literature.  This was
good training, persistent training; and in all arts it is training that
brings the art to perfection.  We are now confronted with one of the most
teasing and baffling riddles of Mrs. Eddy's history--a riddle which may
be formulated thus:

How is it that a primitive literary gun which began as a hundred-yard
flint-lock smooth-bore muzzle-loader, and in the course of forty years
has acquired one notable improvement after another--percussion cap; fixed
cartridge; rifled barrel; efficiency at half a mile how is it that such a
gun, sufficiently good on an elephant hunt (Christian Science) from the
beginning, and growing better and better all the time during forty years,
has always collapsed back to its original flint-lock estate the moment
the huntress trained it on any other creature than an elephant?

Something more than a generation ago Mrs. Eddy went out with her
flint-lock on the rabbit range; and this was a part of the result:

"After his decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful
physicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and the law
that governs it is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual not material
law, and regained health."--Preface to Science and Health, first
revision, 1883.

N.B.  Not from the book itself; from the Preface.

You will notice the awkwardness of that English.  If you should carry
that paragraph up to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to
find out for good and all whether the fatal casualty happened to the dead
man--as the paragraph almost asserts--or to some person or persons not
even hinted at in the paragraph, the Supreme Court would be obliged to
say that the evidence established nothing with certainty except that
there had been a casualty--victim not known.

The context thinks it explains who the victim was, but it does nothing of
the kind.  It furnishes some guessing-material of a sort which enables
you to infer that it was "we" that suffered the mentioned injury, but if
you should carry the language to a court you would not be able to prove
that it necessarily meant that.  "We" are Mrs. Eddy; a funny little
affectation.  She replaced it later with the more dignified third person.

The quoted paragraph is from Mrs. Eddy's preface to the first revision of
Science and Health (1883).  Sixty-four pages further along--in the body
of the book (the elephant-range), she went out with that same flint-lock
and got this following result.  Its English is very nearly as straight
and clean and competent as is the English of the latest revision of
Science and Health after the gun has been improved from smooth-bore
musket up to globe-sighted, long distance rifle:

"Man controlled by his Maker has no physical suffering.  His body is
harmonious, his days are multiplying instead of diminishing, he is
journeying towards Life instead of death, and bringing out the new man
and crucifying the old affections, cutting them off in every material
direction until he learns the utter supremacy of Spirit and yields
obedience thereto."

In the latest revision of Science and Health (1902), the perfected gun
furnishes the following.  The English is clean, compact, dignified,
almost perfect.  But it is observable that it is not prominently better
than it is in the above paragraph, which was a product of the primitive
flint-lock:

"How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life and
hastening to death, and at the same time we are communing with
immortality?  If the departed are in rapport with mortality, or matter,
they are not spiritual, but must still be mortal, sinful, suffering, and
dying.  Then wherefore look to them--even were communication possible
--for proofs of immortality and accept them as oracles?"--Edition of
1902, page 78.

With the above paragraphs compare these that follow.  It is Mrs. Eddy
writing--after a good long twenty years of pen-practice.  Compare also
with the alleged Poems already quoted.  The prominent characteristic of
the Poems is affectation, artificiality; their makeup is a complacent and
pretentious outpour of false figures and fine writing, in the sophomoric
style.  The same qualities and the same style will be found, unchanged,
unbettered, in these following paragraphs--after a lapse of more than
fifty years, and after--as aforesaid--long literary training.  The
italics are mine:

1.  "What plague spot or bacilli were [sic] gnawing [sic] at the heart of
this metropolis .  .  .  and bringing it [the heart] on bended knee?
Why, it was an institute that had entered its vitals--that, among other
things, taught games," et cetera.--C.S.  Journal, p.  670, article
entitled "A Narrative--by Mary Baker G. Eddy."

2.  "Parks sprang up [sic] .  .  .  electric-cars run [sic] merrily
through several streets, concrete sidewalks and macadamized roads dotted
[sic] the place," et cetera.--Ibid.

3.  "Shorn [sic] of its suburbs it had indeed little left to admire, save
to [sic] such as fancy a skeleton above ground breathing [sic] slowly
through a barren [sic] breast."--Ibid.

This is not English--I mean, grown-up English.  But it is
fifteen-year-old English, and has not grown a month since the same
mind produced the Poems.  The standard of the Poems and of the
plague-spot-and-bacilli effort is exactly the same.  It is most strange
that the same intellect that worded the simple and self-contained and
clean-cut paragraph beginning with "How unreasonable is the belief,"
should in the very same lustrum discharge upon the world such a verbal
chaos as the utterance concerning that plague-spot or bacilli which were
gnawing at the insides of the metropolis and bringing its heart on bended
knee, thus exposing to the eye the rest of the skeleton breathing slowly
through a barren breast.

The immense contrast between the legitimate English of Science and Health
and the bastard English of Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous work, and between
the maturity of the one diction and the juvenility of the other,
suggests--compels--the question, Are there two guns?  It would seem so.
Is there a poor, foolish, old, scattering flint-lock for rabbit, and a
long-range, centre-driving, up-to-date Mauser-magazine for elephant?  It
looks like it.  For it is observable that in Science and Health (the
elephant-ground) the practice was good at the start and has remained so,
and that the practice in the miscellaneous, outside, small-game field was
very bad at the start and was never less bad at any later time.

I wish to say that of Mrs. Eddy I am not requiring perfect English, but
only good English.  No one can write perfect English and keep it up
through a stretch of ten chapters.  It has never been done.  It was
approached in the "well of English undefiled"; it has been approached in
Mrs. Eddy's Annex to that Book; it has been approached in several English
grammars; I have even approached it myself; but none of us has made port.

Now, the English of Science and Health is good.  In passages to be found
in Mrs. Eddy's Autobiography (on pages 53, 57, 101, and 113), and on page
6 of her squalid preface to Science and Health, first revision, she seems
to me to claim the whole and sole authorship of the book.  That she
wrote the Autobiography, and that preface, and the Poems, and the
Plague-spot-Bacilli, we are not permitted to doubt.  Indeed, we know she
wrote them. But the very certainty that she wrote these things compels a
doubt that she wrote Science and Health.  She is guilty of little
awkwardnesses of expression in the Autobiography which a practiced pen
would hardly allow to go uncorrected in even a hasty private letter, and
could not dream of passing by uncorrected in passages intended for print.
But she passes them placidly by; as placidly as if she did not suspect
that they were offenses against third-class English.  I think that that
placidity was born of that very unawareness, so to speak.  I will cite a
few instances from the Autobiography.  The italics are mine:

"I remember reading in my childhood certain manuscripts containing
Scriptural Sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas," etc.  Page 7.

[On page 27.] "Many pale cripples went into the Church leaning on
crutches who came out carrying them on their shoulders."

It is awkward, because at the first glance it seems to say that the
cripples went in leaning on crutches which went out carrying the cripples
on their shoulders.  It would have cost her no trouble to put her "who"
after her "cripples."  I blame her a little; I think her proof-reader
should have been shot.  We may let her capital C pass, but it is another
awkwardness, for she is talking about a building, not about a religious
society.

"Marriage and Parentage "[Chapter-heading.  Page 30].  You imagine that
she is going to begin a talk about her marriage and finish with some
account of her father and mother.  And so you will be deceived.
"Marriage" was right, but "Parentage" was not the best word for the rest
of the record.  It refers to the birth of her own child.  After a certain
period of time "my babe was born."  Marriage and Motherhood-Marriage and
Maternity-Marriage and Product-Marriage and Dividend--either of these
would have fitted the facts and made the matter clear.

"Without my knowledge he was appointed a guardian."  Page 32.

She is speaking of her child.  She means that a guardian for her child
was appointed, but that isn't what she says.

"If spiritual conclusions are separated from their premises, the nexus is
lost, and the argument with its rightful conclusions, becomes
correspondingly obscure."  Page 34.

We shall never know why she put the word "correspondingly" in there.  Any
fine, large word would have answered just as well: psychosuperintangibly
--electroincandescently--oligarcheologically--sanchrosynchro-
stereoptically--any of these would have answered, any of these would have
filled the void.

"His spiritual noumenon and phenomenon silenced portraiture."  Page 34.

Yet she says she forgot everything she knew, when she discovered
Christian Science.  I realize that noumenon is a daisy; and I will not
deny that I shall use it whenever I am in a company which I think I can
embarrass with it; but, at the same time, I think it is out of place
among friends in an autobiography.  There, I think a person ought not to
have anything up his sleeve.  It undermines confidence.  But my
dissatisfaction with the quoted passage is not on account of noumenon; it
is on account of the misuse of the word "silenced."  You cannot silence
portraiture with a noumenon; if portraiture should make a noise, a way
could be found to silence it, but even then it could not be done with a
noumenon.  Not even with a brick, some authorities think.

"It may be that the mortal life-battle still wages," etc.  Page 35.

That is clumsy.  Battles do not wage, battles are waged.  Mrs. Eddy has
one very curious and interesting peculiarity: whenever she notices that
she is chortling along without saying anything, she pulls up with a
sudden "God is over us all," or some other sounding irrelevancy, and for
the moment it seems to light up the whole district; then, before you can
recover from the shock, she goes flitting pleasantly and meaninglessly
along again, and you hurry hopefully after her, thinking you are going to
get something this time; but as soon as she has led you far enough away
from her turkey lot she takes to a tree.  Whenever she discovers that she
is getting pretty disconnected, she couples-up with an ostentatious "But"
which has nothing to do with anything that went before or is to come
after, then she hitches some empties to the train-unrelated verses from
the Bible, usually--and steams out of sight and leaves you wondering how
she did that clever thing.  For striking instances, see bottom paragraph
on page 34 and the paragraph on page 35 of her Autobiography.  She has a
purpose--a deep and dark and artful purpose--in what she is saying in the
first paragraph, and you guess what it is, but that is due to your own
talent, not hers; she has made it as obscure as language could do it.
The other paragraph has no meaning and no discoverable intention.  It is
merely one of her God-over-alls.  I cannot spare room for it in this
place.

"I beheld with ineffable awe our great Master's marvelous skill in
demanding neither obedience to hygienic laws nor," etc.  Page 41.

The word is loosely chosen-skill.  She probably meant judgment,
intuition, penetration, or wisdom.

"Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts to express in feeble
diction Truth's ultimate."  Page 42.

One understands what she means, but she should have been able to say what
she meant--at any time before she discovered Christian Science and forgot
everything she knew--and after it, too.  If she had put "feeble" in front
of "efforts" and then left out "in" and "diction," she would have scored.

" .  .  .  its written expression increases in perfection under the
guidance of the great Master."  Page 43.

It is an error.  Not even in those advantageous circumstances can
increase be added to perfection.

"Evil is not mastered by evil; it can only be overcome with Good.  This
brings out the nothingness of evil, and the eternal Somethingness
vindicates the Divine Principle and improves the race of Adam."  Page 76.

This is too extraneous for me.  That is the trouble with Mrs. Eddy when
she sets out to explain an over-large exhibit: the minute you think the
light is bursting upon you the candle goes out and your mind begins to
wander.

"No one else can drain the cup which I have drunk to the dregs, as the
discoverer and teacher of Christian Science" Page 47.

That is saying we cannot empty an empty cup.  We knew it before; and we
know she meant to tell us that that particular cup is going to remain
empty.  That is, we think that that was the idea, but we cannot be sure.
She has a perfectly astonishing talent for putting words together in such
a way as to make successful inquiry into their intention impossible.

She generally makes us uneasy when she begins to tune up on her
fine-writing timbrel.  It carries me back to her Plague-Spot and Poetry
days, and I just dread those:

"Into mortal mind's material obliquity I gazed and stood abashed.
Blanched was the cheek of pride.  My heart bent low before the
omnipotence of Spirit, and a tint of humility soft as the heart of a
moonbeam mantled the earth.  Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane and
Calvary, spoke to my chastened sense as by the tearful lips of a babe."
Page 48.

The heart of a moonbeam is a pretty enough Friendship's-Album expression
--let it pass, though I do think the figure a little strained; but
humility has no tint, humility has no complexion, and if it had it could
not mantle the earth.  A moonbeam might--I do not know--but she did not
say it was the moonbeam.  But let it go, I cannot decide it, she mixes me
up so.  A babe hasn't "tearful lips," it's its eyes.  You find none of
Mrs. Eddy's kind of English in Science and Health--not a line of it.




CHAPTER III

Setting aside title-page, index, etc., the little Autobiography begins on
page 7 and ends on page 130.  My quotations are from the first forty
pages.  They seem to me to prove the presence of the 'prentice hand.  The
style of the forty pages is loose and feeble and 'prentice-like.  The
movement of the narrative is not orderly and sequential, but rambles
around, and skips forward and back and here and there and yonder,
'prentice-fashion.  Many a journeyman has broken up his narrative and
skipped about and rambled around, but he did it for a purpose, for an
advantage; there was art in it, and points to be scored by it; the
observant reader perceived the game, and enjoyed it and respected it, if
it was well played.  But Mrs. Eddy's performance was without intention,
and destitute of art.  She could score no points by it on those terms,
and almost any reader can see that her work was the uncalculated
puttering of a novice.

In the above paragraph I have described the first third of the booklet.
That third being completed, Mrs. Eddy leaves the rabbit-range, crosses
the frontier, and steps out upon her far-spreading big-game territory
--Christian Science and there is an instant change!  The style smartly
improves; and the clumsy little technical offenses disappear.  In these
two-thirds of the booklet I find only one such offence, and it has the
look of being a printer's error.

I leave the riddle with the reader.  Perhaps he can explain how it is
that a person-trained or untrained--who on the one day can write nothing
better than Plague-Spot-Bacilli and feeble and stumbling and wandering
personal history littered with false figures and obscurities and
technical blunders, can on the next day sit down and write fluently,
smoothly, compactly, capably, and confidently on a great big thundering
subject, and do it as easily and comfortably as a whale paddles around
the globe.

As for me, I have scribbled so much in fifty years that I have become
saturated with convictions of one sort and another concerning a
scribbler's limitations; and these are so strong that when I am familiar
with a literary person's work I feel perfectly sure that I know enough
about his limitations to know what he can not do.  If Mr. Howells should
pretend to me that he wrote the Plague-Spot Bacilli rhapsody, I should
receive the statement courteously; but I should know it for a--well, for
a perversion.  If the late Josh Billings should rise up and tell me that
he wrote Herbert Spencer's philosophies; I should answer and say that the
spelling casts a doubt upon his claim.  If the late Jonathan Edwards
should rise up and tell me he wrote Mr. Dooley's books, I should answer
and say that the marked difference between his style and Dooley's is
argument against the soundness of his statement.  You see how much I
think of circumstantial evidence.  In literary matters--in my belief--it
is often better than any person's word, better than any shady character's
oath.  It is difficult for me to believe that the same hand that wrote
the Plague-Spot-Bacilli and the first third of the little Eddy biography
wrote also Science and Health.  Indeed, it is more than difficult, it is
impossible.

Largely speaking, I have read acres of what purported to be Mrs. Eddy's
writings, in the past two months.  I cannot know, but I am convinced,
that the circumstantial evidence shows that her actual share in the work
of composing and phrasing these things was so slight as to be
inconsequential.  Where she puts her literary foot down, her trail across
her paid polisher's page is as plain as the elephant's in a Sunday-school
procession.  Her verbal output, when left undoctored by her clerks, is
quite unmistakable It always exhibits the strongly distinctive features
observable in the virgin passages from her pen already quoted by me:

Desert vacancy, as regards thought.
Self-complacency.
Puerility.
Sentimentality.
Affectations of scholarly learning.
Lust after eloquent and flowery expression.
Repetition of pet poetic picturesquenesses.
Confused and wandering statement.
Metaphor gone insane.
Meaningless words, used because they are pretty, or showy, or unusual.
Sorrowful attempts at the epigrammatic.
Destitution of originality.

The fat volume called Miscellaneous Writings of Mrs. Eddy contains
several hundred pages.  Of the five hundred and fifty-four pages of prose
in it I find ten lines, on page 319, to be Mrs. Eddy's; also about a page
of the preface or "Prospectus"; also about fifteen pages scattered along
through the book.  If she wrote any of the rest of the prose, it was
rewritten after her by another hand.  Here I will insert two-thirds of
her page of the prospectus.  It is evident that whenever, under the
inspiration of the Deity, she turns out a book, she is always allowed to
do some of the preface.  I wonder why that is?  It always mars the work.
I think it is done in humorous malice I think the clerks like to see her
give herself away.  They know she will, her stock of usable materials
being limited and her procedure in employing them always the same,
substantially.  They know that when the initiated come upon her first
erudite allusion, or upon any one of her other stage-properties, they can
shut their eyes and tell what will follow.  She usually throws off an
easy remark all sodden with Greek or Hebrew or Latin learning; she
usually has a person watching for a star--she can seldom get away from
that poetic idea--sometimes it is a Chaldee, sometimes a Walking
Delegate, sometimes an entire stranger, but be he what he may, he is
generally there when the train is ready to move, and has his pass in his
hat-band; she generally has a Being with a Dome on him, or some other
cover that is unusual and out of the fashion; she likes to fire off a
Scripture-verse where it will make the handsomest noise and come nearest
to breaking the connection; she often throws out a Forefelt, or a
Foresplendor, or a Foreslander where it will have a fine nautical
foreto'gallant sound and make the sentence sing; after which she is
nearly sure to throw discretion away and take to her deadly passion,
Intoxicated Metaphor.  At such a time the Mrs. Eddy that does not
hesitate is lost:

"The ancient Greek looked longingly for the Olympiad.  The Chaldee
watched the appearing of a star; to him no higher destiny dawned on the
dome of being than that foreshadowed by signs in the heavens.  The meek
Nazarene, the scoffed of all scoffers, said, 'Ye can discern the face of
the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?'--for He forefelt
and foresaw the ordeal of a perfect Christianity, hated by sinners.

"To kindle all minds with a gleam of gratitude, the new idea that comes
welling up from infinite Truth needs to be understood.  The seer of this
age should be a sage.

"Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity.  The
mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of
dissolving self, and drops the world.  Meekness heightens immortal
attributes, only by removing the dust that dims them.  Goodness reveals
another scene and another self seemingly rolled up in shades, but brought
to light by the evolutions of advancing thought, whereby we discern the
power of Truth and Love to heal the sick.

"Pride is ignorance; those assume most who have the least wisdom or
experience; and they steal from their neighbor, because they have so
little of their own."--Miscellaneous Writings, page 1, and six lines at
top of page 2.

It is not believable that the hand that wrote those clumsy and affected
sentences wrote the smooth English of Science and Health.




CHAPTER IV

It is often said in print that Mrs. Eddy claims that God was the Author
of Science and Health.  Mr. Peabody states in his pamphlet that "she says
not she but God was the Author."  I cannot find that in her autobiography
she makes this transference of the authorship, but I think that in it she
definitely claims that she did her work under His inspiration--definitely
for her; for as a rule she is not a very definite person, even when she
seems to be trying her best to be clear and positive.  Speaking of the
early days when her Science was beginning to unfold itself and gather
form in her mind, she says (Autobiography, page 43):

"The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh
universe--old to God, but new to His 'little one.'"

She being His little one, as I understand it.

The divine hand led her.  It seems to mean "God inspired me"; but when a
person uses metaphors instead of statistics--and that is Mrs. Eddy's
common fashion--one cannot always feel sure about the intention.

[Page 56.] "Even the Scripture gave no direct interpretation of the
Scientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing,
until our Heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, in
Science and Health, to unlock this 'mystery of godliness.'"

Another baffling metaphor.  If she had used plain forecastle English, and
said "God wrote the Key and I put it in my book"; or if she had said "God
furnished me the solution of the mystery and I put it on paper"; or if
she had said "God did it all," then we should understand; but her phrase
is open to any and all of those translations, and is a Key which unlocks
nothing--for us.  However, it seems to at least mean "God inspired me,"
if nothing more.

There was personal and intimate communion, at any rate we get that much
out of the riddles.  The connection extended to business, after the
establishment of the teaching and healing industry.

[Page 71.] "When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction," etc.
Further down: "God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom
of this decision."

She was not able to think of a "financial equivalent"--meaning a
pecuniary equivalent--for her "instruction in Christian Science
Mind-healing."  In this emergency she was "led" to charge three hundred
dollars for a term of "twelve half-days."  She does not say who led her,
she only says that the amount greatly troubled her.  I think it means
that the price was suggested from above, "led" being a theological term
identical with our commercial phrase "personally conducted."  She "shrank
from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to accept
this fee."  "Providence" is another theological term.  Two leds and a
providence, taken together, make a pretty strong argument for
inspiration.  I think that these statistics make it clear that the price
was arranged above.  This view is constructively supported by the fact,
already quoted, that God afterwards approved, "in multitudinous ways,"
her wisdom in accepting the mentioned fee.  "Multitudinous ways"
--multitudinous encoring--suggests enthusiasm.  Business enthusiasm.  And
it suggests nearness.  God's nearness to his "little one."  Nearness, and
a watchful personal interest.  A warm, palpitating, Standard-Oil
interest, so to speak.  All this indicates inspiration.  We may assume,
then, two inspirations: one for the book, the other for the business.

The evidence for inspiration is further augmented by the testimony of
Rev. George Tomkins, D.D., already quoted, that Mrs. Eddy and her book
were foretold in Revelation, and that Mrs. Eddy "is God's brightest
thought to this age, giving us the spiritual interpretation of the Bible
in the 'little book'" of the Angel.

I am aware that it is not Mr. Tomkins that is speaking, but Mrs. Eddy.
The commissioned lecturers of the Christian Science Church have to be
members of the Board of Lectureship.  (By-laws Sec. 2, p. 70.) The
Board of Lectureship is selected by the Board of Directors of the Church.
(By-laws, Sec.  3, p. 70.) The Board of Directors of the Church is the
property of Mrs. Eddy.  (By-laws, p. 22.) Mr. Tomkins did not make that
statement without authorization from headquarters.  He necessarily got it
from the Board of Directors, the Board of Directors from Mrs. Eddy, Mrs.
Eddy from the Deity.  Mr. Tomkins would have been turned down by that
procession if his remarks had been unsatisfactory to it.

It may be that there is evidence somewhere--as has been claimed--that
Mrs. Eddy has charged upon the Deity the verbal authorship of Science and
Health.  But if she ever made the charge, she has withdrawn it (as it
seems to me), and in the most formal and unqualified; of all ways.  See
Autobiography, page 57:

"When the demand for this book increased .  .  .  the copyright was
infringed.  I entered a suit at Law, and my copyright was protected."

Thus it is plain that she did not plead that the Deity was the (verbal)
Author; for if she had done that, she would have lost her case--and with
rude promptness.  It was in the old days before the Berne Convention and
before the passage of our amended law of 1891, and the court would have
quoted the following stern clause from the existing statute and frowned
her out of the place:

"No Foreigner can acquire copyright in the United States."

To sum up.  The evidence before me indicates three things:

1.  That Mrs. Eddy claims the verbal author ship for herself.
2.  That she denies it to the Deity.
3.  That--in her belief--she wrote the book under the inspiration of the
Deity, but furnished the language herself.

In one place in the Autobiography she claims both the language and the
ideas; but when this witness is testifying, one must draw the line
somewhere, or she will prove both sides of her case-nine sides, if
desired.

It is too true.  Much too true.  Many, many times too true.  She is a
most trying witness--the most trying witness that ever kissed the Book, I
am sure.  There is no keeping up with her erratic testimony.  As soon as
you have got her share of the authorship nailed where you half hope and
half believe it will stay and cannot be joggled loose any more, she
joggles it loose again--or seems to; you cannot be sure, for her habit of
dealing in meaningless metaphors instead of in plain, straightforward
statistics, makes it nearly always impossible to tell just what it is she
is trying to say.  She was definite when she claimed both the language
and the ideas of the book.  That seemed to settle the matter.  It seemed
to distribute the percentages of credit with precision between the
collaborators: ninety-two per cent.  to Mrs. Eddy, who did all the work,
and eight per cent.  to the Deity, who furnished the inspiration not
enough of it to damage the copyright in a country closed against
Foreigners, and yet plenty to advertise the book and market it at famine
rates.  Then Mrs. Eddy does not keep still, but fetches around and comes
forward and testifies again.  It is most injudicious.  For she resorts to
metaphor this time, and it makes trouble, for she seems to reverse the
percentages and claim only the eight per cent.  for her self.  I quote
from Mr. Peabody's book (Eddyism, or Christian Science.  Boston: 15 Court
Square, price twenty-five cents):

"Speaking of this book, Mrs. Eddy, in January last (1901) said: 'I should
blush to write of Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, as I
have, were it of human origin, and I, apart from God, its author; but as
I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of Heaven in divine
metaphysics, I cannot be supermodest of the Christian Science
text-book."'

Mr. Peabody's comment:

"Nothing could be plainer than that.  Here is a distinct avowal that the
book entitled Science and Health was the work of Almighty God."

It does seem to amount to that.  She was only a "scribe."  Confound the
word, it is just a confusion, it has no determinable meaning there, it
leaves us in the air.  A scribe is merely a person who writes.  He may be
a copyist, he may be an amanuensis, he may be a writer of originals, and
furnish both the language and the ideas.  As usual with Mrs. Eddy, the
connection affords no help--"echoing" throws no light upon "scribe."  A
rock can reflect an echo, a wall can do it, a mountain can do it, many
things can do it, but a scribe can't.  A scribe that could reflect an
echo could get over thirty dollars a week in a side-show.  Many
impresarios would rather have him than a cow with four tails.  If we
allow that this present scribe was setting down the "harmonies of
Heaven"--and certainly that seems to have been the case then there was
only one way to do it that I can think of: listen to the music and put
down the notes one after another as they fell.  In that case Mrs. Eddy
did not invent the tune, she only entered it on paper.  Therefore
dropping the metaphor--she was merely an amanuensis, and furnished
neither the language of Science and Health nor the ideas.  It reduces her
to eight per cent.  (and the dividends on that and the rest).

Is that it?  We shall never know.  For Mrs. Eddy is liable to testify
again at any time.  But until she does it, I think we must conclude that
the Deity was Author of the whole book, and Mrs. Eddy merely His
telephone and stenographer.  Granting this, her claim as the Voice of God
stands-for the present--justified and established.




POSTSCRIPT

I overlooked something.  It appears that there was more of that utterance
than Mr. Peabody has quoted in the above paragraph.  It will be found in
Mrs. Eddy's organ, the Christian Science Journal (January, 1901) and
reads as follows:

"It was not myself .  .  .  which dictated Science and Health, with Key
to the Scriptures."

That is certainly clear enough.  The words which I have removed from that
important sentence explain Who it was that did the dictating.  It was
done by

"the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me."

Certainly that is definite.  At last, through her personal testimony, we
have a sure grip upon the following vital facts, and they settle the
authorship of Science and Health beyond peradventure:

1.  Mrs. Eddy furnished "the ideas and the language."
2.  God furnished the ideas and the language.

It is a great comfort to have the matter authoritatively settled.




CHAPTER V

It is hard to locate her, she shifts about so much.  She is a shining
drop of quicksilver which you put your finger on and it isn't there.
There is a paragraph in the Autobiography (page 96) which places in
seemingly darkly significant procession three Personages:

1.  The Virgin Mary
2.  Jesus of Nazareth.
3.  Mrs. Eddy.

This is the paragraph referred to:

"No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary.  No person
can compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth.  No
person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the
discoverer and founder of Christian Science.  Each individual must fill
his own niche in time and eternity."

I have read it many times, but I still cannot be sure that I rightly
understand it.  If the Saviour's name had been placed first and the
Virgin Mary's second and Mrs. Eddy's third, I should draw the inference
that a descending scale from First Importance to Second Importance and
then to Small Importance was indicated; but to place the Virgin first,
the Saviour second, and Mrs. Eddy third, seems to turn the scale the
other way and make it an ascending scale of Importances, with Mrs. Eddy
ranking the other two and holding first place.

I think that that was perhaps the intention, but none but a seasoned
Christian Scientist can examine a literary animal of Mrs. Eddy's creation
and tell which end of it the tail is on.  She is easily the most baffling
and bewildering writer in the literary trade.

Eddy is a commonplace name, and would have an unimpressive aspect in the
list of the reformed Holy Family.  She has thought of that.  In the book
of By-laws written by her--"impelled by a power not one's own"--there is
a paragraph which explains how and when her disciples came to confer a
title upon her; and this explanation is followed by a warning as to what
will happen to any female Scientist who shall desecrate it:

"The title of Mother.  Therefore if a student of Christian Science shall
apply this title, either to herself or to others, except as the term for
kinship according to the flesh, it shall be regarded by the Church as an
indication of disrespect for their Pastor Emeritus, and unfitness to be a
member of the Mother-Church."

She is the Pastor Emeritus.

While the quoted paragraph about the Procession seems to indicate that
Mrs. Eddy is expecting to occupy the First Place in it, that expectation
is not definitely avowed.  In an earlier utterance of hers she is
clearer--clearer, and does not claim the first place all to herself, but
only the half of it.  I quote from Mr. Peabody's book again:

"In the Christian Science Journal for April, 1889, when it was her
property, and published by her, it was claimed for her, and with her
sanction, that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort was made to
establish the claim.

"Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized the claim in her behalf that she
herself was the chosen successor to and equal of Jesus."

In her Miscellaneous Writings (using her once favorite "We" for "I") she
says that "While we entertain decided views .  .  .  and shall express
them as duty demands, we shall claim no especial gift from our divine
origin," etc.

Our divine origin.  It suggests Equal again.  It is inferable, then, that
in the near by-and-by the new Church will officially rank the Holy Family
in the following order:

1.  Jesus of Nazareth.--1.  Our Mother.
2.  The Virgin Mary.




SUMMARY

I am not playing with Christian Science and its founder, I am examining
them; and I am doing it because of the interest I feel in the inquiry.
My results may seem inadequate to the reader, but they have for me
clarified a muddle and brought a sort of order out of a chaos, and so I
value them.

My readings of Mrs. Eddy's uninspired miscellaneous literary efforts have
convinced me of several things:

1.  That she did not write Science and Health.
2.  That the Deity did (or did not) write it.
3.  That She thinks She wrote it.
4.  That She believes She wrote it under the Deity's inspiration.
5.  That She believes She is a Member of the Holy Family.
6.  That She believes She is the equal of the Head of it.

Finally, I think She is now entitled to the capital S--on her own
evidence.




CHAPTER VI

Thus far we have a part of Mrs. Eddy's portrait.  Not made of fictions,
surmises, reports, rumors, innuendoes, dropped by her enemies; no, she
has furnished all of the materials herself, and laid them on the canvas,
under my general superintendence and direction.  As far as she has gone
with it, it is the presentation of a complacent, commonplace, illiterate
New England woman who "forgot everything she knew" when she discovered
her discovery, then wrote a Bible in good English under the inspiration
of God, and climbed up it to the supremest summit of earthly grandeur
attainable by man--where she sits serene to-day, beloved and worshiped by
a multitude of human beings of as good average intelligence as is
possessed by those that march under the banner of any competing cult.
This is not intended to flatter the competing cults, it is merely a
statement of cold fact.

That a commonplace person should go climbing aloft and become a god or a
half-god or a quarter-god and be worshiped by men and women of average
intelligence, is nothing.  It has happened a million times, it will
happen a hundred million more.  It has been millions of years since the
first of these supernaturals appeared, and by the time the last one in
that inconceivably remote future shall have performed his solemn little
high-jinks on the stage and closed the business, there will be enough of
them accumulated in the museum on the Other Side to start a heaven of
their own-and jam it.

Each in his turn those little supernaturals of our by-gone ages and aeons
joined the monster procession of his predecessors and marched
horizonward, disappeared, and was forgotten.  They changed nothing, they
built nothing, they left nothing behind them to remember them by, nothing
to hold their disciples together, nothing to solidify their work and
enable it to defy the assaults of time and the weather.  They passed, and
left a vacancy.  They made one fatal mistake; they all made it, each in
his turn: they failed to organize their forces, they failed to centralize
their strength, they failed to provide a fresh Bible and a sure and
perpetual cash income for business, and often they failed to provide a
new and accepted Divine Personage to worship.

Mrs. Eddy is not of that small fry.  The materials that go to the making
of the rest of her portrait will prove it.  She will furnish them
herself:

She published her book.  She copyrighted it.  She copyrights everything.
If she should say, "Good-morning; how do you do?" she would copyright it;
for she is a careful person, and knows the value of small things.

She began to teach her Science, she began to heal, she began to gather
converts to her new religion--fervent, sincere, devoted, grateful people.
A year or two later she organized her first Christian Science
"Association," with six of her disciples on the roster.

She continued to teach and heal.  She was charging nothing, she says,
although she was very poor.  She taught and healed gratis four years
altogether, she says.

Then, in 1879-81 she was become strong enough, and well enough
established, to venture a couple of impressively important moves.  The
first of these moves was to aggrandize the "Association" to a "Church."
Brave?  It is the right name for it, I think.  The former name suggests
nothing, invited no remark, no criticism, no inquiry, no hostility; the
new name invited them all.  She must have made this intrepid venture on
her own motion.  She could have had no important advisers at that early
day.  If we accept it as her own idea and her own act--and I think we
must--we have one key to her character.  And it will explain subsequent
acts of hers that would merely stun us and stupefy us without it.  Shall
we call it courage?  Or shall we call it recklessness?  Courage observes;
reflects; calculates; surveys the whole situation; counts the cost,
estimates the odds, makes up its mind; then goes at the enterprise
resolute to win or perish.  Recklessness does not reflect, it plunges
fearlessly in with a hurrah, and takes the risks, whatever they may be,
regardless of expense.  Recklessness often fails, Mrs. Eddy has never
failed--from the point of view of her followers.  The point of view of
other people is naturally not a matter of weighty importance to her.

The new Church was not born loose-jointed and featureless, but had a
defined plan, a definite character, definite aims, and a name which was a
challenge, and defied all comers.  It was "a Mind-healing Church."  It
was "without a creed."  Its name, "The Church of Christ, Scientist."

Mrs. Eddy could not copyright her Church, but she chartered it, which was
the same thing and relieved the pain.  It had twenty-six charter members.
Mrs. Eddy was at once installed as its pastor.

The other venture, above referred to, was Mrs. Eddy's Massachusetts
Metaphysical College, in which was taught "the pathology of spiritual
power."  She could not copyright it, but she got it chartered.  For
faculty it had herself, her husband of the period (Dr. Eddy), and her
adopted son, Dr. Foster-Eddy.  The college term was "barely three
weeks," she says.  Again she was bold, brave, rash, reckless--choose for
yourself--for she not only began to charge the student, but charged him a
hundred dollars a week for the enlightenments.  And got it? some may
ask.  Easily.  Pupils flocked from far and near.  They came by the
hundred.  Presently the term was cut down nearly half, but the price
remained as before.  To be exact, the term-cut was to seven lessons
--price, three hundred dollars.  The college "yielded a large income."
This is believable.  In seven years Mrs. Eddy taught, as she avers, over
four thousand students in it.  (Preface to 1902 edition of Science and
Health.) Three hundred times four thousand is--but perhaps you can cipher
it yourself.  I could do it ordinarily, but I fell down yesterday and
hurt my leg.  Cipher it; you will see that it is a grand sum for a woman
to earn in seven years.  Yet that was not all she got out of her college
in the seven.

At the time that she was charging the primary student three hundred
dollars for twelve lessons she was not content with this tidy assessment,
but had other ways of plundering him.  By advertisement she offered him
privileges whereby he could add eighteen lessons to his store for five
hundred dollars more.  That is to say, he could get a total of thirty
lessons in her college for eight hundred dollars.

Four thousand times eight hundred is--but it is a difficult sum for a
cripple who has not been "demonstrated over" to cipher; let it go.  She
taught "over" four thousand students in seven years.  "Over" is not
definite, but it probably represents a non-paying surplus of learners
over and above the paying four thousand.  Charity students, doubtless.  I
think that as interesting an advertisement as has been printed since the
romantic old days of the other buccaneers is this one from the Christian
Science Journal for September, 1886:


"MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE

"Rev. MARY BAKER G. EDDY, PRESIDENT

"571 Columbus Avenue, Boston

"The collegiate course in Christian Science metaphysical healing includes
twelve lessons.  Tuition, three hundred dollars.

"Course in metaphysical obstetrics includes six daily lectures, and is
open only to students from this college.  Tuition, one hundred dollars.

"Class in theology, open (like the above) to graduates, receives six
additional lectures on the Scriptures, and summary of the principle and
practice of Christian Science, two hundred dollars.

"Normal class is open to those who have taken the first course at this
college; six daily lectures complete the Normal course.  Tuition, two
hundred dollars.

"No invalids, and only persons of good moral character, are accepted as
students.  All students are subject to examination and rejection; and
they are liable to leave the class if found unfit to remain in it.

"A limited number of clergymen received free of charge.

"Largest discount to indigent students, one hundred dollars on the first
course.

"No deduction on the others.

"Husband and wife, entered together, three hundred dollars.

"Tuition for all strictly in advance."

There it is--the horse-leech's daughter alive again, after a
three-century vacation.  Fifty or sixty hours' lecturing for eight
hundred dollars.

I was in error as to one matter: there are no charity students.
Gratis-taught clergymen must not be placed under that head; they are
merely an advertisement.  Pauper students can get into the infant class
on a two-third rate (cash in advance), but not even an archangel can get
into the rest of the game at anything short of par, cash down.  For it is
"in the spirit of Christ's charity, as one who is joyful to hear healing
to the sick" that Mrs. Eddy is working the game.  She sends the healing
to them outside.  She cannot bear it to them inside the college, for the
reason that she does not allow a sick candidate to get in.  It is true
that this smells of inconsistency, but that is nothing; Mrs. Eddy would
not be Mrs. Eddy if she should ever chance to be consistent about
anything two days running.

Except in the matter of the Dollar.  The Dollar, and appetite for power
and notoriety.  English must also be added; she is always consistent, she
is always Mrs. Eddy, in her English: it is always and consistently
confused and crippled and poor.  She wrote the Advertisement; her
literary trade-marks are there.  When she says all "students" are subject
to examination, she does not mean students, she means candidates for that
lofty place When she says students are "liable" to leave the class if
found unfit to remain in it, she does not mean that if they find
themselves unfit, or be found unfit by others, they will be likely to ask
permission to leave the class; she means that if she finds them unfit she
will be "liable" to fire them out.  When she nobly offers "tuition for
all strictly in advance," she does not mean "instruction for all in
advance-payment for it later."  No, that is only what she says, it is not
what she means.  If she had written Science and Health, the oldest man in
the world would not be able to tell with certainty what any passage in it
was intended to mean.

Her Church was on its legs.

She was its pastor.  It was prospering.

She was appointed one of a committee to draught By-laws for its
government.  It may be observed, without overplus of irreverence, that
this was larks for her.  She did all of the draughting herself.  From the
very beginning she was always in the front seat when there was business
to be done; in the front seat, with both eyes open, and looking sharply
out for Number One; in the front seat, working Mortal Mind with fine
effectiveness and giving Immortal Mind a rest for Sunday.  When her
Church was reorganized, by-and-by, the By-laws were retained.  She saw to
that.  In these Laws for the government of her Church, her empire, her
despotism, Mrs. Eddy's character is embalmed for good and all.  I think a
particularized examination of these Church-laws will be found
interesting.  And not the less so if we keep in mind that they were
"impelled by a power not one's own," as she says--Anglice.  the
inspiration of God.

It is a Church "without a creed."  Still, it has one.  Mrs. Eddy
draughted it--and copyrighted it.  In her own name.  You cannot become a
member of the Mother-Church (nor of any Christian Science Church) without
signing it.  It forms the first chapter of the By-laws, and is called
"Tenets."  "Tenets of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ,
Scientist."  It has no hell in it--it throws it overboard.




THE PASTOR EMERITUS

About the time of the reorganization, Mrs. Eddy retired from her position
of pastor of her Church, abolished the office of pastor in all branch
Churches, and appointed her book, Science and Health, to be
pastor-universal.  Mrs. Eddy did not disconnect herself from the office
entirely, when she retired, but appointed herself Pastor Emeritus.  It is
a misleading title, and belongs to the family of that phrase "without a
creed."  It advertises her as being a merely honorary official, with
nothing to do, and no authority.  The Czar of Russia is Emperor Emeritus
on the same terms.  Mrs. Eddy was Autocrat of the Church before, with
limitless authority, and she kept her grip on that limitless authority
when she took that fictitious title.

It is curious and interesting to note with what an unerring instinct the
Pastor Emeritus has thought out and forecast all possible encroachments
upon her planned autocracy, and barred the way against them, in the
By-laws which she framed and copyrighted--under the guidance of the
Supreme Being.




THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

For instance, when Article I.  speaks of a President and Board of
Directors, you think you have discovered a formidable check upon the
powers and ambitions of the honorary pastor, the ornamental pastor, the
functionless pastor, the Pastor Emeritus, but it is a mistake.  These
great officials are of the phrase--family of the Church-Without-a-Creed
and the Pastor-With-Nothing-to-Do; that is to say, of the family of
Large-Names-Which-Mean-Nothing.  The Board is of so little consequence
that the By-laws do not state how it is chosen, nor who does it; but they
do state, most definitely, that the Board cannot fill a vacancy in its
number "except the candidate is approved by the Pastor Emeritus."

The "candidate."  The Board cannot even proceed to an election until the
Pastor Emeritus has examined the list and squelched such candidates as
are not satisfactory to her.

Whether the original first Board began as the personal property of Mrs.
Eddy or not, it is foreseeable that in time, under this By-law, she would
own it.  Such a first Board might chafe under such a rule as that, and
try to legislate it out of existence some day.  But Mrs. Eddy was awake.
She foresaw that danger, and added this ingenious and effective clause:

"This By-law can neither be amended nor annulled, except by consent of
Mrs. Eddy, the Pastor Emeritus"




THE PRESIDENT

The Board of Directors, or Serfs, or Ciphers, elects the President.

On these clearly worded terms: "Subject to the approval of the Pastor
Emeritus."

Therefore She elects him.

A long term can invest a high official with influence and power, and make
him dangerous.  Mrs. Eddy reflected upon that; so she limits the
President's term to a year.  She has a capable commercial head, an
organizing head, a head for government.




TREASURER AND CLERK

There are a Treasurer and a Clerk.  They are elected by the Board of
Directors.  That is to say, by Mrs. Eddy.

Their terms of office expire on the first Tuesday in June of each year,
"or upon the election of their successors."  They must be watchfully
obedient and satisfactory to her, or she will elect and install their
successors with a suddenness that can be unpleasant to them.  It goes
without saying that the Treasurer manages the Treasury to suit Mrs. Eddy,
and is in fact merely Temporary Deputy Treasurer.

Apparently the Clerk has but two duties to perform: to read messages from
Mrs. Eddy to First Members assembled in solemn Council, and provide lists
of candidates for Church membership.  The select body entitled First
Members are the aristocracy of the Mother-Church, the Charter Members,
the Aborigines, a sort of stylish but unsalaried little College of
Cardinals, good for show, but not indispensable.  Nobody is indispensable
in Mrs. Eddy's empire; she sees to that.

When the Pastor Emeritus sends a letter or message to that little
Sanhedrin, it is the Clerk's "imperative duty" to read it "at the place
and time specified."  Otherwise, the world might come to an end.  These
are fine, large frills, and remind us of the ways of emperors and such.
Such do not use the penny-post, they send a gilded and painted special
messenger, and he strides into the Parliament, and business comes to a
sudden and solemn and awful stop; and in the impressive hush that
follows, the Chief Clerk reads the document.  It is his "imperative
duty."  If he should neglect it, his official life would end.  It is the
same with this Mother-Church Clerk; "if he fail to perform this important
function of his office," certain majestic and unshirkable solemnities
must follow: a special meeting "shall" be called; a member of the Church
"shall" make formal complaint; then the Clerk "shall" be "removed from
office."  Complaint is sufficient, no trial is necessary.

There is something very sweet and juvenile and innocent and pretty about
these little tinsel vanities, these grave apings of monarchical fuss and
feathers and ceremony, here on our ostentatiously democratic soil.  She
is the same lady that we found in the Autobiography, who was so naively
vain of all that little ancestral military riffraff that she had dug up
and annexed.  A person's nature never changes.  What it is in childhood,
it remains.  Under pressure, or a change of interest, it can partially or
wholly disappear from sight, and for considerable stretches of time, but
nothing can ever permanently modify it, nothing can ever remove it.




BOARD OF TRUSTEES

There isn't any--now.  But with power and money piling up higher and
higher every day and the Church's dominion spreading daily wider and
farther, a time could come when the envious and ambitious could start
the idea that it would be wise and well to put a watch upon these assets
--a watch equipped with properly large authority.  By custom, a Board of
Trustees.  Mrs. Eddy has foreseen that probability--for she is a woman
with a long, long look ahead, the longest look ahead that ever a woman
had--and she has provided for that emergency.  In Art. I., Sec. 5, she
has decreed that no Board of Trustees shall ever exist in the
Mother-Church "except it be constituted by the Pastor Emeritus."

The magnificence of it, the daring of it!  Thus far, she is:

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College;
Pastor Emeritus;
President;
Board of Directors;
Treasurer;
Clerk;
and future Board of Trustees;

and is still moving onward, ever onward.  When I contemplate her from a
commercial point of view, there are no words that can convey my
admiration of her.




READERS

These are a feature of first importance in the church-machinery of
Christian Science.  For they occupy the pulpit.  They hold the place that
the preacher holds in the other Christian Churches.  They hold that
place, but they do not preach.  Two of them are on duty at a time--a man
and a woman.  One reads a passage from the Bible, the other reads the
explanation of it from Science and Health--and so they go on alternating.
This constitutes the service--this, with choir-music.  They utter no word
of their own.  Art. IV., Sec. 6, closes their mouths with this
uncompromising gag:

"They shall make no remarks explanatory of the Lesson-Sermon at any time
during the service."

It seems a simple little thing.  One is not startled by it at a first
reading of it; nor at the second, nor the third.  One may have to read it
a dozen times before the whole magnitude of it rises before the mind.  It
far and away oversizes and outclasses the best business-idea yet invented
for the safe-guarding and perpetuating of a religion.  If it had been
thought of and put in force eighteen hundred and seventy years ago, there
would be but one Christian sect in the world now, instead of ten dozens
of them.

There are many varieties of men in the world, consequently there are many
varieties of minds in its pulpits.  This insures many differing
interpretations of important Scripture texts, and this in turn insures
the splitting up of a religion into many sects.  It is what has happened;
it was sure to happen.

Mrs. Eddy has noted this disastrous result of preaching, and has put up
the bars.  She will have no preaching in her Church.  She has explained
all essential Scriptures, and set the explanations down in her book.  In
her belief her underlings cannot improve upon those explanations, and in
that stern sentence "they shall make no explanatory remarks" she has
barred them for all time from trying.  She will be obeyed; there is no
question about that.

In arranging her government she has borrowed ideas from various sources
--not poor ones, but the best in the governmental market--but this one is
new, this one came out of no ordinary business-head, this one must have
come out of her own, there has been no other commercial skull in a
thousand centuries that was equal to it.  She has borrowed freely and
wisely, but I am sure that this idea is many times larger than all her
borrowings bulked together.  One must respect the business-brain that
produced it--the splendid pluck and impudence that ventured to promulgate
it, anyway.




ELECTION OF READERS

Readers are not taken at hap-hazard, any more than preachers are taken at
hap-hazard for the pulpits of other sects.  No, Readers are elected by
the Board of Directors.  But--

"Section 3.  The Board shall inform the Pas.  for Emeritus of the names
of candidates for Readers before they are elected, and if she objects to
the nomination, said candidates shall not be chosen."

Is that an election--by the Board?  Thus far I have not been able to find
out what that Board of Spectres is for.  It certainly has no real
function, no duty which the hired girl could not perform, no office
beyond the mere recording of the autocrat's decrees.

There are no dangerously long office-terms in Mrs. Eddy's government.
The Readers are elected for but one year.  This insures their
subserviency to their proprietor.

Readers are not allowed to copy out passages and read them from the
manuscript in the pulpit; they must read from Mrs. Eddy's book itself.
She is right.  Slight changes could be slyly made, repeated, and in time
get acceptance with congregations.  Branch sects could grow out of these
practices.  Mrs. Eddy knows the human race, and how far to trust it.  Her
limit is not over a quarter of an inch.  It is all that a wise person
will risk.

Mrs. Eddy's inborn disposition to copyright everything, charter
everything, secure the rightful and proper credit to herself for
everything she does, and everything she thinks she does, and everything
she thinks, and everything she thinks she thinks or has thought or
intends to think, is illustrated in Sec. 5 of Art. IV., defining the
duties of official Readers--in church:

"Naming Book and Author.  The Reader of Science and Health, with Key to
the Scriptures, before commencing to read from this book, shall
distinctly announce its full title and give the author's name."

Otherwise the congregation might get the habit of forgetting who
(ostensibly) wrote the book.




THE ARISTOCRACY

This consists of First Members and their apostolic succession.  It is a
close corporation, and its membership limit is one hundred.  Forty will
answer, but if the number fall below that, there must be an election, to
fill the grand quorum.

This Sanhedrin can't do anything of the slightest importance, but it can
talk.  It can "discuss."  That is, it can discuss "important questions
relative to Church members", evidently persons who are already Church
members.  This affords it amusement, and does no harm.

It can "fix the salaries of the Readers."

Twice a year it "votes on" admitting candidates.  That is, for Church
membership.  But its work is cut out for it beforehand, by Art. IX.:

"Every recommendation for membership In the Church 'shall be
countersigned by a loyal student of Mrs. Eddy's, by a Director of this
Church, or by a First Member.'"

All these three classes of beings are the personal property of Mrs. Eddy.
She has absolute control of the elections.

Also it must "transact any Church business that may properly come before
it."

"Properly" is a thoughtful word.  No important business can come before
it.  The By laws have attended to that.  No important business goes
before any one for the final word except Mrs. Eddy.  She has looked to
that.

The Sanhedrin "votes on" candidates for admission to its own body.  But
is its vote worth any more than mine would be?  No, it isn't.  Sec.  4,
of Art.  V.--Election of First Members--makes this quite plain:

"Before being elected, the candidates for First Members shall be approved
by the Pastor Emeritus over her own signature."

Thus the Sanhedrin is the personal property of Mrs. Eddy.  She owns it.
It has no functions, no authority, no real existence.  It is another
Board of Shadows.  Mrs. Eddy is the Sanhedrin herself.

But it is time to foot up again and "see where we are at."  Thus far,
Mrs. Eddy is

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College;
Pastor Emeritus,
President;
Board of Directors;
Treasurer;
Clerk;
Future Board of Trustees;
Proprietor of the Priesthood:
Dictator of the Services;
Proprietor of the Sanhedrin.  She has come far, and is still on her way.




CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

In this Article there is another exhibition of a couple of the large
features of Mrs. Eddy's remarkable make-up: her business-talent and her
knowledge of human nature.

She does not beseech and implore people to join her Church.  She knows
the human race better than that.  She gravely goes through the motions of
reluctantly granting admission to the applicant as a favor to him.  The
idea is worth untold shekels.  She does not stand at the gate of the fold
with welcoming arms spread, and receive the lost sheep with glad emotion
and set up the fatted calf and invite the neighbor and have a time.  No,
she looks upon him coldly, she snubs him, she says:

"Who are you?  Who is your sponsor?  Who asked you to come here?  Go
away, and don't come again until you are invited."

It is calculated to strikingly impress a person accustomed to Moody and
Sankey and Sam Jones revivals; accustomed to brain-turning appeals to the
unknown and unendorsed sinner to come forward and enter into the joy,
etc.--"just as he is"; accustomed to seeing him do it; accustomed to
seeing him pass up the aisle through sobbing seas of welcome, and love,
and congratulation, and arrive at the mourner's bench and be received
like a long-lost government bond.

No, there is nothing of that kind in Mrs. Eddy's system.  She knows that
if you wish to confer upon a human being something which he is not sure
he wants, the best way is to make it apparently difficult for him to get
it--then he is no son of Adam if that apple does not assume an interest
in his eyes which it lacked before.  In time this interest can grow into
desire.  Mrs. Eddy knows that when you cannot get a man to try--free of
cost--a new and effective remedy for a disease he is afflicted with, you
can generally sell it to him if you will put a price upon it which he
cannot afford.  When, in the beginning, she taught Christian Science
gratis (for good reasons), pupils were few and reluctant, and required
persuasion; it was when she raised the limit to three hundred dollars for
a dollar's worth that she could not find standing room for the invasion
of pupils that followed.

With fine astuteness she goes through the motions of making it difficult
to get membership in her Church.  There is a twofold value in this
system: it gives membership a high value in the eyes of the applicant;
and at the same time the requirements exacted enable Mrs. Eddy to keep
him out if she has doubts about his value to her.  A word further as to
applications for membership:

"Applications of students of the Metaphysical College must be signed by
the Board of Directors."

That is safe.  Mrs. Eddy is proprietor of that Board.

Children of twelve may be admitted if invited by "one of Mrs. Eddy's
loyal students, or by a First Member, or by a Director."

These sponsors are the property of Mrs. Eddy, therefore her Church is
safeguarded from the intrusion of undesirable children.

Other Students.  Applicants who have not studied with Mrs. Eddy can get
in only "by invitation and recommendation from students of Mrs. Eddy....
or from members of the Mother-Church."

Other paragraphs explain how two or three other varieties of applicants
are to be challenged and obstructed, and tell us who is authorized to
invite them, recommend them endorse them, and all that.

The safeguards are definite, and would seem to be sufficiently strenuous
--to Mr. Sam Jones, at any rate.  Not for Mrs. Eddy.  She adds this
clincher:

"The candidates be elected by a majority vote of the First Members
present."

That is the aristocracy, the aborigines, the Sanhedrin.  It is Mrs.
Eddy's property.  She herself is the Sanhedrin.  No one can get into the
Church if she wishes to keep him out.

This veto power could some time or other have a large value for her,
therefore she was wise to reserve it.

It is likely that it is not frequently used.  It is also probable that
the difficulties attendant upon getting admission to membership have been
instituted more to invite than to deter, more to enhance the value of
membership and make people long for it than to make it really difficult
to get.  I think so, because the Mother.  Church has many thousands of
members more than its building can accommodate.




AND SOME ENGLISH REQUIRED

Mrs. Eddy is very particular as regards one detail curiously so, for her,
all things considered.  The Church Readers must be "good English
scholars"; they must be "thorough English scholars."

She is thus sensitive about the English of her subordinates for cause,
possibly.  In her chapter defining the duties of the Clerk there is an
indication that she harbors resentful memories of an occasion when the
hazy quality of her own English made unforeseen and mortifying trouble:

"Understanding Communications.  Sec.  2.  If the Clerk of this Church
shall receive a communication from the Pastor Emeritus which he does not
fully understand, he shall inform her of this fact before presenting it
to the Church, and obtain a clear understanding of the matter--then act
in accordance therewith."

She should have waited to calm down, then, but instead she added this,
which lacks sugar:

"Failing to adhere to this By-law, the Clerk must resign."

I wish I could see that communication that broke the camel's back.  It
was probably the one beginning: "What plague spot or bacilli were gnawing
at the heart of this metropolis and bringing it on bended knee?" and I
think it likely that the kindly disposed Clerk tried to translate it into
English and lost his mind and had to go to the hospital.  That Bylaw was
not the offspring of a forecast, an intuition, it was certainly born of a
sorrowful experience.  Its temper gives the fact away.

The little book of By-laws has manifestly been tinkered by one of Mrs.
Eddy's "thorough English scholars," for in the majority of cases its
meanings are clear.  The book is not even marred by Mrs. Eddy's peculiar
specialty--lumbering clumsinesses of speech.  I believe the salaried
polisher has weeded them all out but one.  In one place, after referring
to Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy goes on to say "the Bible and the
above-named book, with other works by the same author," etc.

It is an unfortunate sentence, for it could mislead a hasty or careless
reader for a moment.  Mrs. Eddy framed it--it is her very own--it bears
her trade-mark.  "The Bible and Science and Health, with other works by
the same author," could have come from no literary vacuum but the one
which produced the remark (in the Autobiography): "I remember reading, in
my childhood, certain manuscripts containing Scriptural Sonnets, besides
other verses and enigmas."

We know what she means, in both instances, but a low-priced Clerk would
not necessarily know, and on a salary like his he could quite excusably
aver that the Pastor Emeritus had commanded him to come and make
proclamation that she was author of the Bible, and that she was thinking
of discharging some Scriptural sonnets and other enigmas upon the
congregation.  It could lose him his place, but it would not be fair, if
it happened before the edict about "Understanding Communications" was
promulgated.




"READERS" AGAIN

The By-law book makes a showy pretence of orderliness and system, but it
is only a pretence.  I will not go so far as to say it is a harum-scarum
jumble, for it is not that, but I think it fair to say it is at least
jumbulacious in places.  For instance, Articles III.  and IV.  set forth
in much detail the qualifications and duties of Readers, she then skips
some thirty pages and takes up the subject again.  It looks like
slovenliness, but it may be only art.  The belated By-law has a
sufficiently quiet look, but it has a ton of dynamite in it.  It makes
all the Christian Science Church Readers on the globe the personal
chattels of Mrs. Eddy.  Whenever she chooses, she can stretch her long
arm around the world's fat belly and flirt a Reader out of his pulpit,
though he be tucked away in seeming safety and obscurity in a lost
village in the middle of China:

"In any Church.  Sec.  2.  The Pastor Emeritus of the Mother-Church shall
have the right (through a letter addressed to the individual and Church
of which he is the Reader) to remove a Reader from this office in any
Church of Christ, Scientist, both in America and in foreign nations; or
to appoint the Reader to fill any office belonging to the Christian
Science denomination."

She does not have to prefer charges against him, she does not have to
find him lazy, careless, incompetent, untidy, ill-mannered, unholy,
dishonest, she does not have to discover a fault of any kind in him, she
does not have to tell him nor his congregation why she dismisses and
disgraces him and insults his meek flock, she does not have to explain to
his family why she takes the bread out of their mouths and turns them
out-of-doors homeless and ashamed in a strange land; she does not have to
do anything but send a letter and say: "Pack!--and ask no questions!"

Has the Pope this power?--the other Pope--the one in Rome.  Has he
anything approaching it?  Can he turn a priest out of his pulpit and
strip him of his office and his livelihood just upon a whim, a caprice,
and meanwhile furnishing no reasons to the parish?  Not in America.  And
not elsewhere, we may believe.

It is odd and strange, to see intelligent and educated people among us
worshipping this self-seeking and remorseless tyrant as a God.  This
worship is denied--by persons who are themselves worshippers of Mrs.
Eddy.  I feel quite sure that it is a worship which will continue during
ages.

That Mrs. Eddy wrote that amazing By-law with her own hand we have much
better evidence than her word.  We have her English.  It is there.  It
cannot be imitated.  She ought never to go to the expense of copyrighting
her verbal discharges.  When any one tries to claim them she should call
me; I can always tell them from any other literary apprentice's at a
glance.  It was like her to call America a "nation"; she would call a
sand-bar a nation if it should fall into a sentence in which she was
speaking of peoples, for she would not know how to untangle it and get it
out and classify it by itself.  And the closing arrangement of that
By-law is in true Eddysonian form, too.  In it she reserves authority to
make a Reader fill any office connected with a Science church-sexton,
grave-digger, advertising-agent, Annex-polisher, leader of the choir,
President, Director, Treasurer, Clerk, etc.  She did not mean that.  She
already possessed that authority.  She meant to clothe herself with
power, despotic and unchallengeable, to appoint all Science Readers to
their offices, both at home and abroad.  The phrase "or to appoint" is
another miscarriage of intention; she did not mean "or," she meant "and."


That By-law puts into Mrs. Eddy's hands absolute command over the most
formidable force and influence existent in the Christian Science kingdom
outside of herself, and it does this unconditionally and (by auxiliary
force of Laws already quoted) irrevocably.  Still, she is not quite
satisfied.  Something might happen, she doesn't know what.  Therefore she
drives in one more nail, to make sure, and drives it deep:

"This By-law can neither be amended nor annulled, except by consent of
the Pastor Emeritus."

Let some one with a wild and delirious fancy try and see if he can
imagine her furnishing that consent.




MONOPOLY OF SPIRITUAL BREAD

Very properly, the first qualification for membership in the
Mother-Church is belief in the doctrines of Christian Science.

But these doctrines must not be gathered from secondary sources.  There
is but one recognized source.  The candidate must be a believer in the
doctrines of Christian Science "according to the platform and teaching
contained in the Christian Science text-book, 'Science and Health, with
Key to the Scriptures,' by Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy."

That is definite, and is final.  There are to be no commentaries, no
labored volumes of exposition and explanation by anybody except Mrs.
Eddy.  Because such things could sow error, create warring opinions,
split the religion into sects, and disastrously cripple its power.  Mrs.
Eddy will do the whole of the explaining, Herself--has done it, in fact.
She has written several books.  They are to be had (for cash in advance),
they are all sacred; additions to them can never be needed and will never
be permitted.  They tell the candidate how to instruct himself, how to
teach others, how to do all things comprised in the business--and they
close the door against all would-be competitors, and monopolize the
trade:

"The Bible and the above--named book [Science and Health], with other
works by the same author," must be his only text-books for the commerce
--he cannot forage outside.

Mrs. Eddy's words are to be the sole elucidators of the Bible and Science
and Health--forever.  Throughout the ages, whenever there is doubt as to
the meaning of a passage in either of these books the inquirer will not
dream of trying to explain it to himself; he would shudder at the thought
of such temerity, such profanity, he would be haled to the Inquisition
and thence to the public square and the stake if he should be caught
studying into text-meanings on his own hook; he will be prudent and seek
the meanings at the only permitted source, Mrs. Eddy's commentaries.

Value of this Strait-jacket.  One must not underrate the magnificence of
this long-headed idea, one must not underestimate its giant possibilities
in the matter of trooping the Church solidly together and keeping it so.
It squelches independent inquiry, and makes such a thing impossible,
profane, criminal, it authoritatively settles every dispute that can
arise.  It starts with finality--a point which the Roman Church has
travelled towards fifteen or sixteen centuries, stage by stage, and has
not yet reached.  The matter of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
Mary was not authoritatively settled until the days of Pius IX.
--yesterday, so to speak.

As already noticed, the Protestants are broken up into a long array of
sects, a result of disputes about the meanings of texts, disputes made
unavoidable by the absence of an infallible authority to submit doubtful
passages to.  A week or two ago (I am writing in the middle of January,
1903), the clergy and others hereabouts had a warm dispute in the papers
over this question: Did Jesus anywhere claim to be God?  It seemed an
easy question, but it turned out to be a hard one.  It was ably and
elaborately discussed, by learned men of several denominations, but in
the end it remained unsettled.

A week ago, another discussion broke out.  It was over this text:

"Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor."

One verdict was worded as follows:

"When Christ answered the rich young man and said for him to give to the
poor all he possessed or he could not gain everlasting life, He did not
mean it in the literal sense.  My interpretation of His words is that we
should part with what comes between us and Christ.

"There is no doubt that Jesus believed that the rich young man thought
more of his wealth than he did of his soul, and, such being the case, it
was his duty to give up the wealth.

"Every one of us knows that there is something we should give up for
Christ.  Those who are true believers and followers know what they have
given up, and those who are not yet followers know down in their hearts
what they must give up."

Ten clergymen of various denominations were interviewed, and nine of them
agreed with that verdict.  That did not settle the matter, because the
tenth said the language of Jesus was so strait and definite that it
explained itself: "Sell all," not a percentage.

There is a most unusual feature about that dispute: the nine persons who
decided alike, quoted not a single authority in support of their
position.  I do not know when I have seen trained disputants do the like
of that before.  The nine merely furnished their own opinions, founded
upon--nothing at all.  In the other dispute ("Did Jesus anywhere claim to
be God?") the same kind of men--trained and learned clergymen--backed up
their arguments with chapter and verse.  On both sides.  Plenty of
verses.  Were no reinforcing verses to be found in the present case?  It
looks that way.

The opinion of the nine seems strange to me, for it is unsupported by
authority, while there was at least constructive authority for the
opposite view.

It is hair-splitting differences of opinion over disputed text-meanings
that have divided into many sects a once united Church.  One may infer
from some of the names in the following list that some of the differences
are very slight--so slight as to be not distinctly important, perhaps
--yet they have moved groups to withdraw from communions to which they
belonged and set up a sect of their own.  The list--accompanied by
various Church statistics for 1902, compiled by Rev. Dr.  H.  K.
Carroll--was published, January 8, 1903, in the New York Christian
Advocate:

Adventists (6 bodies), Baptists (13 bodies), Brethren (Plymouth) (4
bodies), Brethren (River) (3 bodies), Catholics (8 bodies), Catholic
Apostolic, Christadelphians, Christian Connection, Christian Catholics,
Christian Missionary Association, Christian Scientists, Church of God
(Wine-brennarian), Church of the New Jerusalem, Congregationalists,
Disciples of Christ, Dunkards (4 bodies), Evangelical (2 bodies), Friends
(4 bodies), Friends of the Temple, German Evangelical Protestant, German
Evangelical Synod, Independent congregations, Jews (2 bodies), Latter-day
Saints (2 bodies), Lutherans (22 bodies), Mennonites (12 bodies),
Methodists (17 bodies), Moravians, Presbyterians (12 bodies), Protestant
Episcopal (2 bodies), Reformed (3 bodies), Schwenkfeldians, Social
Brethren, Spiritualists, Swedish Evangelical Miss.  Covenant
(Waldenstromians), Unitarians, United Brethren (2 bodies), Universalists,

Total of sects and splits--139.

In the present month (February), Mr. E. I. Lindh, A..M., has
communicated to the Boston Transcript a hopeful article on the solution
of the problem of the "divided church."  Divided is not too violent a
term.  Subdivided could have been permitted if he had thought of it.  He
came near thinking of it, for he mentions some of the subdivisions
himself: "the 12 kinds of Presbyterians, the 17 kinds of Methodists, the
13 kinds of Baptists, etc."  He overlooked the 12 kinds of Mennonites and
the 22 kinds of Lutherans, but they are in Rev. Mr. Carroll's list.
Altogether, 76 splits under 5 flags.  The Literary Digest (February 14th)
is pleased with Mr. Lindh's optimistic article, and also with the signs
of the times, and perceives that "the idea of Church unity is in the
air."

Now, then, is not Mrs. Eddy profoundly wise in forbidding, for all time,
all explanations of her religion except such as she shall let on to be
her own?

I think so.  I think there can be no doubt of it.  In a way, they will be
her own; for, no matter which member of her clerical staff shall furnish
the explanations, not a line of them will she ever allow to be printed
until she shall have approved it, accepted it, copyrighted it, cabbaged
it.  We may depend on that with a four-ace confidence.




THE NEW INFALLIBILITY

All in proper time Mrs. Eddy's factory will take hold of that
Commandment, and explain it for good and all.  It may be that one member
of the shift will vote that the word "all" means all; it may be that ten
members of the shift will vote that "all" means only a percentage; but it
is Mrs. Eddy, not the eleven, who will do the deciding.  And if she says
it is percentage, then percentage it is, forevermore--and that is what I
am expecting, for she doesn't sell all herself, nor any considerable part
of it, and as regards the poor, she doesn't declare any dividend; but if
she says "all" means all, then all it is, to the end of time, and no
follower of hers will ever be allowed to reconstruct that text, or shrink
it, or inflate it, or meddle with it in any way at all.  Even to-day
--right here in the beginning--she is the sole person who, in the matter
of Christian Science exegesis, is privileged to exploit the Spiral Twist.
The Christian world has two Infallibles now.

Of equal power?  For the present only.  When Leo XIII. passes to his
rest another Infallible will ascend his throne; others, and yet others,
and still others will follow him, and be as infallible as he, and decide
questions of doctrine as long as they may come up, all down the far
future; but Mary Baker G. Eddy is the only Infallible that will ever
occupy the Science throne.  Many a Science Pope will succeed her, but she
has closed their mouths; they will repeat and reverently praise and adore
her infallibilities, but venture none themselves.  In her grave she will
still outrank all other Popes, be they of what Church they may.  She will
hold the supremest of earthly titles, The Infallible--with a capital T.
Many in the world's history have had a hunger for such nuggets and slices
of power as they might reasonably hope to grab out of an empire's or a
religion's assets, but Mrs. Eddy is the only person alive or dead who has
ever struck for the whole of them.  For small things she has the eye of a
microscope, for large ones the eye of a telescope, and whatever she sees,
she wants.  Wants it all.




THE SACRED POEMS

When Mrs. Eddy's "sacred revelations" (that is the language of the
By-laws) are read in public, their authorship must be named.  The By-laws
twice command this, therefore we mention it twice, to be fair.

But it is also commanded that when a member publicly quotes "from the
poems of our Pastor Emeritus" the authorship shall be named.  For these
are sacred, too.  There are kindly people who may suspect a hidden
generosity in that By-law; they may think it is there to protect the
Official Reader from the suspicion of having written the poems himself.
Such do not know Mrs. Eddy.  She does an inordinate deal of protecting,
but in no distinctly named and specified case in her history has Number
Two been the object of it.  Instances have been claimed, but they have
failed of proof, and even of plausibility.

"Members shall also instruct their students" to look out and advertise
the authorship when they read those poems and things.  Not on Mrs. Eddy's
account, but "for the good of our Cause."




THE CHURCH EDIFICE

1.  Mrs. Eddy gave the land.  It was not of much value at the time, but
it is very valuable now.
2.  Her people built the Mother-Church edifice on it, at a cost of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
3.  Then they gave the whole property to her.
4.  Then she gave it to the Board of Directors.  She is the Board of
Directors.  She took it out of one pocket and put it in the other.
5.  Sec.  10 (of the deed).  "Whenever said Directors shall determine
that it is inexpedient to maintain preaching, reading, or speaking in
said church in accordance with the terms of this deed, they are
authorized and required to reconvey forthwith said lot of land with the
building thereon to Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns forever,
by a proper deed of conveyance."

She is never careless, never slipshod, about a matter of business.
Owning the property through her Board of Waxworks was safe enough, still
it was sound business to set another grip on it to cover accidents, and
she did it.  Her barkers (what a curious name; I wonder if it is
copyrighted); her barkers persistently advertise to the public her
generosity in giving away a piece of land which cost her a trifle, and a
two--hundred--and--fifty--thousand--dollar church which cost her nothing;
and they can hardly speak of the unselfishness of it without breaking
down and crying; yet they know she gave nothing away, and never intended
to.  However, such is the human race.  Often it does seem such a pity
that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Some of the hostiles think that Mrs. Eddy's idea in protecting this
property in the interest of her heirs, and in accumulating a great money
fortune, is, that she may leave her natural heirs well provided for when
she goes.  I think it is a mistake.  I think she is of late years giving
herself large concern about only one interest-her power and glory, and
the perpetuation and worship of her Name--with a capital N.  Her Church
is her pet heir, and I think it will get her wealth.  It is the torch
which is to light the world and the ages with her glory.

I think she once prized money for the ease and comfort it could bring,
the showy vanities it could furnish, and the social promotion it could
command; for we have seen that she was born into the world with little
ways and instincts and aspirations and affectations that are duplicates
of our own.  I do not think her money-passion has ever diminished in
ferocity, I do not think that she has ever allowed a dollar that had no
friends to get by her alive, but I think her reason for wanting it has
changed.  I think she wants it now to increase and establish and
perpetuate her power and glory with, not to add to her comforts and
luxuries, not to furnish paint and fuss and feathers for vain display.
I think her ambitions have soared away above the fuss-and-feather stage.
She still likes the little shows and vanities--a fact which she exposed
in a public utterance two or three days ago when she was not noticing
--but I think she does not place a large value upon them now.  She could
build a mighty and far-shining brass-mounted palace if she wanted to, but
she does not do it.  She would have had that kind of an ambition in the
early scrabbling times.  She could go to England to-day and be worshiped
by earls, and get a comet's attention from the million, if she cared for
such things.  She would have gone in the early scrabbling days for much
less than an earl, and been vain of it, and glad to show off before the
remains of the Scotch kin.  But those things are very small to her now
--next to invisible, observed through the cloud-rack from the dizzy
summit where she perches in these great days.  She does not want that
church property for herself.  It is worth but a quarter of a million--a
sum she could call in from her far-spread flocks to-morrow with a lift of
her hand.  Not a squeeze of it, just a lift.  It would come without a
murmur; come gratefully, come gladly.  And if her glory stood in more
need of the money in Boston than it does where her flocks are propagating
it, she would lift the hand, I think.

She is still reaching for the Dollar, she will continue to reach for it;
but not that she may spend it upon herself; not that she may spend it
upon charities; not that she may indemnify an early deprivation and
clothe herself in a blaze of North Adams gauds; not that she may have
nine breeds of pie for breakfast, as only the rich New-Englander can; not
that she may indulge any petty material vanity or appetite that once was
hers and prized and nursed, but that she may apply that Dollar to
statelier uses, and place it where it may cast the metallic sheen of her
glory farthest across the receding expanses of the globe.




PRAYER

A brief and good one is furnished in the book of By-laws.  The Scientist
is required to pray it every day.




THE LORD'S PRAYER-AMENDED

This is not in the By-laws, it is in the first chapter of Science and
Health, edition of 1902.  I do not find it in the edition of 1884.  It is
probable that it had not at that time been handed down.  Science and
Health's (latest) rendering of its "spiritual sense" is as follows:

"Our Father-Mother God' all-harmonious, adorable One.  Thy kingdom is
within us, Thou art ever-present.  Enable us to know--as in heaven, so on
earth--God is supreme.  Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished
affections.  And infinite Love is reflected in love.  And Love leadeth us
not into temptation, but delivereth from sin, disease, and death.  For
God is now and forever all Life, Truth, and Love."

If I thought my opinion was desired and would be properly revered, I
should say that in my judgment that is as good a piece of carpentering as
any of those eleven Commandment--experts could do with the material after
all their practice.  I notice only one doubtful place.  "Lead us not into
temptation" seems to me to be a very definite request, and that the new
rendering turns the definite request into a definite assertion.  I shall
be glad to have that turned back to the old way and the marks of the
Spiral Twist removed, or varnished over; then I shall be satisfied, and
will do the best I can with what is left.  At the same time, I do feel
that the shrinkage in our spiritual assets is getting serious.  First the
Commandments, now the Prayer.  I never expected to see these steady old
reliable securities watered down to this.  And this is not the whole of
it.  Last summer the Presbyterians extended the Calling and Election
suffrage to nearly everybody entitled to salvation.  They did not even
stop there, but let out all the unbaptized American infants we had been
accumulating for two hundred years and more.  There are some that believe
they would have let the Scotch ones out, too, if they could have done it.
Everything is going to ruin; in no long time we shall have nothing left
but the love of God.




THE NEW UNPARDONABLE SIN

"Working Against the Cause.  Sec.  2.  If a member of this Church shall
work against the accomplishment of what the Discoverer and Founder of
Christian Science understands is advantageous to the individual, to this
Church, and to the Cause of Christian Science"--out he goes.  Forever.

The member may think that what he is doing will advance the Cause, but he
is not invited to do any thinking.  More than that, he is not permitted
to do any--as he will clearly gather from this By-law.  When a person
joins Mrs. Eddy's Church he must leave his thinker at home.  Leave it
permanently.  To make sure that it will not go off some time or other
when he is not watching, it will be safest for him to spike it.  If he
should forget himself and think just once, the By-law provides that he
shall be fired out-instantly-forever-no return.

"It shall be the duty of this Church immediately to call a meeting, and
drop forever the name of this member from its records."

My, but it breathes a towering indignation!

There are forgivable offenses, but this is not one of them; there are
admonitions, probations, suspensions, in several minor cases; mercy is
shown the derelict, in those cases he is gently used, and in time he can
get back into the fold--even when he has repeated his offence.  But let
him think, just once, without getting his thinker set to Eddy time, and
that is enough; his head comes off.  There is no second offence, and
there is no gate open to that lost sheep, ever again.

"This rule cannot be changed, amended, or annulled, except by unanimous
vote of all the First Members."

The same being Mrs. Eddy.  It is naively sly and pretty to see her keep
putting forward First Members, and Boards of This and That, and other
broideries and ruffles of her raiment, as if they were independent
entities, instead of a part of her clothes, and could do things all by
themselves when she was outside of them.

Mrs. Eddy did not need to copyright the sentence just quoted, its English
would protect it.  None but she would have shovelled that comically
superfluous "all" in there.

The former Unpardonable Sin has gone out of service.  We may frame the
new Christian Science one thus:

"Whatsoever Member shall think, and without Our Mother's permission act
upon his think, the same shall be cut off from the Church forever."

It has been said that I make many mistakes about Christian Science
through being ignorant of the spiritual meanings of its terminology.  I
believe it is true.  I have been misled all this time by that word
Member, because there was no one to tell me that its spiritual meaning
was Slave.




AXE AND BLOCK

There is a By-law which forbids Members to practice hypnotism; the
penalty is excommunication.

1.  If a member is found to be a mental practitioner--
2.  Complaint is to be entered against him--
3.  By the Pastor Emeritus, and by none else;
4.  No member is allowed to make complaint to her in the matter;
5.  Upon Mrs. Eddy's mere "complaint"--unbacked by evidence or proof, and
without giving the accused a chance to be heard--his name shall be
dropped from this Church."

Mrs. Eddy has only to say a member is guilty--that is all.  That ends it.
It is not a case of he "may" be cut off from Christian Science salvation,
it is a case of he "shall" be.  Her serfs must see to it, and not say a
word.

Does the other Pope possess this prodigious and irresponsible power?
Certainly not in our day.

Some may be curious to know how Mrs. Eddy finds out that a member is
practicing hypnotism, since no one is allowed to come before her throne
and accuse him.  She has explained this in Christian Science History,
first and second editions, page 16:

"I possess a spiritual sense of what the malicious mental practitioner is
mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the human
mind thoughts, motives, and purposes, and neither mental arguments nor
psychic power can affect this spiritual insight."

A marvelous woman; with a hunger for power such as has never been seen in
the world before.  No thing, little or big, that contains any seed or
suggestion of power escapes her avaricious eye; and when once she gets
that eye on it, her remorseless grip follows.  There isn't a Christian
Scientist who isn't ecclesiastically as much her property as if she had
bought him and paid for him, and copyrighted him and got a charter.  She
cannot be satisfied when she has handcuffed a member, and put a leg-chain
and ball on him and plugged his ears and removed his thinker, she goes on
wrapping needless chains round and round him, just as a spider would.
For she trusts no one, believes in no one's honesty, judges every one by
herself.  Although we have seen that she has absolute and irresponsible
command over her spectral Boards and over every official and servant of
her Church, at home and abroad, over every minute detail of her Church's
government, present and future, and can purge her membership of guilty or
suspected persons by various plausible formalities and whenever she will,
she is still not content, but must set her queer mind to work and invent
a way by which she can take a member--any member--by neck and crop and
fling him out without anything resembling a formality at all.

She is sole accuser and sole witness, and her testimony is final and
carries uncompromising and irremediable doom with it.

The Sole-Witness Court!  It should make the Council of Ten and the
Council of Three turn in their graves for shame, to see how little they
knew about satanic concentrations of irresponsible power.  Here we have
one Accuser, one Witness, one Judge, one Headsman--and all four bunched
together in Mrs. Eddy, the Inspired of God, His Latest Thought to His
People, New Member of the Holy Family, the Equal of Jesus.

When a Member is not satisfactory to Mrs. Eddy, and yet is blameless in
his life and faultless in his membership and in his Christian Science
walk and conversation, shall he hold up his head and tilt his hat over
one ear and imagine himself safe because of these perfections?  Why, in
that very moment Mrs. Eddy will cast that spiritual X-ray of hers through
his dungarees and say:

"I see his hypnotism working, among his insides--remove him to the
block!"

What shall it profit him to know it isn't so?  Nothing.  His testimony is
of no value.  No one wants it, no one will ask for it.  He is not present
to offer it (he does not know he has been accused), and if he were there
to offer it, it would not be listened to.

It was out of powers approaching Mrs. Eddy's--though not equalling them
--that the Inquisition and the devastations of the Interdict grew.  She
will transmit hers.  The man born two centuries from now will think he
has arrived in hell; and all in good time he will think he knows it.
Vast concentrations of irresponsible power have never in any age been
used mercifully, and there is nothing to suggest that the Christian
Science Papacy is going to spend money on novelties.

Several Christian Scientists have asked me to refrain from prophecy.
There is no prophecy in our day but history.  But history is a
trustworthy prophet.  History is always repeating itself, because
conditions are always repeating themselves.  Out of duplicated conditions
history always gets a duplicate product.




READING LETTERS AT MEETINGS

I wonder if there is anything a Member can do that will not raise Mrs.
Eddy's jealousy?  The By-laws seem to hunt him from pillar to post all
the time, and turn all his thoughts and acts and words into sins against
the meek and lowly new deity of his worship.  Apparently her jealousy
never sleeps.  Apparently any trifle can offend it, and but one penalty
appease it--excommunication.  The By-laws might properly and reasonably
be entitled Laws for the Coddling and Comforting of Our Mother's Petty
Jealousies.  The By-law named at the head of this paragraph reads its
transgressor out of the Church if he shall carry a letter from Mrs. Eddy
to the congregation and forget to read it or fail to read the whole of
it.




HONESTY REQUISITE

Dishonest members are to be admonished; if they continue in dishonest
practices, excommunication follows.  Considering who it is that draughted
this law, there is a certain amount of humor in it.




FURTHER APPLICATIONS OF THE AXE

Here follow the titles of some more By-laws whose infringement is
punishable by excommunication:


Silence Enjoined.
Misteaching.
Departure from Tenets.
Violation of Christian Fellowship.
Moral Offences.
Illegal Adoption.
Broken By-laws.
Violation of By-laws.  (What is the difference?)
Formulas Forbidden.
Official Advice.  (Forbids Tom, Dick, and Harry's clack.)
Unworthy of Membership.
Final Excommunication.
Organizing Churches.

This looks as if Mrs. Eddy had devoted a large share of her time and
talent to inventing ways to get rid of her Church members.  Yet in
another place she seems to invite membership.  Not in any urgent way, it
is true, still she throws out a bait to such as like notice and
distinction (in other words, the Human Race).  Page 82:

"It is important that these seemingly strict conditions be complied with,
as the names of the Members of the Mother-Church will be recorded in the
history of the Church and become a part thereof."

We all want to be historical.




MORE SELF-PROTECTIONS

The Hymnal.  There is a Christian Science Hymnal.  Entrance to it was
closed in 1898.  Christian Science students who make hymns nowadays may
possibly get them sung in the Mother-Church, "but not unless approved by
the Pastor Emeritus."  Art.  XXVII, Sec.  2.

Solo Singers.  Mrs. Eddy has contributed the words of three of the hymns
in the Hymnal.  Two of them appear in it six times altogether, each of
them being set to three original forms of musical anguish.  Mrs. Eddy,
always thoughtful, has promulgated a By-law requiring the singing of one
of her three hymns in the Mother Church "as often as once each month."
It is a good idea.  A congregation could get tired of even Mrs. Eddy's
muse in the course of time, without the cordializing incentive of
compulsion.  We all know how wearisome the sweetest and touchingest
things can become, through rep-rep-repetition, and still
rep-rep-repetition, and more rep-rep-repetition-like "the sweet
by-and-by, in the sweet by-and-by," for instance, and "Tah-rah-rah
boom-de-aye"; and surely it is not likely that Mrs. Eddy's machine has
turned out goods that could outwear those great heart-stirrers, without
the assistance of the lash. "O'er Waiting Harpstrings of the Mind" is
pretty good, quite fair to middling--the whole seven of the stanzas--but
repetition would be certain to take the excitement out of it in the
course of time, even if there were fourteen, and then it would sound like
the multiplication table, and would cease to save.  The congregation
would be perfectly sure to get tired; in fact, did get tired--hence the
compulsory By-law.  It is a measure born of experience, not foresight.

The By-laws say that "if a solo singer shall neglect or refuse to sing
alone" one of those three hymns as often as once a month, and oftener if
so directed by the Board of Directors--which is Mrs. Eddy--the singer's
salary shall be stopped.  It is circumstantial evidence that some
soloists neglected this sacrament and others refused it.  At least that
is the charitable view to take of it.  There is only one other view to
take: that Mrs. Eddy did really foresee that there would be singers who
would some day get tired of doing her hymns and proclaiming the
authorship, unless persuaded by a Bylaw, with a penalty attached.  The
idea could of course occur to her wise head, for she would know that a
seven-stanza break might well be a calamitous strain upon a soloist, and
that he might therefore avoid it if unwatched.  He could not curtail it,
for the whole of anything that Mrs. Eddy does is sacred, and cannot be
cut.




BOARD OF EDUCATION

It consists of four members, one of whom is President of it.  Its members
are elected annually.  Subject to Mrs. Eddy's approval.  Art. XXX., Sec. 2.

She owns the Board--is the Board.

Mrs. Eddy is President of the Metaphysical College.  If at any time she
shall vacate that office, the Directors of the College (that is to say,
Mrs. Eddy) "shall" elect to the vacancy the President of the Board of
Education (which is merely re-electing herself).

It is another case of "Pastor Emeritus."  She gives up the shadow of
authority, but keeps a good firm hold on the substance.




PUBLIC TEACHERS

Applicants for admission to this industry must pass a thorough three
days' examination before the Board of Education "in Science and Health,
chapter on 'Recapitulation'; the Platform of Christian Science; page 403
of Christian Science Practice, from line second to the second paragraph
of page 405; and page 488, second and third paragraphs."




BOARD OF LECTURESHIP

The lecturers are exceedingly important servants of Mrs. Eddy, and she
chooses them with great care.  Each of them has an appointed territory in
which to perform his duties--in the North, the South, the East, the West,
in Canada, in Great Britain, and so on--and each must stick to his own
territory and not forage beyond its boundaries.  I think it goes without
saying--from what we have seen of Mrs. Eddy--that no lecture is delivered
until she has examined and approved it, and that the lecturer is not
allowed to change it afterwards.

The members of the Board of Lectureship are elected annually--

"Subject to the approval of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy."




MISSIONARIES

There are but four.  They are elected--like the rest of the domestics
--annually.  So far as I can discover, not a single servant of the Sacred
Household has a steady job except Mrs. Eddy.  It is plain that she trusts
no human being but herself.




THE BY-LAWS

The branch Churches are strictly forbidden to use them.

So far as I can see, they could not do it if they wanted to.  The By-laws
are merely the voice of the master issuing commands to the servants.
There is nothing and nobody for the servants to re-utter them to.

That useless edict is repeated in the little book, a few pages farther
on.  There are several other repetitions of prohibitions in the book that
could be spared-they only take up room for nothing.




THE CREED
It is copyrighted.  I do not know why, but I suppose it is to keep
adventurers from some day claiming that they invented it, and not Mrs.
Eddy and that "strange Providence" that has suggested so many clever
things to her.

No Change.  It is forbidden to change the Creed.  That is important, at
any rate.



COPYRIGHT

I can understand why Mrs. Eddy copyrighted the early editions and
revisions of Science and Health, and why she had a mania for copyrighting
every scrap of every sort that came from her pen in those jejune days
when to be in print probably seemed a wonderful distinction to her in her
provincial obscurity, but why she should continue this delirium in these
days of her godship and her far-spread fame, I cannot explain to myself.
And particularly as regards Science and Health.  She knows, now, that
that Annex is going to live for many centuries; and so, what good is a
fleeting forty-two-year copyright going to do it?

Now a perpetual copyright would be quite another matter.  I would like to
give her a hint.  Let her strike for a perpetual copyright on that book.
There is precedent for it.  There is one book in the world which bears
the charmed life of perpetual copyright (a fact not known to twenty
people in the world).  By a hardy perversion of privilege on the part of
the lawmaking power the Bible has perpetual copyright in Great Britain.
There is no justification for it in fairness, and no explanation of it
except that the Church is strong enough there to have its way, right or
wrong.  The recent Revised Version enjoys perpetual copyright, too--a
stronger precedent, even, than the other one.

Now, then, what is the Annex but a Revised Version itself?  Which of
course it is--Lord's Prayer and all.  With that pair of formidable
British precedents to proceed upon, what Congress of ours--

But how short-sighted I am.  Mrs. Eddy has thought of it long ago.  She
thinks of everything.  She knows she has only to keep her copyright of
1902 alive through its first stage of twenty-eight years, and perpetuity
is assured.  A Christian Science Congress will reign in the Capitol then.
She probably attaches small value to the first edition (1875).  Although
it was a Revelation from on high, it was slim, lank, incomplete, padded
with bales of refuse rags, and puffs from lassoed celebrities to fill it
out, an uncreditable book, a book easily sparable, a book not to be
mentioned in the same year with the sleek, fat, concise, compact,
compressed, and competent Annex of to-day, in its dainty flexible covers,
gilt--edges, rounded corners, twin screw, spiral twist, compensation
balance, Testament-counterfeit, and all that; a book just born to curl up
on the hymn-book-shelf in church and look just too sweet and holy for
anything.  Yes, I see now what she was copyrighting that child for.




CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

It is true in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything.  She
thought of an organ, to disseminate the Truth as it was in Mrs. Eddy.
Straightway she started one--the Christian Science Journal.

It is true--in matters of business Mrs. Eddy thinks of everything.  As
soon as she had got the Christian Science Journal sufficiently in debt to
make its presence on the premises disagreeable to her, it occurred to her
to make somebody a present of it.  Which she did, along with its debts.
It was in the summer of 1889.  The victim selected was her Church
--called, in those days, The National Christian Scientist Association.

She delivered this sorrow to those lambs as a "gift" in consideration of
their "loyalty to our great cause."

Also--still thinking of everything--she told them to retain Mr. Bailey in
the editorship and make Mr. Nixon publisher.  We do not know what it was
she had against those men; neither do we know whether she scored on
Bailey or not, we only know that God protected Nixon, and for that I am
sincerely glad, although I do not know Nixon and have never even seen
him.

Nixon took the Journal and the rest of the Publishing Society's
liabilities, and demonstrated over them during three years, then brought
in his report:

"On assuming my duties as publisher, there was not a dollar in the
treasury; but on the contrary the Society owed unpaid printing and paper
bills to the amount of several hundred dollars, not to mention a
contingent liability of many more hundreds"--represented by advance
--subscriptions paid for the Journal and the "Series," the which goods
Mrs. Eddy had not delivered.  And couldn't, very well, perhaps, on a
Metaphysical College income of but a few thousand dollars a day, or a
week, or whatever it was in those magnificently flourishing times.  The
struggling Journal had swallowed up those advance-payments, but its
"claim" was a severe one and they had failed to cure it.  But Nixon cured
it in his diligent three years, and joyously reported the news that he
had cleared off all the debts and now had a fat six thousand dollars in
the bank.

It made Mrs. Eddy's mouth water.

At the time that Mrs. Eddy had unloaded that dismal gift on to her
National Association, she had followed her inveterate custom: she had
tied a string to its hind leg, and kept one end of it hitched to her
belt.  We have seen her do that in the case of the Boston Mosque.  When
she deeds property, she puts in that string-clause.  It provides that
under certain conditions she can pull the string and land the property in
the cherished home of its happy youth.  In the present case she believed
that she had made provision that if at any time the National Christian
Science Association should dissolve itself by a formal vote, she could
pull.

A year after Nixon's handsome report, she writes the Association that she
has a "unique request to lay before it."  It has dissolved, and she is
not quite sure that the Christian Science Journal has "already fallen
into her hands" by that act, though it "seems" to her to have met with
that accident; so she would like to have the matter decided by a formal
vote.  But whether there is a doubt or not, "I see the wisdom," she says,
"of again owning this Christian Science waif."

I think that that is unassailable evidence that the waif was making
money, hands down.

She pulled her gift in.  A few years later she donated the Publishing
Society, along with its real estate, its buildings, its plant, its
publications, and its money--the whole worth twenty--two thousand
dollars, and free of debt--to--Well, to the Mother-Church!

That is to say, to herself.  There is an act count of it in the Christian
Science Journal, and of how she had already made some other handsome
gifts--to her Church--and others to--to her Cause besides "an almost
countless number of private charities" of cloudy amount and otherwise
indefinite.  This landslide of generosities overwhelmed one of her
literary domestics.  While he was in that condition he tried to express
what he felt:

"Let us endeavor to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to .  .  .  our
Mother in Israel for these evidences of generosity and self-sacrifice
that appeal to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpassing our
comprehension."

A year or two later, Mrs. Eddy promulgated some By-laws of a
self-sacrificing sort which assuaged him, perhaps, and perhaps enabled
his surpassed comprehension to make a sprint and catch up.  These are to
be found in Art. XII., entitled.




THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY

This Article puts the whole publishing business into the hands of a
publishing Board--special.  Mrs. Eddy appoints to its vacancies.

The profits go semi-annually to the Treasurer of the Mother-Church.  Mrs.
Eddy owns the Treasurer.

Editors and publishers of the Christian Science Journal cannot be elected
or removed without Mrs. Eddy's knowledge and consent.

Every candidate for employment in a high capacity or a low one, on the
other periodicals or in the publishing house, must first be "accepted by
Mrs. Eddy as suitable."  And "by the Board of Directors"--which is
surplusage, since Mrs. Eddy owns the Board.

If at any time a weekly shall be started, "it shall be owned by The First
Church of Christ, Scientist"--which is Mrs. Eddy.




CHAPTER VIII

I think that any one who will carefully examine the By-laws (I have
placed all of the important ones before the reader), will arrive at the
conclusion that of late years the master-passion in Mrs. Eddy's heart is
a hunger for power and glory; and that while her hunger for money still
remains, she wants it now for the expansion and extension it can furnish
to that power and glory, rather than what it can do for her towards
satisfying minor and meaner ambitions.

I wish to enlarge a little upon this matter.  I think it is quite clear
that the reason why Mrs. Eddy has concentrated in herself all powers, all
distinctions, all revenues that are within the command of the Christian
Science Church Universal is that she desires and intends to devote them
to the purpose just suggested--the upbuilding of her personal glory
--hers, and no one else's; that, and the continuing of her name's glory
after she shall have passed away.  If she has overlooked a single power,
howsoever minute, I cannot discover it.  If she has found one, large or
small, which she has not seized and made her own, there is no record of
it, no trace of it.  In her foragings and depredations she usually puts
forward the Mother-Church--a lay figure--and hides behind it.  Whereas,
she is in manifest reality the Mother-Church herself.  It has an
impressive array of officials, and committees, and Boards of Direction,
of Education, of Lectureship, and so on--geldings, every one, shadows,
spectres, apparitions, wax-figures: she is supreme over them all, she can
abolish them when she will; blow them out as she would a candle.  She is
herself the Mother-Church.  Now there is one By-law which says that the
Mother-Church:

"shall be officially controlled by no other church."

That does not surprise us--we know by the rest of the By-laws that that
is a quite irrelevant remark.  Yet we do vaguely and hazily wonder why
she takes the trouble to say it; why she wastes the words; what her
object can be--seeing that that emergency has been in so many, many ways,
and so effectively and drastically barred off and made impossible.  Then
presently the object begins to dawn upon us.  That is, it does after we
have read the rest of the By-law three or four times, wondering and
admiring to see Mrs. Eddy--Mrs. Eddy--Mrs. Eddy, of all persons--throwing
away power!--making a fair exchange--doing a fair thing for once more,
an almost generous thing!  Then we look it through yet once more
unsatisfied, a little suspicious--and find that it is nothing but a sly,
thin make-believe, and that even the very title of it is a sarcasm and
embodies a falsehood--"self" government:

"Local Self-Government.  The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in
Boston, Massachusetts, shall assume no official control of other churches
of this denomination.  It shall be officially controlled by no other
church."

It has a most pious and deceptive give-and-take air of perfect fairness,
unselfishness, magnanimity--almost godliness, indeed.  But it is all art.


In the By-laws, Mrs. Eddy, speaking by the mouth of her other self, the
Mother-Church, proclaims that she will assume no official control of
other churches-branch churches.  We examine the other By-laws, and they
answer some important questions for us:

1.  What is a branch Church?  It is a body of Christian Scientists,
organized in the one and only permissible way--by a member, in good
standing, of the Mother-Church, and who is also a pupil of one of Mrs.
Eddy's accredited students.  That is to say, one of her properties.  No
other can do it.  There are other indispensable requisites; what are
they?

2.  The new Church cannot enter upon its functions until its members have
individually signed, and pledged allegiance to, a Creed furnished by Mrs.
Eddy.

3.  They are obliged to study her books, and order their lives by them.
And they must read no outside religious works.

4.  They must sing the hymns and pray the prayers provided by her, and
use no others in the services, except by her permission.

5.  They cannot have preachers and pastors.  Her law.

6.  In their Church they must have two Readers--a man and a woman.

7.  They must read the services framed and appointed by her.

8.  She--not the branch Church--appoints those Readers.

9.  She--not the branch Church--dismisses them and fills the vacancies.

10.  She can do this without consulting the branch Church, and without
explaining.

11.  The branch Church can have a religious lecture from time to time.
By applying to Mrs. Eddy.  There is no other way.

12.  But the branch Church cannot select the lecturer.  Mrs. Eddy does
it.

13.  The branch Church pays his fee.

14.  The harnessing of all Christian Science wedding-teams, members of
the branch Church, must be done by duly authorized and consecrated
Christian Science functionaries.  Her factory is the only one that makes
and licenses them.

[15.  Nothing is said about christenings.  It is inferable from this that
a Christian Science child is born a Christian Scientist and requires no
tinkering.]

[16.  Nothing is said about funerals.  It is inferable, then, that a
branch Church is privileged to do in that matter as it may choose.]

To sum up.  Are any important Church-functions absent from the list?  I
cannot call any to mind.  Are there any lacking ones whose exercise could
make the branch in any noticeable way independent of the Mother.  Church?
--even in any trifling degree?  I think of none.  If the named functions
were abolished would there still be a Church left?  Would there be even a
shadow of a Church left?  Would there be anything at all left?  even the
bare name?

Manifestly not.  There isn't a single vital and essential Church-function
of any kind, that is not named in the list.  And over every one of them
the Mother-Church has permanent and unchallengeable control, upon every
one of them Mrs. Eddy has set her irremovable grip.  She holds, in
perpetuity, autocratic and indisputable sovereignty and control over
every branch Church in the earth; and yet says, in that sugary, naive,
angel-beguiling way of hers, that the Mother-Church:

"shall assume no official control of other churches of this
denomination."

Whereas in truth the unmeddled-with liberties of a branch Christian
Science Church are but very, very few in number, and are these:

1.  It can appoint its own furnace-stoker, winters.
2.  It can appoint its own fan-distributors, summers.
3.  It can, in accordance with its own choice in the matter, burn, bury,
or preserve members who are pretending to be dead--whereas there is no
such thing as death.
4.  It can take up a collection.

The branch Churches have no important liberties, none that give them an
important voice in their own affairs.  Those are all locked up, and Mrs.
Eddy has the key.  "Local Self-Government" is a large name and sounds
well; but the branch Churches have no more of it than have the privates
in the King of Dahomey's army.




"MOTHER-CHURCH UNIQUE"

Mrs. Eddy, with an envious and admiring eye upon the solitary and
rivalless and world-shadowing majesty of St.  Peter's, reveals in her
By-laws her purpose to set the Mother-Church apart by itself in a stately
seclusion and make it duplicate that lone sublimity under the Western
sky.  The By-law headed "Mother-Church Unique" says--

"In its relation to other Christian Science churches, the Mother-Church
stands alone.

"It occupies a position that no other Church can fill.

"Then for a branch Church to assume such position would be disastrous to
Christian Science,

"Therefore--"

Therefore no branch Church is allowed to have branches.  There shall be
no Christian Science St. Peter's in the earth but just one--the
Mother-Church in Boston.




"NO FIRST MEMBERS"

But for the thoughtful By-law thus entitled, every Science branch in the
earth would imitate the Mother-Church and set up an aristocracy.  Every
little group of ground-floor Smiths and Furgusons and Shadwells and
Simpsons that organized a branch would assume that great title, of "First
Members," along with its vast privileges of "discussing" the weather and
casting blank ballots, and soon there would be such a locust-plague of
them burdening the globe that the title would lose its value and have to
be abolished.

But where business and glory are concerned, Mrs. Eddy thinks of
everything, and so she did not fail to take care of her Aborigines, her
stately and exclusive One Hundred, her college of functionless cardinals,
her Sanhedrin of Privileged Talkers (Limited).  After taking away all the
liberties of the branch Churches, and in the same breath disclaiming all
official control over their affairs, she smites them on the mouth with
this--the very mouth that was watering for those nobby ground-floor
honors--

"No First Members.  Branch Churches shall not organize with First
Members, that special method of organization being adapted to the
Mother-Church alone."

And so, first members being prohibited, we pierce through the cloud of
Mrs. Eddy's English and perceive that they must then necessarily organize
with Subsequent Members.  There is no other way.  It will occur to them
by-and-by to found an aristocracy of Early Subsequent Members.  There is
no By-law against it.




"THE"

I uncover to that imperial word.  And to the mind, too, that conceived
the idea of seizing and monopolizing it as a title.  I believe it is Mrs.
Eddy's dazzlingest invention.  For show, and style, and grandeur, and
thunder and lightning and fireworks it outclasses all the previous
inventions of man, and raises the limit on the Pope.  He can never put
his avid hand on that word of words--it is pre-empted.  And copyrighted,
of course.  It lifts the Mother-Church away up in the sky, and
fellowships it with the rare and select and exclusive little company of
the THE's of deathless glory--persons and things whereof history and the
ages could furnish only single examples, not two: the Saviour, the
Virgin, the Milky Way, the Bible, the Earth, the Equator, the Devil, the
Missing Link--and now The First Church, Scientist.  And by clamor of
edict and By-law Mrs. Eddy gives personal notice to all branch Scientist
Churches on this planet to leave that THE alone.

She has demonstrated over it and made it sacred to the Mother-Church:

"The article 'The' must not be used before the titles of branch
Churches--

"Nor written on applications for membership in naming such churches."

Those are the terms.  There can and will be a million First Churches of
Christ, Scientist, scattered over the world, in a million towns and
villages and hamlets and cities, and each may call itself (suppressing
the article), "First Church of Christ.  Scientist"--it is permissible,
and no harm; but there is only one The Church of Christ, Scientist, and
there will never be another.  And whether that great word fall in the
middle of a sentence or at the beginning of it, it must always have its
capital T.

I do not suppose that a juvenile passion for fussy little worldly shows
and vanities can furnish a match to this, anywhere in the history of the
nursery.  Mrs. Eddy does seem to be a shade fonder of little special
distinctions and pomps than is usual with human beings.

She instituted that immodest "The" with her own hand; she did not wait
for somebody else to think of it.




A LIFE-TERM MONOPOLY

There is but one human Pastor in the whole Christian Science world; she
reserves that exalted place to herself.




A PERPETUAL ONE

There is but one other object in the whole Christian Science world
honored with that title and holding that office: it is her book, the
Annex--permanent Pastor of The First Church, and of all branch Churches.

With her own hand she draughted the By-laws which make her the only
really absolute sovereign that lives to-day in Christendom.

She does not allow any objectionable pictures to be exhibited in the room
where her book is sold, nor any indulgence in idle gossip there; and from
the general look of that By-law I judge that a lightsome and improper
person can be as uncomfortable in that place as he could be in heaven.




THE SANCTUM SANCTORUM AND SACRED CHAIR

In a room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, there is a museum of
objects which have attained to holiness through contact with Mrs. Eddy
--among them an electrically lighted oil-picture of a chair which she
used to sit in--and disciples from all about the world go softly in
there, in restricted groups, under proper guard, and reverently gaze upon
those relics.  It is worship.  Mrs. Eddy could stop it if she was not
fond of it, for her sovereignty over that temple is supreme.

The fitting-up of that place as a shrine is not an accident, nor a
casual, unweighed idea; it is imitated from age--old religious custom.
In Treves the pilgrim reverently gazes upon the Seamless Robe, and humbly
worships; and does the same in that other continental church where they
keep a duplicate; and does likewise in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
in Jerusalem, where memorials of the Crucifixion are preserved; and now,
by good fortune we have our Holy Chair and things, and a market for our
adorations nearer home.

But is there not a detail that is new, fresh, original?  Yes, whatever
old thing Mrs. Eddy touches gets something new by the contact--something
not thought of before by any one--something original, all her own, and
copyrightable.  The new feature is self worship--exhibited in permitting
this shrine to be installed during her lifetime, and winking her sacred
eye at it.

A prominent Christian Scientist has assured me that the Scientists do not
worship Mrs. Eddy, and I think it likely that there may be five or six of
the cult in the world who do not worship her, but she herself is
certainly not of that company.  Any healthy-minded person who will
examine Mrs. Eddy's little Autobiography and the Manual of By-laws
written by her will be convinced that she worships herself; and that she
brings to this service a fervor of devotion surpassing even that which
she formerly laid at the feet of the Dollar, and equalling any which
rises to the Throne of Grace from any quarter.

I think this is as good a place as any to salve a hurt which I was the
means of inflicting upon a Christian Scientist lately.  The first third
of this book was written in 1899 in Vienna.  Until last summer I had
supposed that that third had been printed in a book which I published
about a year later--a hap which had not happened.  I then sent the
chapters composing it to the North American Review, but failed in one
instance, to date them.  And so, in an undated chapter I said a lady told
me "last night" so and so.  There was nothing to indicate to the reader
that that "last night" was several years old, therefore the phrase seemed
to refer to a night of very recent date.  What the lady had told me was,
that in a part of the Mother-Church in Boston she had seen Scientists
worshipping a portrait of Mrs. Eddy before which a light was kept
constantly burning.

A Scientist came to me and wished me to retract that "untruth."  He said
there was no such portrait, and that if I wanted to be sure of it I could
go to Boston and see for myself.  I explained that my "last night" meant
a good while ago; that I did not doubt his assertion that there was no
such portrait there now, but that I should continue to believe it had
been there at the time of the lady's visit until she should retract her
statement herself.  I was at no time vouching for the truth of the
remark, nevertheless I considered it worth par.

And yet I am sorry the lady told me, since a wound which brings me no
happiness has resulted.  I am most willing to apply such salve as I can.
The best way to set the matter right and make everything pleasant and
agreeable all around will be to print in this place a description of the
shrine as it appeared to a recent visitor, Mr. Frederick W.  Peabody, of
Boston.  I will copy his newspaper account, and the reader will see that
Mrs. Eddy's portrait is not there now:

"We lately stood on the threshold of the Holy of Holies of the
Mother-Church, and with a crowd of worshippers patiently waited for
admittance to the hallowed precincts of the 'Mother's Room.' Over the
doorway was a sign informing us that but four persons at a time would be
admitted; that they would be permitted to remain but five minutes only,
and would please retire from the 'Mother's Room' at the ringing of the
bell.  Entering with three of the faithful, we looked with profane eyes
upon the consecrated furnishings.  A show-woman in attendance
monotonously announced the character of the different appointments.
Set in a recess of the wall and illumined with electric light was an
oil-painting the show-woman seriously declared to be a lifelike and
realistic picture of the Chair in which the Mother sat when she composed
her 'inspired' work. It was a picture of an old-fashioned?  country, hair
cloth rocking-chair, and an exceedingly commonplace-looking table with a
pile of manuscript, an ink-bottle, and pen conspicuously upon it.  On the
floor were sheets of manuscript.  'The mantel-piece is of pure onyx,'
continued the show-woman, 'and the beehive upon the window-sill is made
from one solid block of onyx; the rug is made of a hundred breasts of
eider-down ducks, and the toilet-room you see in the corner is of the
latest design, with gold-plated drain-pipes; the painted windows are from
the Mother's poem, "Christ and Christmas," and that case contains
complete copies of all the Mother's books.' The chairs upon which the
sacred person of the Mother had reposed were protected from sacrilegious
touch by a broad band of satin ribbon.  My companions expressed their
admiration in subdued and reverent tones, and at the tinkling of the bell
we reverently tiptoed out of the room to admit another delegation of the
patient waiters at the door."

Now, then, I hope the wound is healed.  I am willing to relinquish the
portrait, and compromise on the Chair.  At the same time, if I were going
to worship either, I should not choose the Chair.

As a picturesquely and persistently interesting personage, there is no
mate to Mrs. Eddy, the accepted Equal of the Saviour.  But some of her
tastes are so different from His!  I find it quite impossible to imagine
Him, in life, standing sponsor for that museum there, and taking pleasure
in its sumptuous shows.  I believe He would put that Chair in the fire,
and the bell along with it; and I think He would make the show-woman go
away.  I think He would break those electric bulbs, and the "mantel-piece
of pure onyx," and say reproachful things about the golden drain-pipes of
the lavatory, and give the costly rug of duck-breasts to the poor, and
sever the satin ribbon and invite the weary to rest and ease their aches
in the consecrated chairs.  What He would do with the painted windows we
can better conjecture when we come presently to examine their
peculiarities.




THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PASTOR-UNIVERSAL

When Mrs. Eddy turned the pastors out of all the Christian Science
churches and abolished the office for all time as far as human occupancy
is concerned--she appointed the Holy Ghost to fill their place.  If this
language be blasphemous, I did not invent the blasphemy, I am merely
stating a fact.  I will quote from page 227 of Science and Health
(edition 1899), as a first step towards an explanation of this startling
matter--a passage which sets forth and classifies the Christian Science
Trinity:

"Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune God, or triply divine
Principle.  They represent a trinity in unity, three in one--the same in
essence, though multiform in office: God the Father; Christ the type of
Sonship; Divine Science, or the Holy Comforter.  .  .

"The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, reveals this triune Principle, and (the Holy
Ghost) is expressed in Divine Science, which is the Comforter, leading
into all Truth, and revealing the divine Principle of the universe
--universal and perpetual harmony."

I will cite another passage.  Speaking of Jesus--

"His students then received the Holy Ghost.  By this is meant, that by
all they had witnessed and suffered they were roused to an enlarged
understanding of Divine Science, even to the spiritual interpretation . .
. . . of His teachings," etc.

Also, page 579, in the chapter called the Glossary:

"HOLY GHOST.  Divine Science; the developments of Life, Truth, and Love."

The Holy Ghost reveals the massed spirit of the fused trinity; this
massed spirit is expressed in Divine Science, and is the Comforter;
Divine Science conveys to men the "spiritual interpretation" of the
Saviour's teachings.  That seems to be the meaning of the quoted
passages.

Divine Science is Christian Science; the book "Science and Health" is a
"revelation" of the whole spirit of the Trinity, and is therefore "The
Holy Ghost"; it conveys to men the "spiritual interpretation" of the
Bible's teachings and therefore is "the Comforter."

I do not find this analyzing work easy, I would rather saw wood; and a
person can never tell whether he has added up a Science and Health sum
right or not, anyway, after all his trouble.  Neither can he easily find
out whether the texts are still on the market or have been discarded from
the Book; for two hundred and fifty-eight editions of it have been
issued, and no two editions seem to be alike.  The annual changes--in
technical terminology; in matter and wording; in transpositions of
chapters and verses; in leaving out old chapters and verses and putting
in new ones--seem to be next to innumerable, and as there is no index,
there is no way to find a thing one wants without reading the book
through.  If ever I inspire a Bible-Annex I will not rush at it in a
half-digested, helter-skelter way and have to put in thirty-eight years
trying to get some of it the way I want it, I will sit down and think it
out and know what it is I want to say before I begin.  An inspirer cannot
inspire for Mrs. Eddy and keep his reputation.  I have never seen such
slipshod work, bar the ten that interpreted for the home market the "sell
all thou hast."  I have quoted one "spiritual" rendering of the Lord's
Prayer, I have seen one other one, and am told there are five more.  Yet
the inspirer of Mrs. Eddy the new Infallible casts a complacent critical
stone at the other Infallible for being unable to make up its mind about
such things.  Science and Health, edition 1899, page 33:

"The decisions, by vote of Church Councils, as to what should and should
not be considered Holy Writ, the manifest mistakes in the ancient
versions: the thirty thousand different readings in the Old Testament and
the three hundred thousand in the New--these facts show how a mortal and
material sense stole into the divine record, darkening, to some extent,
the inspired pages with its own hue."

To some extent, yes--speaking cautiously.  But it is nothing, really
nothing; Mrs. Eddy is only a little way behind, and if her inspirer lives
to get her Annex to suit him that Catholic record will have to "go 'way
back and set down," as the ballad says.  Listen to the boastful song of
Mrs. Eddy's organ, the Christian Science Journal for March, 1902, about
that year's revamping and half-soling of Science and Health, whose
official name is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and who is now the
Official Pastor and Infallible and Unerring Guide of every Christian
Science church in the two hemispheres, hear Simple Simon that met the
pieman brag of the Infallible's fallibility:

"Throughout the entire book the verbal changes are so numerous as to
indicate the vast amount of time and labor Mrs. Eddy has devoted to this
revision.  The time and labor thus bestowed is relatively as great as
that of--the committee who revised the Bible....  Thus we have
additional evidence of the herculean efforts our beloved Leader has made
and is constantly making for the promulgation of Truth and the
furtherance of her divinely bestowed mission," etc.

It is a steady job.  I could help inspire if desired; I am not doing much
now, and would work for half-price, and should not object to the country.




PRICE OF THE PASTOR-UNIVERSAL

The price of the Pastor-Universal, Science and Health, called in Science
literature the Comforter--and by that other sacred Name--is three
dollars in cloth, as heretofore, six when it is finely bound, and shaped
to imitate the Testament, and is broken into verses.  Margin of profit
above cost of manufacture, from five hundred to seven hundred per cent.,
as already noted In the profane subscription-trade, it costs the
publisher heavily to canvass a three-dollar book; he must pay the general
agent sixty per cent. commission--that is to say, one dollar and
eighty-cents.  Mrs. Eddy escapes this blistering tax, because she owns
the Christian Science canvasser, and can compel him to work for nothing.
Read the following command--not request--fulminated by Mrs. Eddy, over
her signature, in the Christian Science Journal for March, 1897, and
quoted by Mr. Peabody in his book.  The book referred to is Science and
Health:

"It shall be the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and to
sell as many of these books as they can."

That is flung at all the elect, everywhere that the sun shines, but no
penalty is shaken over their heads to scare them.  The same command was
issued to the members (numbering to-day twenty-five thousand) of The
Mother-Church, also, but with it went a threat, of the infliction, in
case of disobedience, of the most dreaded punishment that has a place in
the Church's list of penalties for transgressions of Mrs. Eddy's edicts
--excommunication:

"If a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, shall fail to obey
this injunction, it will render him liable to lose his membership in this
Church.  MARY BAKER EDDY."

It is the spirit of the Spanish Inquisition.

None but accepted and well established gods can venture an affront like
that and do it with confidence.  But the human race will take anything
from that class.  Mrs. Eddy knows the human race; knows it better than
any mere human being has known it in a thousand centuries.  My confidence
in her human-beingship is getting shaken, my confidence in her godship is
stiffening.




SEVEN HUNDRED PER CENT.

A Scientist out West has visited a bookseller--with intent to find fault
with me--and has brought away the information that the price at which
Mrs. Eddy sells Science and Health is not an unusually high one for the
size and make of the book.  That is true.  But in the book-trade--that
profit-devourer unknown to Mrs. Eddy's book--a three-dollar book that is
made for thirty-five or forty cents in large editions is put at three
dollars because the publisher has to pay author, middleman, and
advertising, and if the price were much below three the profit accruing
would not pay him fairly for his time and labor.  At the same time, if he
could get ten dollars for the book he would take it, and his morals would
not fall under criticism.

But if he were an inspired person commissioned by the Deity to receive
and print and spread broadcast among sorrowing and suffering and poor men
a precious message of healing and cheer and salvation, he would have to
do as Bible Societies do--sell the book at a pinched margin above cost to
such as could pay, and give it free to all that couldn't; and his name
would be praised.  But if he sold it at seven hundred per cent. profit
and put the money in his pocket, his name would be mocked and derided.
Just as Mrs. Eddy's is.  And most justifiably, as it seems to me.

The complete Bible contains one million words.  The New Testament by
itself contains two hundred and forty thousand words.

My '84 edition of Science and Health contains one hundred and twenty
thousand words--just half as many as the New Testament.

Science and Health has since been so inflated by later inspirations that
the 1902 edition contains one hundred and eighty thousand words--not
counting the thirty thousand at the back, devoted by Mrs. Eddy to
advertising the book's healing abilities--and the inspiring continues
right along.

If you have a book whose market is so sure and so great that you can give
a printer an everlasting order for thirty or forty or fifty thousand
copies a year he will furnish them at a cheap rate, because whenever
there is a slack time in his press-room and bindery he can fill the idle
intervals on your book and be making something instead of losing.  That
is the kind of contract that can be let on Science and Health every year.
I am obliged to doubt that the three-dollar Science and Health costs Mrs.
Eddy above fifteen cents, or that the six dollar copy costs her above
eighty cents.  I feel quite sure that the average profit to her on these
books, above cost of manufacture, is all of seven hundred per cent.

Every proper Christian Scientist has to buy and own (and canvass for)
Science and Health (one hundred and eighty thousand words), and he must
also own a Bible (one million words).  He can buy the one for from three
to six dollars, and the other for fifteen cents.  Or, if three dollars is
all the money he has, he can get his Bible for nothing.  When the Supreme
Being disseminates a saving Message through uninspired agents--the New
Testament, for instance--it can be done for five cents a copy, but when
He sends one containing only two-thirds as many words through the shop of
a Divine Personage, it costs sixty times as much.  I think that in
matters of such importance it is bad economy to employ a wild-cat agency.

Here are some figures which are perfectly authentic, and which seem to
justify my opinion.

"These [Bible] societies, inspired only by a sense of religious duty, are
issuing the Bible at a price so small that they have made it the cheapest
book printed.  For example, the American Bible Society offers an edition
of the whole Bible as low as fifteen cents and the New Testament at five
cents, and the British Society at sixpence and one penny, respectively.
These low prices, made possible by their policy of selling the books at
cost or below cost," etc.--New York Sun, February 25, 1903.




CHAPTER IX

We may now make a final footing-up of Mrs. Eddy, and see what she is, in
the fulness of her powers.  She is

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College
Pastor Emeritus;
President;
Board of Directors;
Board of Education;
Board of Lectureships;
Future Board of Trustees,
Proprietor of the Publishing-House and Periodicals;
Treasurer;
Clerk;
Proprietor of the Teachers;
Proprietor of the Lecturers;
Proprietor of the Missionaries;
Proprietor of the Readers;
Dictator of the Services; sole Voice of the Pulpit;
Proprietor of the Sanhedrin;
Sole Proprietor of the Creed.  (Copyrighted.);
Indisputable Autocrat of the Branch Churches, with their life and death
in her hands;
Sole Thinker for The First Church (and the others);
Sole and Infallible Expounder of Doctrine, in life and in death;
Sole permissible Discoverer, Denouncer, Judge, and Executioner of
Ostensible Hypnotists;
Fifty-handed God of Excommunication--with a thunderbolt in every hand;
Appointer and Installer of the Pastor of all the Churches--the Perpetual
Pastor-Universal, Science and Health, "the Comforter."




CHAPTER X

There she stands-painted by herself.  No witness but herself has been
allowed to testify.  She stands there painted by her acts, and decorated
by her words.  When she talks, she has only a decorative value as a
witness, either for or against herself, for she deals mainly in
unsupported assertion; and in the rare cases where she puts forward a
verifiable fact she gets out of it a meaning which it refuses to furnish
to anybody else.  Also, when she talks, she is unstable, she wanders, she
is incurably inconsistent; what she says to-day she contradicts tomorrow.

But her acts are consistent.  They are always faithful to her, they never
misinterpret her, they are a mirror which always reflects her exactly,
precisely, minutely, unerringly, and always the same, to date, with only
those progressive little natural changes in stature, dress, complexion,
mood, and carriage that mark--exteriorly--the march of the years and
record the accumulations of experience, while--interiorly--through all
this steady drift of evolution the one essential detail, the commanding
detail, the master detail of the make-up remains as it was in the
beginning, suffers no change and can suffer none; the basis of the
character; the temperament, the disposition, that indestructible iron
framework upon which the character is built, and whose shape it must
take, and keep, throughout life.  We call it a person's nature.

The man who is born stingy can be taught to give liberally--with his
hands; but not with his heart.  The man born kind and compassionate can
have that disposition crushed down out of sight by embittering
experience; but if it were an organ the post-mortem would find it still
in his corpse.  The man born ambitious of power and glory may live long
without finding it out, but when the opportunity comes he will know, will
strike for the largest thing within the limit of his chances at the
time-constable, perhaps--and will be glad and proud when he gets it, and
will write home about it.  But he will not stop with that start; his
appetite will come again; and by-and-by again, and yet again; and when he
has climbed to police commissioner it will at last begin to dawn upon him
that what his Napoleon soul wants and was born for is something away
higher up--he does not quite know what, but Circumstance and Opportunity
will indicate the direction and he will cut a road through and find out.

I think Mrs. Eddy was born with a far-seeing business-eye, but did not
know it; and with a great organizing and executive talent, and did not
know it; and with a large appetite for power and distinction, and did not
know it.  I think the reason that her make did not show up until middle
life was that she had General Grant's luck--Circumstance and Opportunity
did not come her way when she was younger.  The qualities that were born
in her had to wait for circumstance and opportunity--but they were there:
they were there to stay, whether they ever got a chance to fructify or
not.  If they had come early, they would have found her ready and
competent.  And they--not she--would have determined what they would set
her at and what they would make of her.  If they had elected to
commission her as second-assistant cook in a bankrupt boarding-house,
I know the rest of it--I know what would have happened.  She would have
owned the boarding-house within six months; she would have had the late
proprietor on salary and humping himself, as the worldly say; she would
have had that boarding-house spewing money like a mint; she would have
worked the servants and the late landlord up to the limit; she would have
squeezed the boarders till they wailed, and by some mysterious quality
born in her she would have kept the affections of certain of the lot
whose love and esteem she valued, and flung the others down the back
area; in two years she would own all the boarding-houses in the town, in
five all the boarding-houses in the State, in twenty all the hotels in
America, in forty all the hotels on the planet, and would sit at home
with her finger on a button and govern the whole combination as easily as
a bench-manager governs a dog-show.

It would be a grand thing to see, and I feel a kind of disappointment
--but never mind, a religion is better and larger; and there is more to
it. And I have not been steeping myself in Christian Science all these
weeks without finding out that the one sensible thing to do with a
disappointment is to put it out of your mind and think of something
cheerfuler.

We outsiders cannot conceive of Mrs. Eddy's Christian Science Religion as
being a sudden and miraculous birth, but only as a growth from a seed
planted by circumstances, and developed stage by stage by command and
compulsion of the same force.  What the stages were we cannot know, but
are privileged to guess.  She may have gotten the mental-healing idea
from Quimby--it had been experimented with for ages, and was no one's
special property.  [For the present, for convenience' sake, let us
proceed upon the hypothesis that that was all she got of him, and that
she put up the rest of the assets herself.  This will strain us, but let
us try it.] In each and all its forms and under all its many names,
mental healing had had limits, always, and they were rather narrow ones
--Mrs. Eddy, let us imagine, removed the fence, abolished the frontiers.
Not by expanding mental-healing, but by absorbing its small bulk into the
vaster bulk of Christian Science--Divine Science, The Holy Ghost, the
Comforter--which was a quite different and sublimer force, and one which
had long lain dormant and unemployed.

The Christian Scientist believes that the Spirit of God (life and love)
pervades the universe like an atmosphere; that whoso will study Science
and Health can get from it the secret of how to inhale that transforming
air; that to breathe it is to be made new; that from the new man all
sorrow, all care, all miseries of the mind vanish away, for that only
peace, contentment and measureless joy can live in that divine fluid;
that it purifies the body from disease, which is a vicious creation of
the gross human mind, and cannot continue to exist in the presence of the
Immortal Mind, the renewing Spirit of God.

The Scientist finds this reasonable, natural, and not harder to believe
than that the disease germ, a creature of darkness, perishes when exposed
to the light of the great sun--a new revelation of profane science which
no one doubts.  He reminds us that the actinic ray, shining upon lupus,
cures it--a horrible disease which was incurable fifteen years ago, and
had been incurable for ten million years before; that this wonder,
unbelievable by the physicians at first, is believed by them now; and so
he is tranquilly confident that the time is coming when the world will be
educated up to a point where it will comprehend and grant that the light
of the Spirit of God, shining unobstructed upon the soul, is an actinic
ray which can purge both mind and body from disease and set them free and
make them whole.

It is apparent, then, that in Christian Science it is not one man's mind
acting upon another man's mind that heals; that it is solely the Spirit
of God that heals; that the healer's mind performs no office but to
convey that force to the patient; that it is merely the wire which
carries the electric fluid, so to speak, and delivers the message.
Therefore, if these things be true, mental-healing and Science-healing
are separate and distinct processes, and no kinship exists between them.

To heal the body of its ills and pains is a mighty benefaction, but in
our day our physicians and surgeons work a thousand miracles--prodigies
which would have ranked as miracles fifty years ago--and they have so
greatly extended their domination over disease that we feel so well
protected that we are able to look with a good deal of composure and
absence of hysterics upon the claims of new competitors in that field.

But there is a mightier benefaction than the healing of the body, and
that is the healing of the spirit--which is Christian Science's other
claim.  So far as I know, so far as I can find out, it makes it good.
Personally I have not known a Scientist who did not seem serene,
contented, unharassed.  I have not found an outsider whose observation of
Scientists furnished him a view that differed from my own.  Buoyant
spirits, comfort of mind, freedom from care these happinesses we all
have, at intervals; but in the spaces between, dear me, the black hours!
They have put a curse upon the life of every human being I have ever
known, young or old.  I concede not a single exception.  Unless it might
be those Scientists just referred to.  They may have been playing a part
with me; I hope they were not, and I believe they were not.

Time will test the Science's claim.  If time shall make it good; if time
shall prove that the Science can heal the persecuted spirit of man and
banish its troubles and keep it serene and sunny and content--why, then
Mrs. Eddy will have a monument that will reach above the clouds.  For if
she did not hit upon that imperial idea and evolve it and deliver it, its
discoverer can never be identified with certainty, now, I think.  It is
the giant feature, it is the sun that rides in the zenith of Christian
Science, the auxiliary features are of minor consequence [Let us still
leave the large "if" aside, for the present, and proceed as if it had no
existence.]

It is not supposable that Mrs. Eddy realized, at first, the size of her
plunder.  (No, find--that is the word; she did not realize the size of
her find, at first.) It had to grow upon her, by degrees, in accordance
with the inalterable custom of Circumstance, which works by stages, and
by stages only, and never furnishes any mind with all the materials for a
large idea at one time.

In the beginning, Mrs. Eddy was probably interested merely in the
mental-healing detail, and perhaps mainly interested in it pecuniary,
for she was poor.

She would succeed in anything she undertook.  She would attract pupils,
and her commerce would grow.  She would inspire in patient and pupil
confidence in her earnestness, her history is evidence that she would not
fail of that.

There probably came a time, in due course, when her students began to
think there was something deeper in her teachings than they had been
suspecting--a mystery beyond mental-healing, and higher.  It is
conceivable that by consequence their manner towards her changed little
by little, and from respectful became reverent.  It is conceivable that
this would have an influence upon her; that it would incline her to
wonder if their secret thought--that she was inspired--might not be a
well-grounded guess.  It is conceivable that as time went on the thought
in their minds and its reflection in hers might solidify into conviction.

She would remember, then, that as a child she had been called, more than
once, by a mysterious voice--just as had happened to little Samuel.
(Mentioned in her Autobiography.) She would be impressed by that ancient
reminiscence, now, and it could have a prophetic meaning for her.

It is conceivable that the persuasive influences around her and within
her would give a new and powerful impulse to her philosophizings, and
that from this, in time, would result that great birth, the healing of
body and mind by the inpouring of the Spirit of God--the central and
dominant idea of Christian Science--and that when this idea came she
would not doubt that it was an inspiration direct from Heaven.




CHAPTER XI

[I must rest a little, now.  To sit here and painstakingly spin out a
scheme which imagines Mrs. Eddy, of all people, working her mind on a
plane above commercialism; imagines her thinking, philosophizing,
discovering majestic things; and even imagines her dealing in
sincerities--to be frank, I find it a large contract But I have begun it,
and I will go through with it.]




CHAPTER XII

It is evident that she made disciples fast, and that their belief in her
and in the authenticity of her heavenly ambassadorship was not of the
lukewarm and half-way sort, but was profoundly earnest and sincere.
Her book was issued from the press in 1875, it began its work of
convert-making, and within six years she had successfully launched a new
Religion and a new system of healing, and was teaching them to crowds of
eager students in a College of her own, at prices so extraordinary that
we are almost compelled to accept her statement (no, her guarded
intimation) that the rates were arranged on high, since a mere human
being unacquainted with commerce and accustomed to think in pennies
could hardly put up such a hand as that without supernatural help.

From this stage onward--Mrs. Eddy being what she was--the rest of the
development--stages would follow naturally and inevitably.

But if she had been anybody else, there would have been a different
arrangement of them, with different results.  Being the extraordinary
person she was, she realized her position and its possibilities; realized
the possibilities, and had the daring to use them for all they were
worth.

We have seen what her methods were after she passed the stage where her
divine ambassadorship was granted its executer in the hearts and minds of
her followers; we have seen how steady and fearless and calculated and
orderly was her march thenceforth from conquest to conquest; we have seen
her strike dead, without hesitancy, any hostile or questionable force
that rose in her path: first, the horde of pretenders that sprang up and
tried to take her Science and its market away from her--she crushed them,
she obliterated them; when her own National Christian Science Association
became great in numbers and influence, and loosely and dangerously
garrulous, and began to expound the doctrines according to its own
uninspired notions, she took up her sponge without a tremor of fear and
wiped that Association out; when she perceived that the preachers in her
pulpits were becoming afflicted with doctrine-tinkering, she recognized
the danger of it, and did not hesitate nor temporize, but promptly
dismissed the whole of them in a day, and abolished their office
permanently; we have seen that, as fast as her power grew, she was
competent to take the measure of it, and that as fast as its expansion
suggested to her gradually awakening native ambition a higher step she
took it; and so, by this evolutionary process, we have seen the gross
money-lust relegated to second place, and the lust of empire and glory
rise above it.  A splendid dream; and by force of the qualities born in
her she is making it come true.

These qualities--and the capacities growing out of them by the nurturing
influences of training, observation, and experience seem to be clearly
indicated by the character of her career and its achievements.  They seem
to be:

A clear head for business, and a phenomenally long one;
Clear understanding of business situations;
Accuracy in estimating the opportunities they offer;
Intelligence in planning a business move;
Firmness in sticking to it after it has been decided upon;
Extraordinary daring;
Indestructible persistency;
Devouring ambition;
Limitless selfishness;
A knowledge of the weaknesses and poverties and docilities of human
nature and how to turn them to account which has never been surpassed, if
ever equalled;

And--necessarily--the foundation-stone of Mrs. Eddy's character is a
never-wavering confidence in herself.

It is a granite character.  And--quite naturally--a measure of the talc
of smallnesses common to human nature is mixed up in it and distributed
through it.  When Mrs. Eddy is not dictating servilities from her throne
in the clouds to her official domestics in Boston or to her far-spread
subjects round about the planet, but is down on the ground, she is kin to
us and one of us: sentimental as a girl, garrulous, ungrammatical,
incomprehensible, affected, vain of her little human ancestry, unstable,
inconsistent, unreliable in statement, and naively and everlastingly
self-contradictory-oh, trivial and common and commonplace as the
commonest of us! just a Napoleon as Madame de Remusat saw him, a brass
god with clay legs.




CHAPTER XIII

In drawing Mrs. Eddy's portrait it has been my purpose to restrict myself
to materials furnished by herself, and I believe I have done that.  If I
have misinterpreted any of her acts, it was not done intentionally.

It will be noticed that in skeletonizing a list of the qualities which
have carried her to the dizzy summit which she occupies, I have not
mentioned the power which was the commanding force employed in achieving
that lofty flight.  It did not belong in that list; it was a force that
was not a detail of her character, but was an outside one.  It was the
power which proceeded from her people's recognition of her as a
supernatural personage, conveyer of the Latest Word, and divinely
commissioned to deliver it to the world.  The form which such a
recognition takes, consciously or unconsciously, is worship; and worship
does not question nor criticize, it obeys.  The object of it does not
need to coddle it, bribe it, beguile it, reason with it, convince it--it
commands it; that is sufficient; the obedience rendered is not reluctant,
but prompt and whole-hearted.  Admiration for a Napoleon, confidence in
him, pride in him, affection for him, can lift him high and carry him
far; and these are forms of worship, and are strong forces, but they are
worship of a mere human being, after all, and are infinitely feeble, as
compared with those that are generated by that other worship, the worship
of a divine personage.  Mrs. Eddy has this efficient worship, this massed
and centralized force, this force which is indifferent to opposition,
untroubled by fear, and goes to battle singing, like Cromwell's soldiers;
and while she has it she can command and it will obey, and maintain her
on her throne, and extend her empire.

She will have it until she dies; and then we shall see a curious and
interesting further development of her revolutionary work begin.




CHAPTER XIV

The President and Board of Directors will succeed her, and the government
will go on without a hitch.  The By-laws will bear that interpretation.
All the Mother-Church's vast powers are concentrated in that Board.  Mrs.
Eddy's unlimited personal reservations make the Board's ostensible
supremacy, during her life, a sham, and the Board itself a shadow.  But
Mrs. Eddy has not made those reservations for any one but herself--they
are distinctly personal, they bear her name, they are not usable by
another individual.  When she dies her reservations die, and the Board's
shadow-powers become real powers, without the change of any important
By-law, and the Board sits in her place as absolute and irresponsible a
sovereign as she was.

It consists of but five persons, a much more manageable Cardinalate than
the Roman Pope's.  I think it will elect its Pope from its own body, and
that it will fill its own vacancies.  An elective Papacy is a safe and
wise system, and a long-liver.




CHAPTER XV

We may take that up now.

It is not a single if, but a several-jointed one; not an oyster, but a
vertebrate.

1.  Did Mrs. Eddy borrow from Quimby the Great Idea, or only the little
one, the old-timer, the ordinary mental-healing-healing by "mortal" mind?

2.  If she borrowed the Great Idea, did she carry it away in her head, or
in manuscript?

3.  Did she hit upon the Great Idea herself?  By the Great Idea I mean,
of course, the conviction that the Force involved was still existent, and
could be applied now just as it was applied by Christ's Disciples and
their converts, and as successfully.
4.  Did she philosophize it, systematize it, and write it down in a book?

5.  Was it she, and not another, that built a new Religion upon the book
and organized it?

I think No.  5 can be answered with a Yes, and dismissed from the
controversy.  And I think that the Great Idea, great as it was, would
have enjoyed but a brief activity, and would then have gone to sleep
again for some more centuries, but for the perpetuating impulse it got
from that organized and tremendous force.

As for Nos.  1, 2, and 4, the hostiles contend that Mrs. Eddy got the
Great Idea from Quimby and carried it off in manuscript.  But their
testimony, while of consequence, lacks the most important detail; so far
as my information goes, the Quimby manuscript has not been produced.  I
think we cannot discuss No. 1 and No. 2 profitably.  Let them go.

For me, No. 3 has a mild interest, and No. 4 a violent one.

As regards No.  3, Mrs. Eddy was brought up, from the cradle, an
old-time, boiler-iron, Westminster-Catechism Christian, and knew her
Bible as well as Captain Kydd knew his, "when he sailed, when he sailed,"
and perhaps as sympathetically.  The Great Idea had struck a million
Bible-readers before her as being possible of resurrection and
application--it must have struck as many as that, and been cogitated,
indolently, doubtingly, then dropped and forgotten--and it could have
struck her, in due course.  But how it could interest her, how it could
appeal to her--with her make this a thing that is difficult to
understand.

For the thing back of it is wholly gracious and beautiful: the power,
through loving mercifulness and compassion, to heal fleshly ills and
pains and grief--all--with a word, with a touch of the hand!  This power
was given by the Saviour to the Disciples, and to all the converted.
All--every one.  It was exercised for generations afterwards.  Any
Christian who was in earnest and not a make-believe, not a policy
--Christian, not a Christian for revenue only, had that healing power,
and could cure with it any disease or any hurt or damage possible to
human flesh and bone.  These things are true, or they are not.  If they
were true seventeen and eighteen and nineteen centuries ago it would be
difficult to satisfactorily explain why or how or by what argument that
power should be nonexistent in Christians now.

To wish to exercise it could occur to Mrs. Eddy--but would it?

Grasping, sordid, penurious, famishing for everything she sees--money,
power, glory--vain, untruthful, jealous, despotic, arrogant, insolent,
pitiless where thinkers and hypnotists are concerned, illiterate,
shallow, incapable of reasoning outside of commercial lines, immeasurably
selfish--

Of course the Great Idea could strike her, we have to grant that, but why
it should interest her is a question which can easily overstrain the
imagination and bring on nervous prostration, or something like that, and
is better left alone by the judicious, it seems to me--

Unless we call to our help the alleged other side of Mrs. Eddy's make and
character the side which her multitude of followers see, and sincerely
believe in.  Fairness requires that their view be stated here.  It is the
opposite of the one which I have drawn from Mrs. Eddy's history and from
her By-laws.  To her followers she is this:

Patient, gentle, loving, compassionate, noble hearted, unselfish,
sinless, widely cultured, splendidly equipped mentally, a profound
thinker, an able writer, a divine personage, an inspired messenger whose
acts are dictated from the Throne, and whose every utterance is the Voice
of God.

She has delivered to them a religion which has revolutionized their
lives, banished the glooms that shadowed them, and filled them and
flooded them with sunshine and gladness and peace; a religion which has
no hell; a religion whose heaven is not put off to another time, with a
break and a gulf between, but begins here and now, and melts into
eternity as fancies of the waking day melt into the dreams of sleep.

They believe it is a Christianity that is in the New Testament; that it
has always been there, that in the drift of ages it was lost through
disuse and neglect, and that this benefactor has found it and given it
back to men, turning the night of life into day, its terrors into myths,
its lamentations into songs of emancipation and rejoicing.

There we have Mrs. Eddy as her followers see her.  She has lifted them
out of grief and care and doubt and fear, and made their lives beautiful;
she found them wandering forlorn in a wintry wilderness, and has led them
to a tropic paradise like that of which the poet sings:

     "O, islands there are on the face of the deep
     Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep."

To ask them to examine with a microscope the character of such a
benefactor; to ask them to examine it at all; to ask them to look at a
blemish which another person believes he has found in it--well, in their
place could you do it?  Would you do it?  Wouldn't you be ashamed to do
it?  If a tramp had rescued your child from fire and death, and saved its
mother's heart from breaking, could you see his rags?  Could you smell
his breath?  Mrs. Eddy has done more than that for these people.

They are prejudiced witnesses.  To the credit of human nature it is not
possible that they should be otherwise.  They sincerely believe that Mrs.
Eddy's character is pure and perfect and beautiful, and her history
without stain or blot or blemish.  But that does not settle it.  They
sincerely believe she did not borrow the Great Idea from Quimby, but hit
upon it herself.  It may be so, and it could be so.  Let it go--there is
no way to settle it.  They believe she carried away no Quimby
manuscripts.  Let that go, too--there is no way to settle it.  They
believe that she, and not another, built the Religion upon the book, and
organized it.  I believe it, too.

Finally, they believe that she philosophized Christian Science, explained
it, systematized it, and wrote it all out with her own hand in the book
Science and Health.

I am not able to believe that.  Let us draw the line there.  The known
and undisputed products of her pen are a formidable witness against her.
They do seem to me to prove, quite clearly and conclusively, that
writing, upon even simple subjects, is a difficult labor for her: that
she has never been able to write anything above third-rate English; that
she is weak in the matter of grammar; that she has but a rude and dull
sense of the values of words; that she so lacks in the matter of literary
precision that she can seldom put a thought into words that express it
lucidly to the reader and leave no doubts in his mind as to whether he
has rightly understood or not; that she cannot even draught a Preface
that a person can fully comprehend, nor one which can by any art be
translated into a fully understandable form; that she can seldom inject
into a Preface even single sentences whose meaning is uncompromisingly
clear--yet Prefaces are her specialty, if she has one.

Mrs. Eddy's known and undisputed writings are very limited in bulk; they
exhibit no depth, no analytical quality, no thought above school
composition size, and but juvenile ability in handling thoughts of even
that modest magnitude.  She has a fine commercial ability, and could
govern a vast railway system in great style; she could draught a set of
rules that Satan himself would say could not be improved on--for
devilish effectiveness--by his staff; but we know, by our excursions
among the Mother-Church's By-laws, that their English would discredit the
deputy baggage-smasher.  I am quite sure that Mrs. Eddy cannot write well
upon any subject, even a commercial one.

In the very first revision of Science and Health (1883), Mrs. Eddy wrote
a Preface which is an unimpeachable witness that the rest of the book was
written by somebody else.  I have put it in the Appendix along with a
page or two taken from the body of the book, and will ask the reader to
compare the labored and lumbering and confused gropings of this Preface
with the easy and flowing and direct English of the other exhibit, and
see if he can believe that the one hand and brain produced both.

And let him take the Preface apart, sentence by sentence, and searchingly
examine each sentence word by word, and see if he can find half a dozen
sentences whose meanings he is so sure of that he can rephrase them--in
words of his own--and reproduce what he takes to be those meanings.
Money can be lost on this game.  I know, for I am the one that lost it.

Now let the reader turn to the excerpt which I have made from the chapter
on "Prayer" (last year's edition of Science and Health), and compare that
wise and sane and elevated and lucid and compact piece of work with the
aforesaid Preface, and with Mrs. Eddy's poetry concerning the gymnastic
trees, and Minerva's not yet effete sandals, and the wreaths imported
from Erudition's bower for the decoration of Plymouth Rock, and the
Plague-spot and Bacilli, and my other exhibits (turn back to my Chapters
I.  and II.) from the Autobiography, and finally with the late
Communication concerning me, and see if he thinks anybody's affirmation,
or anybody's sworn testimony, or any other testimony of any imaginable
kind would ever be likely to convince him that Mrs. Eddy wrote that
chapter on Prayer.

I do not wish to impose my opinion on any one who will not permit it, but
such as it is I offer it here for what it is worth.  I cannot believe,
and I do not believe, that Mrs. Eddy originated any of the thoughts and
reasonings out of which the book Science and Health is constructed; and I
cannot believe, and do not believe that she ever wrote any part of that
book.

I think that if anything in the world stands proven, and well and solidly
proven, by unimpeachable testimony--the treacherous testimony of her own
pen in her known and undisputed literary productions--it is that Mrs.
Eddy is not capable of thinking upon high planes, nor of reasoning
clearly nor writing intelligently upon low ones.

Inasmuch as--in my belief--the very first editions of the book Science
and Health were far above the reach of Mrs. Eddy's mental and literary
abilities, I think she has from the very beginning been claiming as her
own another person's book, and wearing as her own property laurels
rightfully belonging to that person--the real author of Science and
Health.  And I think the reason--and the only reason--that he has not
protested is because his work was not exposed to print until after he was
safely dead.

That with an eye to business, and by grace of her business talent, she
has restored to the world neglected and abandoned features of the
Christian religion which her thousands of followers find gracious and
blessed and contenting, I recognize and confess; but I am convinced that
every single detail of the work except just that one--the delivery of the
Product to the world--was conceived and performed by another.




APPENDIX A

ORIGINAL FIRST PREFACE TO SCIENCE AND HEALTH

There seems a Christian necessity of learning God's power and purpose to
heal both mind and body.  This thought grew out of our early seeking Him
in all our ways, and a hopeless as singular invalidism that drugs
increased instead of diminished, and hygiene benefited only for a season.
By degrees we have drifted into more spiritual latitudes of thought, and
experimented as we advanced until demonstrating fully the power of mind
over the body.  About the year 1862, having heard of a mesmerist in
Portland who was treating the sick by manipulation, we visited him; he
helped us for a time, then we relapsed somewhat.  After his decease, and
a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful physicians, we discovered that
the Principle of all healing and the law that governs it is God, a divine
Principle, and a spiritual not material law, and regained health.

It was not an individual or mortal mind acting upon another so-called
mind that healed us.  It was the glorious truths of Christian Science
that we discovered as we neared that verge of so-called material life
named death; yea, it was the great Shekinah, the spirit of Life, Truth,
and Love illuminating our understanding of the action and might of
Omnipotence!  The old gentleman to whom we have referred had some very
advanced views on healing, but he was not avowedly religious neither
scholarly.  We interchanged thoughts on the subject of healing the sick.
I restored some patients of his that he failed to heal, and left in his
possession some manuscripts of mine containing corrections of his
desultory pennings, which I am informed at his decease passed into the
hands of a patient of his, now residing in Scotland.  He died in 1865 and
left no published works.  The only manuscript that we ever held of his,
longer than to correct it, was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most of
which we had composed.  He manipulated the sick; hence his ostensible
method of healing was physical instead of mental.

We helped him in the esteem of the public by our writings, but never knew
of his stating orally or in writing that he treated his patients
mentally; never heard him give any directions to that effect; and have it
from one of his patients, who now asserts that he was the founder of
mental healing, that he never revealed to anyone his method.  We refer to
these facts simply to refute the calumnies and false claims of our
enemies, that we are preferring dishonest claims to the discovery and
founding at this period of Metaphysical Healing or Christian Science.

The Science and laws of a purely mental healing and their method of
application through spiritual power alone, else a mental argument against
disease, are our own discovery at this date.  True, the Principle is
divine and eternal, but the application of it to heal the sick had been
lost sight of, and required to be again spiritually discerned and its
science discovered, that man might retain it through the understanding.
Since our discovery in 1866 of the divine science of Christian Healing,
we have labored with tongue and pen to found this system.  In this
endeavor every obstacle has been thrown in our path that the envy and
revenge of a few disaffected students could devise.  The superstition and
ignorance of even this period have not failed to contribute their mite
towards misjudging us, while its Christian advancement and scientific
research have helped sustain our feeble efforts.

Since our first Edition of Science and Health, published in 1875, two of
the aforesaid students have plagiarized and pirated our works.  In the
issues of E. J. A., almost exclusively ours, were thirteen paragraphs,
without credit, taken verbatim from our books.

Not one of our printed works was ever copied or abstracted from the
published or from the unpublished writings of anyone.  Throughout our
publications of Metaphysical Healing or Christian Science, when writing
or dictating them, we have given ourselves to contemplation wholly apart
from the observation of the material senses: to look upon a copy would
have distracted our thoughts from the subject before us.  We were seldom
able to copy our own compositions, and have employed an amanuensis for
the last six years.  Every work that we have had published has been
extemporaneously written; and out of fifty lectures and sermons that we
have delivered the last year, forty-four have been extemporaneous.  We
have distributed many of our unpublished manuscripts; loaned to one of
our youngest students, R. K--------y, between three and four hundred pages,
of which we were sole author--giving him liberty to copy but not to
publish them.

Leaning on the sustaining Infinite with loving trust, the trials of
to-day grow brief, and to-morrow is big with blessings.

The wakeful shepherd, tending his flocks, beholds from the mountain's top
the first faint morning beam ere cometh the risen day.  So from Soul's
loftier summits shines the pale star to prophet-shepherd, and it
traverses night, over to where the young child lies, in cradled
obscurity, that shall waken a world.  Over the night of error dawn the
morning beams and guiding star of Truth, and "the wise men" are led by it
to Science, which repeats the eternal harmony that it reproduced, in
proof of immortality.  The time for thinkers has come; and the time for
revolutions, ecclesiastical and civil, must come.  Truth, independent of
doctrines or time-honored systems, stands at the threshold of history.
Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may no
longer shut the door on science; though empires fall, "He whose right it
is shall reign."  Ignorance of God should no longer be the stepping-stone
to faith; understanding Him, "whom to know aright is Life eternal," is
the only guaranty of obedience.

This volume may not open a new thought, and make it at once familiar.  It
has the sturdy task of a pioneer, to hack away at the tall oaks and cut
the rough granite, leaving future ages to declare what it has done.  We
made our first discovery of the adaptation of metaphysics to the
treatment of disease in the winter of 1866; since then we have tested the
Principle on ourselves and others, and never found it to fail to prove
the statements herein made of it.  We must learn the science of Life, to
reach the perfection of man.  To understand God as the Principle of all
being, and to live in accordance with this Principle, is the Science of
Life.  But to reproduce this harmony of being, the error of personal
sense must yield to science, even as the science of music corrects tones
caught from the ear, and gives the sweet concord of sound.  There are
many theories of physic and theology, and many calls in each of their
directions for the right way; but we propose to settle the question of
"What is Truth?" on the ground of proof, and let that method of healing
the sick and establishing Christianity be adopted that is found to give
the most health and to make the best Christians; science will then have a
fair field, in which case we are assured of its triumph over all opinions
and beliefs.  Sickness and sin have ever had their doctors; but the
question is, Have they become less because of them?  The longevity of our
antediluvians would say, No! and the criminal records of today utter
their voices little in favor of such a conclusion.  Not that we would
deny to Caesar the things that are his, but that we ask for the things
that belong to Truth; and safely affirm, from the demonstrations we have
been able to make, that the science of man understood would have
eradicated sin, sickness, and death, in a less period than six thousand
years.  We find great difficulties in starting this work right.  Some
shockingly false claims are already made to a metaphysical practice;
mesmerism, its very antipodes, is one of them.  Hitherto we have never,
in a single instance of our discovery, found the slightest resemblance
between mesmerism and metaphysics.  No especial idiosyncrasy is requisite
to acquire a knowledge of metaphysical healing; spiritual sense is more
important to its discernment than the intellect; and those who would
learn this science without a high moral standard of thought and action,
will fail to understand it until they go up higher.  Owing to our
explanations constantly vibrating between the same points, an irksome
repetition of words must occur; also the use of capital letters, genders,
and technicalities peculiar to the science.  Variety of language, or
beauty of diction, must give place to close analysis and unembellished
thought.  "Hoping all things, enduring all things," to do good to our
enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to bear to the sorrowing and
the sick consolation and healing, we commit these pages to posterity.

MARY BAKER G. EDDY.




APPENDIX B

The Gospel narratives bear brief testimony even to the life of our great
Master.  His spiritual noumenon and phenomenon, silenced portraiture.
Writers, less wise than the Apostles, essayed in the Apocryphal New
Testament, a legendary and traditional history of the early life of
Jesus.  But Saint Paul summarized the character of Jesus as the model of
Christianity, in these words: "Consider Him who endured such
contradictions of sinners against Himself.  Who for the joy that was set
before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God."

It may be that the mortal life battle still wages, and must continue till
its involved errors are vanquished by victory-bringing Science; but this
triumph will come!  God is over all.  He alone is our origin, aim, and
Being.  The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through
the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren
are all the children of one parent, the eternal Good.

Any kind of literary composition was excessively difficult for Mrs. Eddy.
She found it grinding hard work to dig out anything to say.  She
realized, at the above stage in her life, that with all her trouble she
had not been able to scratch together even material enough for a child's
Autobiography, and also that what she had secured was in the main not
valuable, not important, considering the age and the fame of the person
she was writing about; and so it occurred to her to attempt, in that
paragraph, to excuse the meagreness and poor quality of the feast she was
spreading, by letting on that she could do ever so much better if she
wanted to, but was under constraint of Divine etiquette.  To feed with
more than a few indifferent crumbs a plebeian appetite for personal
details about Personages in her class was not the correct thing, and she
blandly points out that there is Precedent for this reserve.  When Mrs.
Eddy tries to be artful--in literature--it is generally after the
manner of the ostrich; and with the ostrich's luck.  Please try to find
the connection between the two paragraphs.--M.  T.




APPENDIX C

The following is the spiritual signification of the Lord's Prayer:

Principle, eternal and harmonious,
Nameless and adorable Intelligence,
Thou art ever present and supreme.
And when this supremacy of Spirit shall appear, the dream of matter will
disappear.
Give us the understanding of Truth and Love.
And loving we shall learn God, and Truth will destroy all error.
And lead us unto the Life that is Soul, and deliver us from the errors of
sense, sin, sickness, and death,
For God is Life, Truth, and Love for ever.
--Science and Health, edition of 1881.

It seems to me that this one is distinctly superior to the one that was
inspired for last year's edition.  It is strange, but to my mind plain,
that inspiring is an art which does not improve with practice.--M.  T.




APPENDIX D

"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain,
Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in
his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come
to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.  Therefore I say unto you,
What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them.

"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him."
--CHRIST JESUS.

The prayer that reclaims the sinner and heals the sick, is an absolute
faith that all things are possible to God--a spiritual understanding of
Him--an unselfed love.  Regardless of what another may say or think on
this subject, I speak from experience.  This prayer, combined with
self-sacrifice and toil, is the means whereby God has enabled me to
do what I have done for the religion and health of mankind.

Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind.  Desire is prayer;
and no less can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may
be moulded and exalted before they take form in audible word, and in
deeds.

What are the motives for prayer?  Do we pray to make ourselves better, or
to benefit those that hear us; to enlighten the Infinite, or to be heard
of men?  Are we benefited by praying?  Yes, the desire which goes forth
hungering after righteousness is blessed of our Father, and it does not
return unto us void.

God is not moved by the breath of praise to do more than He has already
done; nor can the Infinite do less than bestow all good, since He is
unchanging Wisdom and Love.  We can do more for ourselves by humble
fervent petitions; but the All-loving does not grant them simply on the
ground of lip-service, for He already knows all.

Prayer cannot change the Science of Being, but it does bring us into
harmony with it.  Goodness reaches the demonstration of Truth.  A request
that another may work for us never does our work.  The habit of pleading
with the divine Mind, as one pleads with a human being, perpetuates the
belief in God as humanly circumscribed--an error which impedes spiritual
growth.

God is Love.  Can we ask Him to be more?  God is Intelligence.  Can we
inform the infinite Mind, or tell Him anything He does not already
comprehend?  Do we hope to change perfection?  Shall we plead for more at
the open fount, which always pours forth more than we receive?  The
unspoken prayer does bring us nearer the Source of all existence and
blessedness.

Asking God to be God is a "vain repetition."  God is "the same yesterday,
and to-day, and forever"; and He who is immutably right will do right,
without being reminded of His province.  The wisdom of man is not
sufficient to warrant him in advising God.

Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of
mathematics to work out the problem?  The rule is already established,
and it is our task to work out the solution.  Shall we ask the divine
Principle of all goodness to do His own work?  His work is done; and we
have only to avail ourselves of God's rule, in order to receive the
blessing thereof.

The divine Being must be reflected by man--else man is not the image and
likeness of the patient, tender, and true, the one "altogether lovely";
but to understand God is the work of eternity, and demands absolute
concentration of thought and energy.

How empty are our conceptions of Deity!  We admit theoretically that God
is good, omnipotent, omnipresent, infinite, and then we try to give
information to this infinite Mind; and plead for unmerited pardon, and a
liberal outpouring of benefactions.  Are we really grateful for the good
already received?  Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we
have, and thus be fitted to receive more.  Gratitude is much more than a
verbal expression of thanks Action expresses more gratitude than speech.

If we are ungrateful for Life, Truth, and Love, and yet return thanks to
God for all blessings, we are insincere; and incur the sharp censure our
Master pronounces on hypocrites.  In such a case the only acceptable
prayer is to put the finger on the lips and remember our blessings.
While the heart is far from divine Truth and Love, we cannot conceal the
ingratitude of barren lives, for God knoweth all things.

What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace,
expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds.  To keep the
commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to
Him, and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all He has done.
Outward worship is not of itself sufficient to express loyal and
heartfelt gratitude, since He has said: "If ye love Me, keep My
Commandments."

The habitual struggle to be always good, is unceasing prayer.  Its
motives are made manifest in the blessings they bring--which, if not
acknowledged in audible words, attest our worthiness to be made partakers
of Love.

Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the
longing to be better and holier--expressed in daily watchfulness, and in
striving to assimilate more of the divine character--this will mould and
fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness.  We reach the Science of
Christianity through demonstration of the divine nature; but in this
wicked world goodness will "be evil spoken of," and patience must work
experience.

Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, which
regenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience,
enable us to follow Jesus' example.  Long prayers, ecclesiasticism, and
creeds, have clipped the divine pinions of Love, and clad religion in
human robes.  They materialize worship, hinder the Spirit, and keep man
from demonstrating his power over error.

Sorrow for wrong-doing is but one step towards reform, and the very
easiest step.  The next and great step required by Wisdom is the test of
our sincerity--namely, reformation.  To this end we are placed under the
stress of circumstances.  Temptation bids us repeat the offence, and woe
comes in return for what is done.  So it will ever be, till we learn that
there is no discount in the law of justice, and that we must pay "the
uttermost farthing."  The measure ye mete "shall be measured to you
again," and it will be full "and running over."

Saints and sinners get their full award, but not always in this world.
The followers of Christ drank His cup.  Ingratitude and persecution
filled it to the brim; but God pours the riches of His love into the
understanding and affections, giving us strength according to our day.
Sinners flourish "like a green bay-tree"; but, looking farther, the
Psalmist could see their end--namely, the destruction of sin through
suffering.

Prayer is sometimes used, as a confessional to cancel sin.  This error
impedes true religion.  Sin is forgiven, only as it is destroyed by
Christ-Truth and Life If prayer nourishes the belief that sin is
cancelled, and that man is made better by merely praying, it is an evil.
He grows worse who continues in sin because he thinks himself forgiven.

An apostle says that the Son of God (Christ) came to "destroy the works
of the devil."  We should follow our divine Exemplar, and seek the
destruction of all evil works, error and disease included.  We cannot
escape the penalty due for sin.  The Scriptures say, that if we deny
Christ, "He also will deny us."

The divine Love corrects and governs man.  Men may pardon, but this
divine Principle alone reforms the sinner.  God is not separate from the
wisdom He bestows.  The talents He gives we must improve.  Calling on Him
to forgive our work, badly done or left undone, implies the vain
supposition that we have nothing to do but to ask pardon, and that
afterwards we shall be free to repeat the offence.

To cause suffering, as the result of sin, is the means of destroying sin.
Every supposed pleasure in sin will furnish more than its equivalent of
pain, until belief in material life and sin is destroyed.  To reach
heaven, the harmony of Being, we must understand the divine Principle of
Being.

"God is Love."  More than this we cannot ask; higher we cannot look;
farther we cannot go.  To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin,
according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love
and make prayer the safety-valve for wrong-doing.

Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before He cast it out.  Of a sick woman
He said that Satan had bound her; and to Peter He said, "Thou art an
offense unto me."  He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin,
sickness, and death.  He said of the fruitless tree, "It is hewn down."

It is believed by many that a certain magistrate, who lived in the time
of Jesus, left this record: "His rebuke is fearful."  The strong language
of our Master confirms this description.

The only civil sentence which He had for error was, "Get thee behind Me,
Satan."  Still stronger evidence that Jesus' reproof was pointed and
pungent is in His own words--showing the necessity for such forcible
utterance, when He cast out devils and healed the sick and sinful.  The
relinquishment of error deprives material sense of its false claims.

Audible prayer is impressive; it gives momentary solemnity and elevation
to thought; but does it produce any lasting benefit?  Looking deeply into
these things, we find that "a zeal .  .  .  not according to knowledge,"
gives occasion for reaction unfavorable to spiritual growth, sober
resolve, and wholesome perception of God's requirements.  The motives for
verbal prayer may embrace too much love of applause to induce or
encourage Christian sentiment.

Physical sensation, not Soul, produces material ecstasy, and emotions.
If spiritual sense always guided men at such times, there would grow out
of those ecstatic moments a higher experience and a better life, with
more devout self-abnegation, and purity.  A self-satisfied ventilation of
fervent sentiments never makes a Christian.  God is not influenced by
man.  The "divine ear" is not an auditorial nerve.  It is the
all-hearing and all-knowing Mind, to whom each want of man is always
known, and by whom it will be supplied.

The danger from audible prayer is, that it may lead us into temptation.
By it we may become involuntary hypocrites, uttering desires which are
not real, and consoling ourselves in the midst of sin, with the
recollection that we have prayed over it--or mean to ask forgiveness at
some later day.  Hypocrisy is fatal to religion.

A wordy prayer may afford a quiet sense of self-justification, though it
makes the sinner a hypocrite.  We never need despair of an honest heart,
but there is little hope for those who only come spasmodically face to
face with their wickedness, and then seek to hide it.  Their prayers are
indexes which do not correspond with their character.  They hold secret
fellowship with sin; and such externals are spoken of by Jesus as "like
unto whited sepulchres .  .  .  full of all uncleanness."

If a man, though apparently fervent and prayerful, is impure, and
therefore insincere, what must be the comment upon him?  If he had
reached the loftiness of his prayer, there would be no occasion for such
comment.  If we feel the aspiration, humility, gratitude, and love which
our words express--this God accepts; and it is wise not to try to deceive
ourselves or others, for "there is nothing covered that shall not be
revealed."  Professions and audible prayers are like charity in one
respect--they "cover a multitude of sins."  Praying for humility, with
whatever fervency of expression, does not always mean a desire for it.
If we turn away from the poor, we are not ready to receive the reward of
Him who blesses the poor.  We confess to having a very wicked heart, and
ask that it may be laid bare before us; but do we not already know more
of this heart than we are willing to have our neighbor see?

We ought to examine ourselves, and learn what is the affection and
purpose of the heart; for this alone can show us what we honestly are.
If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen to the rebuke patiently,
and credit what is said?  Do we not rather give thanks that we are "not
as other men?" During many years the author has been most grateful for
merited rebuke.  The sting lies in unmerited censure--in the falsehood
which does no one any good.

The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love
our neighbor better because of this asking?  Do we pursue the old
selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we
give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by living consistently
with our prayer?  If selfishness has given place to kindness, we shall
regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them that curse us; but we
shall never meet this great duty by simply asking that it may be done.
There is a cross to be taken up, before we can enjoy the fruition of our
hope and faith.

Dost thou "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind?" This command includes much--even the
surrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship.  This
is the El Dorado of Christianity.  It involves the Science of Life, and
recognizes only the divine control of Spirit, wherein Soul is our master,
and material sense and human will have no place.

Are you willing to leave all for Christ, for Truth, and so be counted
among sinners?  No!  Do you really desire to attain this point?  No!
Then why make long prayers about it, and ask to be Christians, since you
care not to tread in the footsteps of our dear Master?  If unwilling to
follow His example, wherefore pray with the lips that you may be
partakers of His nature?  Consistent prayer is the desire to do right.
Prayer means that we desire to, and will, walk in the light so far as we
receive it, even though with bleeding footsteps, and waiting patiently on
the Lord, will leave our real desires to be rewarded by Him.

The world must grow to the spiritual understanding of prayer.  If good
enough to profit by Jesus' cup of earthly sorrows, God will sustain us
under these sorrows.  Until we are thus divinely qualified, and willing
to drink His cup, millions of vain repetitions will never pour into
prayer the unction of Spirit, in demonstration of power, and "with signs
following."  Christian Science reveals a necessity for overcoming the
world, the flesh and evil, and thus destroying all error.

Seeking is not sufficient.  It is striving which enables us to enter.
Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of the
divine Life.

One of the forms of worship in Thibet is to carry a praying-machine
through the streets, and stop at the doors to earn a penny by grinding
out a prayer; whereas civilization pays for clerical prayers, in lofty
edifices.  Is the difference very great, after all?

Experience teaches us that we do not always receive the blessings we ask
for in prayer.

There is some misapprehension of the source and means of all goodness and
blessedness, or we should certainly receive what we ask for.  The
Scriptures say: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye
may consume it upon your lusts."  What we desire and ask for it is not
always best for us to receive.  In this case infinite Love will not grant
the request.  Do you ask Wisdom to be merciful and not punish sin?  Then
"ye ask amiss."  Without punishment, sin would multiply.  Jesus' prayer,
"forgive us our debts," specified also the terms of forgiveness.  When
forgiving the adulterous woman He said, "Go, and sin no more."

A magistrate sometimes remits the penalty, but this may be no moral
benefit to the criminal; and at best, it only saves him from one form of
punishment.  The moral law, which has the right to acquit or condemn,
always demands restitution, before mortals can "go up higher."  Broken
law brings penalty, in order to compel this progress.

Mere legal pardon (and there is no other, for divine Principle never
pardons our sins or mistakes till they are corrected) leaves the offender
free to repeat the offense; if, indeed, he has not already suffered
sufficiently from vice to make him turn from it with loathing.  Truth
bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the most effectual
manner.  Jesus suffered for our sins, not to annul the divine sentence
against an individual's sin, but to show that sin must bring inevitable
suffering.

Petitions only bring to mortals the results of their own faith.  We know
that a desire for holiness is requisite in order to gain it; but if we
desire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it.  We
must be willing to do this, that we may walk securely in the only
practical road to holiness.  Prayer alone cannot change the unalterable
Truth, or give us an understanding of it; but prayer coupled with a
fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God will bring us into
all Truth.  Such a desire has little need of audible expression.  It is
best expressed in thought and life.




APPENDIX E

Reverend Heber Newton on Christian Science:

To begin, then, at the beginning, Christian Science accepts the work of
healing sickness as an integral part of the discipleship of Jesus Christ.
In Christ it finds, what the Church has always recognized, theoretically,
though it has practically ignored the fact--the Great Physician.  That
Christ healed the sick, we none of us question.  It stands plainly upon
the record.  This ministry of healing was too large a part of His work to
be left out from any picture of that life.  Such service was not an
incident of His career--it was an essential element of that career.  It
was an integral factor in His mission.  The Evangelists leave us no
possibility of confusion on this point.  Co-equal with his work of
instruction and inspiration was His work of healing.

The records make it equally clear that the Master laid His charge upon
His disciples to do as He had done.  "When He had called unto Him His
twelve disciples, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them
out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease."  In
sending them forth, "He commanded them, saying, .  .  .  As ye go,
preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.  Heal the sick, cleanse
the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons."

That the twelve disciples undertook to do the Master's work of healing,
and that they, in their measure, succeeded, seems beyond question.  They
found in themselves the same power that the Master found in Himself, and
they used it as He had used His power.  The record of The Acts of the
Apostles, if at all trustworthy history, shows that they, too, healed the
sick.

Beyond the circle of the original twelve, it is equally clear that the
early disciples believed themselves charged with the same mission, and
that they sought to fulfil it.  The records of the early Church make it
indisputable that powers of healing were recognized as among the gifts of
the Spirit.  St.  Paul's letters render it certain that these gifts were
not a privilege of the original twelve, merely, but that they were the
heritage into which all the disciples entered.

Beyond the era of the primitive Church, through several generations, the
early Christians felt themselves called to the same ministry of healing,
and enabled with the same secret of power.  Through wellnigh three
centuries, the gifts of healing appear to have been, more or less,
recognized and exercised in the Church.  Through those generations,
however, there was a gradual disuse of this power, following upon a
failing recognition of its possession.  That which was originally the
rule became the exception.  By degrees, the sense of authority and power
to heal passed out from the consciousness of the Church.  It ceased to be
a sign of the indwelling Spirit.  For fifteen centuries, the recognition
of this authority and power has been altogether exceptional.  Here and
there, through the history of these centuries, there have been those who
have entered into this belief of their own privilege and duty, and have
used the gift which they recognized.  The Church has never been left
without a line of witnesses to this aspect of the discipleship of Christ.
But she has come to accept it as the normal order of things that what was
once the rule in the Christian Church should be now only the exception.
Orthodoxy has framed a theory of the words of Jesus to account for this
strange departure of His Church from them.  It teaches us to believe that
His example was not meant to be followed, in this respect, by all His
disciples.  The power of healing which was in Him was a purely
exceptional power.  It was used as an evidence of His divine mission.  It
was a miraculous gift.  The gift of working miracles was not bestowed
upon His Church at large.  His original disciples, the twelve apostles,
received this gift, as a necessity of the critical epoch of Christianity
--the founding of the Church.  Traces of the power lingered on, in
weakening activity, until they gradually ceased, and the normal condition
of the Church was entered upon, in which miracles are no longer possible.


We accept this, unconsciously, as the true state of things in
Christianity.  But it is a conception which will not bear a moment's
examination.  There is not the slightest suggestion upon record that
Christ set any limit to this charge which He gave His disciples.  On the
contrary, there are not lacking hints that He looked for the possession
and exercise of this power wherever His spirit breathed in men.

Even if the concluding paragraph of St. Mark's Gospel were a later
appendix, it may none the less have been a faithful echo of words of the
Master, as it certainly is a trustworthy record of the belief of the
early Christians as to the thought of Jesus concerning His followers.  In
that interesting passage, Jesus, after His death, appeared to the eleven,
and formally commissioned them, again, to take up His work in the world;
bidding them, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature."  "And these signs," He tells them, "shall follow them that
believe"--not the apostles only, but "them that believe," without limit
of time; "in My name they shall cast out devils .  .  .  they shall lay
hands on the sick and they shall recover."  The concluding discourse to
the disciples, recorded in the Gospel according to St.  John, affirms the
same expectation on the part of Jesus; emphasizing it in His solemn way:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that
I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do."




APPENDIX F

Few will deny that an intelligence apart from man formed and governs the
spiritual universe and man; and this intelligence is the eternal Mind,
and neither matter nor man created this intelligence and divine
Principle; nor can this Principle produce aught unlike itself.  All that
we term sin, sickness, and death is comprised in the belief of matter.
The realm of the real is spiritual; the opposite of Spirit is matter; and
the opposite of the real is unreal or material.  Matter is an error of
statement, for there is no matter.  This error of premises leads to error
of conclusion in every statement of matter as a basis.  Nothing we can
say or believe regarding matter is true, except that matter is unreal,
simply a belief that has its beginning and ending.

The conservative firm called matter and mind God never formed.  The
unerring and eternal Mind destroys this imaginary copartnership, formed
only to be dissolved in a manner and at a period unknown.  This
copartnership is obsolete.  Placed under the microscope of metaphysics
matter disappears.  Only by understanding there are not two, matter and
mind, is a logical and correct conclusion obtained by either one.
Science gathers not grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.  Intelligence
never produced non-intelligence, such as matter: the immortal never
produced mortality, good never resulted in evil.  The science of Mind
shows conclusively that matter is a myth.  Metaphysics are above physics,
and drag not matter, or what is termed that, into one of its premises or
conclusions.  Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges
the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.  These ideas are perfectly
tangible and real to consciousness, and they have this advantage--they
are eternal.  Mind and its thoughts comprise the whole of God, the
universe, and of man.  Reason and revelation coincide with this
statement, and support its proof every hour, for nothing is harmonious or
eternal that is not spiritual: the realization of this will bring out
objects from a higher source of thought; hence more beautiful and
immortal.

The fact of spiritualization produces results in striking contrast to the
farce of materialization: the one produces the results of chastity and
purity, the other the downward tendencies and earthward gravitation of
sensualism and impurity.

The exalting and healing effects of metaphysics show their fountain.
Nothing in pathology has exceeded the application of metaphysics.
Through mind alone we have prevented disease and preserved health.  In
cases of chronic and acute diseases, in their severest forms, we have
changed the secretions, renewed structure, and restored health; have
elongated shortened limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, made cicatrized joints
supple; restored carious bones to healthy conditions, renewed that which
is termed the lost substance of the lungs; and restored healthy
organizations where disease was organic instead of functional.




MRS. EDDY IN ERROR

I feel almost sure that Mrs. Eddy's inspiration--works are getting out of
repair.  I think so because they made some errors in a statement which
she uttered through the press on the 17th of January.  Not large ones,
perhaps, still it is a friend's duty to straighten such things out and
get them right when he can.  Therefore I will put my other duties aside
for a moment and undertake this helpful service.  She said as follows:

"In view of the circulation of certain criticisms from the pen of Mark
Twain, I submit the following statement:

"It is a fact, well understood, that I begged the students who first gave
me the endearing appellative 'mother' not to name me thus.  But, without
my consent, that word spread like wildfire.  I still must think the name
is not applicable to me.  I stand in relation to this century as a
Christian discoverer, founder, and leader.  I regard self-deification as
blasphemous; I may be more loved, but I am less lauded, pampered,
provided for, and cheered than others before me--and wherefore?  Because
Christian Science is not yet popular, and I refuse adulation.

"My visit to the Mother-Church after it was built and dedicated pleased
me, and the situation was satisfactory.  The dear members wanted to greet
me with escort and the ringing of bells, but I declined, and went alone
in my carriage to the church, entered it, and knelt in thanks upon the
steps of its altar.  There the foresplendor of the beginnings of truth
fell mysteriously upon my spirit.  I believe in one Christ, teach one
Christ, know of but one Christ.  I believe in but one incarnation, one
Mother Mary, and know I am not that one, and never claimed to be.  It
suffices me to learn the Science of the Scriptures relative to this
subject.

"Christian Scientists have no quarrel with Protestants, Catholics, or any
other sect.  They need to be understood as following the divine Principle
God, Love and not imagined to be unscientific worshippers of a human
being.

"In the aforesaid article, of which I have seen only extracts, Mark
Twain's wit was not wasted In certain directions.  Christian Science
eschews divine rights in human beings.  If the individual governed human
consciousness, my statement of Christian Science would be disproved, but
to understand the spiritual idea is essential to demonstrate Science and
its pure monotheism--one God, one Christ, no idolatry, no human
propaganda.  Jesus taught and proved that what feeds a few feeds all.
His life-work subordinated the material to the spiritual, and He left
this legacy of truth to mankind.  His metaphysics is not the sport of
philosophy, religion, or Science; rather it is the pith and finale of
them all.

"I have not the inspiration or aspiration to be a first or second
Virgin-Mother--her duplicate, antecedent, or subsequent.  What I am
remains to be proved by the good I do.  We need much humility, wisdom,
and love to perform the functions of foreshadowing and foretasting heaven
within us. This glory is molten in the furnace of affliction."

She still thinks the name of Our Mother not applicable to her; and she is
also able to remember that it distressed her when it was conferred upon
her, and that she begged to have it suppressed.  Her memory is at fault
here.  If she will take her By-laws, and refer to Section 1 of Article
XXII., written with her own hand--she will find that she has reserved
that title to herself, and is so pleased with it, and so--may we say
jealous?--about it, that she threatens with excommunication any sister
Scientist who shall call herself by it.  This is that Section 1:

"The Title of Mother.  In the year 1895 loyal Christian Scientists had
given to the author of their text-book, the Founder of Christian Science,
the individual, endearing term of Mother.  Therefore, if a student of
Christian Science shall apply this title, either to herself or to others,
except as the term for kinship according to the flesh, it shall be
regarded by the Church as an indication of disrespect for their Pastor
Emeritus, and unfitness to be a member of the Mother-Church."

Mrs. Eddy is herself the Mother-Church--its powers and authorities are in
her possession solely--and she can abolish that title whenever it may
please her to do so.  She has only to command her people, wherever they
may be in the earth, to use it no more, and it will never be uttered
again.  She is aware of this.

It may be that she "refuses adulation" when she is not awake, but when
she is awake she encourages it and propagates it in that museum called
"Our Mother's Room," in her Church in Boston.  She could abolish that
institution with a word, if she wanted to.  She is aware of that.  I will
say a further word about the museum presently.

Further down the column, her memory is unfaithful again:

"I believe in .  .  .  but one Mother Mary, and know I am not that one,
and never claimed to be."

At a session of the National Christian Science Association, held in the
city of New York on the 27th of May, 1890, the secretary was "instructed
to send to our Mother greetings and words of affection from her assembled
children."

Her telegraphic response was read to the Association at next day's
meeting:

"All hail!  He hath filled the hungry with good things and the sick hath
He not sent empty away.--MOTHER MARY."

Which Mother Mary is this one?  Are there two?  If so, she is both of
them; for, when she signed this telegram in this satisfied and
unprotesting way, the Mother-title which she was going to so strenuously
object to, and put from her with humility, and seize with both hands, and
reserve as her sole property, and protect her monopoly of it with a stern
By-law, while recognizing with diffidence that it was "not applicable" to
her (then and to-day)--that Mother--title was not yet born, and would not
be offered to her until five years later.  The date of the above "Mother
Mary" is 1890; the "individual, endearing title of Mother" was given her
"in 1895"--according to her own testimony.  See her By-law quoted above.

In his opening Address to that Convention of 1890, the President
recognized this Mary--our Mary-and abolished all previous ones.  He said:

"There is but one Moses, one Jesus; and there is but one Mary."

The confusions being now dispersed, we have this clarified result:

Were had been a Moses at one time, and only one; there had been a Jesus
at one time, and only one; there is a Mary and "only one."  She is not a
Has Been, she is an Is--the "Author of Science and Health; and we cannot
ignore her."

1.  In 1890, there was but one Mother Mary.  The President said so.
2.  Mrs. Eddy was that one.  She said so, in signing the telegram.
3.  Mrs. Eddy was not that one for she says so, in her Associated Press
utterance of January 17th.
4.  And has "never claimed to be that one"--unless the signature to the
telegram is a claim.

Thus it stands proven and established that she is that Mary and isn't,
and thought she was and knows she wasn't.  That much is clear.

She is also "The Mother," by the election of 1895, and did not want the
title, and thinks it is not applicable to her, end will excommunicate any
one that tries to take it away from her.  So that is clear.

I think that the only really troublesome confusion connected with these
particular matters has arisen from the name Mary.  Much vexation, much
misunderstanding, could have been avoided if Mrs. Eddy had used some of
her other names in place of that one.  "Mother Mary" was certain to stir
up discussion.  It would have been much better if she had signed the
telegram "Mother Baker"; then there would have been no Biblical
competition, and, of course, that is a thing to avoid.  But it is not too
late, yet.

I wish to break in here with a parenthesis, and then take up this
examination of Mrs. Eddy's Claim of January 17th again.

The history of her "Mother Mary" telegram--as told to me by one who ought
to be a very good authority--is curious and interesting.  The telegram
ostensibly quotes verse 53 from the "Magnificat," but really makes some
pretty formidable changes in it.  This is St.  Luke's version:

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent
empty away."

This is "Mother Mary's" telegraphed version:

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the sick hath He not
sent empty away."

To judge by the Official Report, the bursting of this bombshell in that
massed convention of trained Christians created no astonishment, since it
caused no remark, and the business of the convention went tranquilly on,
thereafter, as if nothing had happened.

Did those people detect those changes?  We cannot know.  I think they
must have noticed them, the wording of St.  Luke's verse being as
familiar to all Christians as is the wording of the Beatitudes; and I
think that the reason the new version provoked no surprise and no comment
was, that the assemblage took it for a "Key"--a spiritualized explanation
of verse 53, newly sent down from heaven through Mrs. Eddy.  For all
Scientists study their Bibles diligently, and they know their Magnificat.
I believe that their confidence in the authenticity of Mrs. Eddy's
inspirations is so limitless and so firmly established that no change,
however violent, which she might make in a Bible text could disturb their
composure or provoke from them a protest.

Her improved rendition of verse 53 went into the convention's report and
appeared in a New York paper the next day.  The (at that time) Scientist
whom I mentioned a minute ago, and who had not been present at the
convention, saw it and marvelled; marvelled and was indignant--indignant
with the printer or the telegrapher, for making so careless and so
dreadful an error.  And greatly distressed, too; for, of course, the
newspaper people would fall foul of it, and be sarcastic, and make fun of
it, and have a blithe time over it, and be properly thankful for the
chance.  It shows how innocent he was; it shows that he did not know the
limitations of newspaper men in the matter of Biblical knowledge.  The
new verse 53 raised no insurrection in the press; in fact, it was not
even remarked upon; I could have told him the boys would not know there
was anything the matter with it.  I have been a newspaper man myself, and
in those days I had my limitations like the others.

The Scientist hastened to Concord and told Mrs. Eddy what a disastrous
mistake had been made, but he found to his bewilderment that she was
tranquil about it, and was not proposing to correct it.  He was not able
to get her to promise to make a correction.  He asked her secretary if he
had heard aright when the telegram was dictated to him; the secretary
said he had, and took the filed copy of it and verified its authenticity
by comparing it with the stenographic notes.

Mrs. Eddy did make the correction, two months later, in her official
organ.  It attracted no attention among the Scientists; and, naturally,
none elsewhere, for that periodical's circulation was practically
confined to disciples of the cult.

That is the tale as it was told to me by an ex-Scientist.  Verse 53
--renovated and spiritualized--had a narrow escape from a tremendous
celebrity.  The newspaper men would have made it as famous as the
assassination of Caesar, but for their limitations.

To return to the Claim.  I find myself greatly embarrassed by Mrs. Eddy's
remark: "I regard self-deification as blasphemous."  If she is right
about that, I have written a half-ream of manuscript this past week which
I must not print, either in the book which I am writing, or elsewhere:
for it goes into that very matter with extensive elaboration, citing, in
detail, words and acts of Mrs. Eddy's which seem to me to prove that she
is a faithful and untiring worshipper of herself, and has carried
self-deification to a length which has not been before ventured in ages.
If ever.  There is not room enough in this chapter for that Survey, but I
can epitomize a portion of it here.

With her own untaught and untrained mind, and without outside help, she
has erected upon a firm and lasting foundation the most minutely perfect,
and wonderful, and smoothly and exactly working, and best safe-guarded
system of government that has yet been devised in the world, as I
believe, and as I am sure I could prove if I had room for my documentary
evidences here.

It is a despotism (on this democratic soil); a sovereignty more absolute
than the Roman Papacy, more absolute than the Russian Czarship; it has
not a single power, not a shred of authority, legislative or executive,
which is not lodged solely in the sovereign; all its dreams, its
functions, its energies, have a single object, a single reason for
existing, and only the one--to build to the sky the glory of the
sovereign, and keep it bright to the end of time.

Mrs. Eddy is the sovereign; she devised that great place for herself, she
occupies that throne.

In 1895, she wrote a little primer, a little body of autocratic laws,
called the Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and put those
laws in force, in permanence.  Her government is all there; all in that
deceptively innocent-looking little book, that cunning little devilish
book, that slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in its bowels.  In
that book she has planned out her system, and classified and defined its
purposes and powers.




MAIN PARTS OF THE MACHINE

A Supreme Church.  At Boston.
Branch Churches.  All over the world
One Pastor for the whole of them: to wit, her book, Science and Health.
Term of the book's office--forever.

In every C.S. pulpit, two "Readers," a man and a woman.  No talkers, no
preachers, in any Church-readers only.  Readers of the Bible and her
books--no others.  No commentators allowed to write or print.

A Church Service.  She has framed it--for all the C.S. Churches
--selected its readings, its prayers, and the hymns to be used, and has
appointed the order of procedure.  No changes permitted.

A Creed.  She wrote it.  All C.S. Churches must subscribe to it.  No
other permitted.

A Treasury.  At Boston.  She carries the key.

A C.S. Book--Publishing House.  For books approved by her.  No others
permitted.

Journals and Magazines.  These are organs of hers, and are controlled by
her.

A College.  For teaching C.S.




DISTRIBUTION OF THE MACHINE'S POWERS AND DIGNITIES

Supreme Church.
Pastor Emeritus--Mrs. Eddy.
Board of Directors.
Board of Education.
Board of Finance.
College Faculty.
Various Committees.
Treasurer.
Clerk.
First Members (of the Supreme Church).
Members of the Supreme Church.

It looks fair, it looks real, but it is all a fiction.

Even the little "Pastor Emeritus" is a fiction.  Instead of being merely
an honorary and ornamental official, Mrs. Eddy is the only official in
the entire body that has the slightest power.  In her Manual, she has
provided a prodigality of ways and forms whereby she can rid herself of
any functionary in the government whenever she wants to.  The officials
are all shadows, save herself; she is the only reality.  She allows no
one to hold office more than a year--no one gets a chance to become
over-popular or over-useful, and dangerous.  "Excommunication" is the
favorite penalty-it is threatened at every turn.  It is evidently the pet
dread and terror of the Church's membership.

The member who thinks, without getting his thought from Mrs. Eddy before
uttering it, is banished permanently.  One or two kinds of sinners can
plead their way back into the fold, but this one, never.  To think--in
the Supreme Church--is the New Unpardonable Sin.

To nearly every severe and fierce rule, Mrs. Eddy adds this rivet: "This
By-law shall not be changed without the consent of the Pastor Emeritus."

Mrs. Eddy is the entire Supreme Church, in her own person, in the matter
of powers and authorities.

Although she has provided so many ways of getting rid of unsatisfactory
members and officials, she was still afraid she might have left a
life-preserver lying around somewhere, therefore she devised a rule to
cover that defect.  By applying it, she can excommunicate (and this is
perpetual again) every functionary connected with the Supreme Church, and
every one of the twenty-five thousand members of that Church, at an
hour's notice--and do it all by herself without anybody's help.

By authority of this astonishing By-law, she has only to say a person
connected with that Church is secretly practicing hypnotism or mesmerism;
whereupon, immediate excommunication, without a hearing, is his portion!
She does not have to order a trial and produce evidence--her accusation
is all that is necessary.

Where is the Pope? and where the Czar?  As the ballad says:

     "Ask of the winds that far away
     With fragments strewed the sea!"

The Branch Church's pulpit is occupied by two "Readers."  Without them
the Branch Church is as dead as if its throat had been cut.  To have
control, then, of the Readers, is to have control of the Branch Churches.
Mrs. Eddy has that control--a control wholly without limit, a control
shared with no one.

1.  No Reader can be appointed to any Church in the Christian Science
world without her express approval.

2.  She can summarily expel from his or her place any Reader, at home or
abroad, by a mere letter of dismissal, over her signature, and without
furnishing any reason for it, to either the congregation or the Reader.

Thus she has as absolute control over all Branch Churches as she has over
the Supreme Church.  This power exceeds the Pope's.

In simple truth, she is the only absolute sovereign in all Christendom.
The authority of the other sovereigns has limits, hers has none, none
whatever.  And her yoke does not fret, does not offend.  Many of the
subjects of the other monarchs feel their yoke, and are restive under it;
their loyalty is insincere.  It is not so with this one's human property;
their loyalty is genuine, earnest, sincere, enthusiastic.  The sentiment
which they feel for her is one which goes out in sheer perfection to no
other occupant of a throne; for it is love, pure from doubt, envy,
exaction, fault-seeking, a love whose sun has no spot--that form of love,
strong, great, uplifting, limitless, whose vast proportions are
compassable by no word but one, the prodigious word, Worship.  And it is
not as a human being that her subjects worship her, but as a supernatural
one, a divine one, one who has comradeship with God, and speaks by His
voice.

Mrs. Eddy has herself created all these personal grandeurs and
autocracies--with others which I have not (in this article) mentioned.
They place her upon an Alpine solitude and supremacy of power and
spectacular show not hitherto attained by any other self-seeking enslaver
disguised in the Christian name, and they persuade me that, although she
may regard "self-deification as blasphemous," she is as fond of it as I
am of pie.

She knows about "Our Mother's Room" in the Supreme Church in Boston
--above referred to--for she has been in it.  In a recently published
North American Review article, I quoted a lady as saying Mrs. Eddy's
portrait could be seen there in a shrine, lit by always-burning lights,
and that C.S. disciples came and worshiped it.  That remark hurt the
feelings of more than one Scientist.  They said it was not true, and
asked me to correct it.  I comply with pleasure.  Whether the portrait
was there four years ago or not, it is not there now, for I have
inquired.  The only object in the shrine now, and lit by electrics--and
worshiped--is an oil-portrait of the horse-hair chair Mrs. Eddy used to
sit in when she was writing Science and Health!  It seems to me that
adulation has struck bottom, here.

Mrs. Eddy knows about that.  She has been there, she has seen it, she has
seen the worshippers.  She could abolish that sarcasm with a word.  She
withholds the word.  Once more I seem to recognize in her exactly the
same appetite for self-deification that I have for pie.  We seem to be
curiously alike; for the love of self-deification is really only the
spiritual form of the material appetite for pie, and nothing could be
more strikingly Christian-Scientifically "harmonious."

I note this phrase:

"Christian Science eschews divine rights in human beings."

"Rights" is vague; I do not know what it means there.  Mrs. Eddy is not
well acquainted with the English language, and she is seldom able to say
in it what she is trying to say.  She has no ear for the exact word, and
does not often get it.  "Rights."  Does it mean "honors?" "attributes?"

"Eschews."  This is another umbrella where there should be a torch; it
does not illumine the sentence, it only deepens the shadows.  Does she
mean "denies?" "refuses?" "forbids?" or something in that line?  Does she
mean:

"Christian Science denies divine honors to human beings?" Or:

"Christian Science refuses to recognize divine attributes in human
beings?" Or:

"Christian Science forbids the worship of human beings?"

The bulk of the succeeding sentence is to me a tunnel, but, when I emerge
at this end of it, I seem to come into daylight.  Then I seem to
understand both sentences--with this result:

"Christian Science recognizes but one God, forbids the worship of human
beings, and refuses to recognize the possession of divine attributes by
any member of the race."

I am subject to correction, but I think that that is about what Mrs. Eddy
was intending to convey.  Has her English--which is always difficult to
me--beguiled me into misunderstanding the following remark, which she
makes (calling herself "we," after an old regal fashion of hers) in her
preface to her Miscellaneous Writings?

"While we entertain decided views as to the best method for elevating the
race physically, morally, and spiritually, and shall express these views
as duty demands, we shall claim no especial gift from our divine organ,
no supernatural power."

Was she meaning to say:

"Although I am of divine origin and gifted with supernatural power, I
shall not draw upon these resources in determining the best method of
elevating the race?"

If she had left out the word "our," she might then seem to say:

"I claim no especial or unusual degree of divine origin--"

Which is awkward--most awkward; for one either has a divine origin or
hasn't; shares in it, degrees of it, are surely impossible.  The idea of
crossed breeds in cattle is a thing we can entertain, for we are used to
it, and it is possible; but the idea of a divine mongrel is unthinkable.

Well, then, what does she mean?  I am sure I do not know, for certain.
It is the word "our" that makes all the trouble.  With the "our" in, she
is plainly saying "my divine origin."  The word "from" seems to be
intended to mean "on account of."  It has to mean that or nothing, if
"our" is allowed to stay.  The clause then says:

"I shall claim no especial gift on account of my divine origin."

And I think that the full sentence was intended to mean what I have
already suggested:

"Although I am of divine origin, and gifted with supernatural power, I
shall not draw upon these resources in determining the best method of
elevating the race."

When Mrs. Eddy copyrighted that Preface seven years ago, she had long
been used to regarding herself as a divine personage.  I quote from Mr.
F. W. Peabody's book:

"In the Christian Science Journal for April, 1889, when it was her
property, and published by her, it was claimed for her, and with her
sanction, that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort was made to
establish the claim."

"Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized the claim in her behalf, that she
herself was the chosen successor to and equal of Jesus."

The following remark in that April number, quoted by Mr. Peabody,
indicates that her claim had been previously made, and had excited
"horror" among some "good people":

"Now, a word about the horror many good people have of our making the
Author of Science and Health 'equal with Jesus.'"

Surely, if it had excited horror in Mrs. Eddy also, she would have
published a disclaimer.  She owned the paper; she could say what she
pleased in its columns.  Instead of rebuking her editor, she lets him
rebuke those "good people" for objecting to the claim.

These things seem to throw light upon those words, "our [my] divine
origin."

It may be that "Christian Science eschews divine rights in human beings,"
and forbids worship of any but "one God, one Christ"; but, if that is the
case, it looks as if Mrs. Eddy is a very unsound Christian Scientist,
and needs disciplining.  I believe she has a serious malady
--"self-deification"; and that it will be well to have one of the
experts demonstrate over it.

Meantime, let her go on living--for my sake.  Closely examined,
painstakingly studied, she is easily the most interesting person on the
planet, and, in several ways, as easily the most extraordinary woman that
was ever born upon it.


P.S.--Since I wrote the foregoing, Mr. McCrackan's article appeared (in
the March number of the North American Review).  Before his article
appeared--that is to say, during December, January, and February--I had
written a new book, a character-portrait of Mrs. Eddy, drawn from her own
acts and words, and it was then--together with the three brief articles
previously published in the North American Review--ready to be delivered
to the printer for issue in book form.  In that book, by accident and
good luck, I have answered the objections made by Mr. McCrackan to my
views, and therefore do not need to add an answer here.  Also, in it I
have corrected certain misstatements of mine which he has noticed, and
several others which he has not referred to.  There are one or two
important matters of opinion upon which he and I are not in disagreement;
but there are others upon which we must continue to disagree, I suppose;
indeed, I know we must; for instance, he believes Mrs. Eddy wrote Science
and Health, whereas I am quite sure I can convince a person unhampered by
predilections that she did not.

As concerns one considerable matter I hope to convert him.  He believes
Mrs. Eddy's word; in his article he cites her as a witness, and takes her
testimony at par; but if he will make an excursion through my book when
it comes out, and will dispassionately examine her testimonies as there
accumulated, I think he will in candor concede that she is by a large
percentage the most erratic and contradictory and untrustworthy witness
that has occupied the stand since the days of the lamented Ananias.




CONCLUSION

Broadly speaking, the hostiles reject and repudiate all the pretensions
of Christian Science Christianity.  They affirm that it has added nothing
new to Christianity; that it can do nothing that Christianity could not
do and was not doing before Christian Science was born.

In that case is there no field for the new Christianity, no opportunity
for usefulness, precious usefulness, great and distinguished usefulness?
I think there is.  I am far from being confident that it can fill it, but
I will indicate that unoccupied field--without charge--and if it can
conquer it, it will deserve the praise and gratitude of the Christian
world, and will get it, I am sure.

The present Christianity makes an excellent private Christian, but its
endeavors to make an excellent public one go for nothing, substantially.

This is an honest nation--in private life.  The American Christian is a
straight and clean and honest man, and in his private commerce with his
fellows can be trusted to stand faithfully by the principles of honor and
honesty imposed upon him by his religion.  But the moment he comes
forward to exercise a public trust he can be confidently counted upon to
betray that trust in nine cases out of ten, if "party loyalty" shall
require it.

If there are two tickets in the field in his city, one composed of honest
men and the other of notorious blatherskites and criminals, he will not
hesitate to lay his private Christian honor aside and vote for the
blatherskites if his "party honor" shall exact it.  His Christianity is
of no use to him and has no influence upon him when he is acting in a
public capacity.  He has sound and sturdy private morals, but he has no
public ones.  In the last great municipal election in New York, almost a
complete one-half of the votes representing 3,500,000 Christians were
cast for a ticket that had hardly a man on it whose earned and proper
place was outside of a jail.  But that vote was present at church next
Sunday the same as ever, and as unconscious of its perfidy as if nothing
had happened.

Our Congresses consist of Christians.  In their private life they are
true to every obligation of honor; yet in every session they violate them
all, and do it without shame; because honor to party is above honor to
themselves.  It is an accepted law of public life that in it a man may
soil his honor in the interest of party expediency--must do it when
party expediency requires it.  In private life those men would bitterly
resent--and justly--any insinuation that it would not be safe to leave
unwatched money within their reach; yet you could not wound their
feelings by reminding them that every time they vote ten dollars to the
pension appropriation nine of it is stolen money and they the marauders.
They have filched the money to take care of the party; they believe it
was right to do it; they do not see how their private honor is affected;
therefore their consciences are clear and at rest.  By vote they do
wrongful things every day, in the party interest, which they could not be
persuaded to do in private life.  In the interest of party expediency
they give solemn pledges, they make solemn compacts; in the interest of
party expediency they repudiate them without a blush.  They would not
dream of committing these strange crimes in private life.

Now then, can Christian Science introduce the Congressional Blush?  There
are Christian Private Morals, but there are no Christian Public Morals,
at the polls, or in Congress or anywhere else--except here and there and
scattered around like lost comets in the solar system.  Can Christian
Science persuade the nation and Congress to throw away their public
morals and use none but their private ones henceforth in all their
activities, both public and private?

I do not think so; but no matter about me: there is the field--a grand
one, a splendid one, a sublime one, and absolutely unoccupied.  Has
Christian Science confidence enough in itself to undertake to enter in
and try to possess it?

Make the effort, Christian Science; it is a most noble cause, and it
might succeed.  It could succeed.  Then we should have a new literature,
with romances entitled, How To Be an Honest Congressman Though a
Christian; How To Be a Creditable Citizen Though a Christian.


End of Project Gutenberg's Christian Science, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)






EXTRACT FROM CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN



CHAPTER I



Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little
anxious.  Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like
a comet.  LIKE a comet!  Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them!  Of
course there warn't any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you
know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso,
whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the Hereafter; but I
happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour or
so, and then we had a bit of a brush together.  But it was generally
pretty one-sided, because I sailed by them the same as if they were
standing still.  An ordinary comet don't make more than about 200,000
miles a minute. Of course when I came across one of that sort--like
Encke's and Halley's comets, for instance--it warn't anything but just a
flash and a vanish, you see.  You couldn't rightly call it a race.  It
was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph despatch.
But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I used to flush a
comet occasionally that was something LIKE.  WE haven't got any such
comets--ours don't begin.  One night I was swinging along at a good round
gait, everything taut and trim, and the wind in my favor--I judged I was
going about a million miles a minute--it might have been more, it
couldn't have been less--when I flushed a most uncommonly big one about
three points off my starboard bow.  By his stern lights I judged he was
bearing about northeast-and-by-north-half-east.  Well, it was so near my
course that I wouldn't throw away the chance; so I fell off a point,
steadied my helm, and went for him.  You should have heard me whiz, and
seen the electric fur fly!  In about a minute and a half I was fringed
out with an electrical nimbus that flamed around for miles and miles and
lit up all space like broad day.  The comet was burning blue in the
distance, like a sickly torch, when I first sighted him, but he begun to
grow bigger and bigger as I crept up on him.  I slipped up on him so fast
that when I had gone about 150,000,000 miles I was close enough to be
swallowed up in the phosphorescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't see
anything for the glare.  Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I
shunted to one side and tore along.  By and by I closed up abreast of his
tail.  Do you know what it was like?  It was like a gnat closing up on
the continent of America.  I forged along.  By and by I had sailed along
his coast for a little upwards of a hundred and fifty million miles, and
then I could see by the shape of him that I hadn't even got up to his
waistband yet.  Why, Peters, WE don't know anything about comets, down
here.  If you want to see comets that ARE comets, you've got to go
outside of our solar system --where there's room for them, you
understand.  My friend, I've seen comets out there that couldn't even lay
down inside the ORBITS of our noblest comets without their tails hanging
over.

Well, I boomed along another hundred and fifty million miles, and got up
abreast his shoulder, as you may say.  I was feeling pretty fine, I tell
you; but just then I noticed the officer of the deck come to the side and
hoist his glass in my direction.  Straight off I heard him sing
out--"Below there, ahoy!  Shake her up, shake her up!  Heave on a hundred
million billion tons of brimstone!"

"Ay-ay, sir!"

"Pipe the stabboard watch!  All hands on deck!"

"Ay-ay, sir!"

"Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake out royals and
sky-scrapers!"

"Ay-ay, sir!"

"Hand the stuns'ls!  Hang out every rag you've got!  Clothe her from stem
to rudder-post!"

"Ay-ay, sir!"

In about a second I begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly customer,
Peters.  In less than ten seconds that comet was just a blazing cloud of
red-hot canvas.  It was piled up into the heavens clean out of sight--the
old thing seemed to swell out and occupy all space; the sulphur smoke
from the furnaces--oh, well, nobody can describe the way it rolled and
tumbled up into the skies, and nobody can half describe the way it smelt.
Neither can anybody begin to describe the way that monstrous craft begun
to crash along.  And such another powwow--thousands of bo's'n's whistles
screaming at once, and a crew like the populations of a hundred thousand
worlds like ours all swearing at once.  Well, I never heard the like of
it before.

We roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our level best,
because I'd never struck a comet before that could lay over me, and so I
was bound to beat this one or break something.  I judged I had some
reputation in space, and I calculated to keep it. I noticed I wasn't
gaining as fast, now, as I was before, but still I was gaining.  There
was a power of excitement on board the comet. Upwards of a hundred
billion passengers swarmed up from below and rushed to the side and begun
to bet on the race.  Of course this careened her and damaged her speed.
My, but wasn't the mate mad! He jumped at that crowd, with his trumpet in
his hand, and sung out--

"Amidships! amidships, you! {1} or I'll brain the last idiot of you!"

Well, sir, I gained and gained, little by little, till at last I went
skimming sweetly by the magnificent old conflagration's nose. By this
time the captain of the comet had been rousted out, and he stood there in
the red glare for'ard, by the mate, in his shirt-sleeves and slippers,
his hair all rats' nests and one suspender hanging, and how sick those
two men did look!  I just simply couldn't help putting my thumb to my
nose as I glided away and singing out:

"Ta-ta! ta-ta!  Any word to send to your family?"

Peters, it was a mistake.  Yes, sir, I've often regretted that--it was a
mistake.  You see, the captain had given up the race, but that remark was
too tedious for him--he couldn't stand it.  He turned to the mate, and
says he--

"Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the trip?"

"Yes, sir."

"Sure?"

"Yes, sir--more than enough."

"How much have we got in cargo for Satan?"

"Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks."

"Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next comet comes.
Lighten ship!  Lively, now, lively, men!  Heave the whole cargo
overboard!"

Peters, look me in the eye, and be calm.  I found out, over there, that a
kazark is exactly the bulk of a HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE WORLDS LIKE OURS!
They hove all that load overboard.  When it fell it wiped out a
considerable raft of stars just as clean as if they'd been candles and
somebody blowed them out.  As for the race, that was at an end.  The
minute she was lightened the comet swung along by me the same as if I was
anchored.  The captain stood on the stern, by the after-davits, and put
his thumb to his nose and sung out--

"Ta-ta! ta-ta!  Maybe YOU'VE got some message to send your friends in the
Everlasting Tropics!"

Then he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and inside of
three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch again in the
distance.  Yes, it was a mistake, Peters--that remark of mine.  I don't
reckon I'll ever get over being sorry about it.  I'd 'a' beat the bully
of the firmament if I'd kept my mouth shut.

But I've wandered a little off the track of my tale; I'll get back on my
course again.  Now you see what kind of speed I was making. So, as I
said, when I had been tearing along this way about thirty years I begun
to get uneasy.  Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to find out,
but then it was kind of lonesome, you know. Besides, I wanted to get
somewhere.  I hadn't shipped with the idea of cruising forever.  First
off, I liked the delay, because I judged I was going to fetch up in
pretty warm quarters when I got through; but towards the last I begun to
feel that I'd rather go to--well, most any place, so as to finish up the
uncertainty.

Well, one night--it was always night, except when I was rushing by some
star that was occupying the whole universe with its fire and its
glare--light enough then, of course, but I necessarily left it behind in
a minute or two and plunged into a solid week of darkness again.  The
stars ain't so close together as they look to be. Where was I?  Oh yes;
one night I was sailing along, when I discovered a tremendous long row of
blinking lights away on the horizon ahead.  As I approached, they begun
to tower and swell and look like mighty furnaces.  Says I to myself--

"By George, I've arrived at last--and at the wrong place, just as I
expected!"

Then I fainted.  I don't know how long I was insensible, but it must have
been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was all gone and
there was the loveliest sunshine and the balmiest, fragrantest air in its
place.  And there was such a marvellous world spread out before me--such
a glowing, beautiful, bewitching country.  The things I took for furnaces
were gates, miles high, made all of flashing jewels, and they pierced a
wall of solid gold that you couldn't see the top of, nor yet the end of,
in either direction.  I was pointed straight for one of these gates, and
a-coming like a house afire.  Now I noticed that the skies were black
with millions of people, pointed for those gates.  What a roar they made,
rushing through the air!  The ground was as thick as ants with people,
too--billions of them, I judge.

I lit.  I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it was my
turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way--

"Well, quick!  Where are you from?"

"San Francisco," says I.

"San Fran--WHAT?" says he.

"San Francisco."

He scratched his head and looked puzzled, then he says--

"Is it a planet?"

By George, Peters, think of it!  "PLANET?" says I; "it's a city. And
moreover, it's one of the biggest and finest and--"

"There, there!" says he, "no time here for conversation.  We don't deal
in cities here.  Where are you from in a GENERAL way?"

"Oh," I says, "I beg your pardon.  Put me down for California."

I had him AGAIN, Peters!  He puzzled a second, then he says, sharp and
irritable--

"I don't know any such planet--is it a constellation?"

"Oh, my goodness!" says I.  "Constellation, says you?  No--it's a State."

"Man, we don't deal in States here.  WILL you tell me where you are from
IN GENERAL--AT LARGE, don't you understand?"

"Oh, now I get your idea," I says.  "I'm from America,--the United States
of America."

Peters, do you know I had him AGAIN?  If I hadn't I'm a clam!  His face
was as blank as a target after a militia shooting-match.  He turned to an
under clerk and says--

"Where is America?  WHAT is America?"

The under clerk answered up prompt and says--

"There ain't any such orb."

"ORB?" says I.  "Why, what are you talking about, young man?  It ain't an
orb; it's a country; it's a continent.  Columbus discovered it; I reckon
likely you've heard of HIM, anyway. America--why, sir, America--"

"Silence!" says the head clerk.  "Once for all, where--are--you--FROM?"

"Well," says I, "I don't know anything more to say--unless I lump things,
and just say I'm from the world."

"Ah," says he, brightening up, "now that's something like!  WHAT world?"

Peters, he had ME, that time.  I looked at him, puzzled, he looked at me,
worried.  Then he burst out--

"Come, come, what world?"

Says I, "Why, THE world, of course."

"THE world!" he says.  "H'm! there's billions of them! . . . Next!"

That meant for me to stand aside.  I done so, and a sky-blue man with
seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place.  I took a walk.  It
just occurred to me, then, that all the myriads I had seen swarming to
that gate, up to this time, were just like that creature.  I tried to run
across somebody I was acquainted with, but they were out of acquaintances
of mine just then.  So I thought the thing all over and finally sidled
back there pretty meek and feeling rather stumped, as you may say.

"Well?" said the head clerk.

"Well, sir," I says, pretty humble, "I don't seem to make out which world
it is I'm from.  But you may know it from this--it's the one the Saviour
saved."

He bent his head at the Name.  Then he says, gently--

"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number --none
can count them.  What astronomical system is your world in? --perhaps
that may assist."

"It's the one that has the sun in it--and the moon--and Mars"--he shook
his head at each name--hadn't ever heard of them, you see --"and
Neptune--and Uranus--and Jupiter--"

"Hold on!" says he--"hold on a minute!  Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems
to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years ago--but people
from that system very seldom enter by this gate." All of a sudden he
begun to look me so straight in the eye that I thought he was going to
bore through me.  Then he says, very deliberate, "Did you come STRAIGHT
HERE from your system?"

"Yes, sir," I says--but I blushed the least little bit in the world when
I said it.

He looked at me very stern, and says--

"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication. You
wandered from your course.  How did that happen?"

Says I, blushing again--

"I'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess.  I raced a little
with a comet one day--only just the least little bit--only the tiniest
lit--"

"So--so," says he--and without any sugar in his voice to speak of.

I went on, and says--

"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back on my
course again the minute the race was over."

"No matter--that divergence has made all this trouble.  It has brought
you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right one.  If you had
gone to your own gate they would have known all about your world at once
and there would have been no delay.  But we will try to accommodate you."
He turned to an under clerk and says--

"What system is Jupiter in?"

"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one of the
little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded corners of the
universe.  I will see."

He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map that was
as big as Rhode Island.  He went on up till he was out of sight, and by
and by he came down and got something to eat and went up again.  To cut a
long story short, he kept on doing this for a day or two, and finally he
came down and said he thought he had found that solar system, but it
might be fly-specks.  So he got a microscope and went back.  It turned
out better than he feared.  He had rousted out our system, sure enough.
He got me to describe our planet and its distance from the sun, and then
he says to his chief--

"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir.  It is on the map.  It is called
the Wart."

Says I to myself, "Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go down
THERE and call it the Wart."

Well, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and wouldn't
have any more trouble.

Then they turned from me and went on with their work, the same as if they
considered my case all complete and shipshape.  I was a good deal
surprised at this, but I was diffident about speaking up and reminding
them.  I did so hate to do it, you know; it seemed a pity to bother them,
they had so much on their hands.  Twice I thought I would give up and let
the thing go; so twice I started to leave, but immediately I thought what
a figure I should cut stepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig,
and that made me hang back and come to anchor again.  People got to eying
me --clerks, you know--wondering why I didn't get under way.  I couldn't
stand this long--it was too uncomfortable.  So at last I plucked up
courage and tipped the head clerk a signal.  He says--

"What! you here yet?  What's wanting?"

Says I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with my
hands at his ear--

"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming to
meddle, but hain't you forgot something?"

He studied a second, and says--

"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of."

"Think," says I.

He thought.  Then he says--

"No, I can't seem to have forgot anything.  What is it?"

"Look at me," says I, "look me all over."

He done it.

"Well?" says he.

"Well," says I, "you don't notice anything?  If I branched out amongst
the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract considerable
attention?--wouldn't I be a little conspicuous?"

"Well," he says, "I don't see anything the matter.  What do you lack?"

"Lack!  Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my
hymn-book, and my palm branch--I lack everything that a body naturally
requires up here, my friend."

Puzzled?  Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever saw. Finally he
says--

"Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes you.  I never
heard of these things before."

I looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I says--

"Now, I hope you don't take it as an offence, for I don't mean any, but
really, for a man that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon you
have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs."

"Its customs!" says he.  "Heaven is a large place, good friend. Large
empires have many and diverse customs.  Even small dominions have, as you
doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on a small scale in
the Wart.  How can you imagine I could ever learn the varied customs of
the countless kingdoms of heaven?  It makes my head ache to think of it.
I know the customs that prevail in those portions inhabited by peoples
that are appointed to enter by my own gate--and hark ye, that is quite
enough knowledge for one individual to try to pack into his head in the
thirty-seven millions of years I have devoted night and day to that
study.  But the idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling
expanse of heaven--O man, how insanely you talk!  Now I don't doubt that
this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of heaven
you belong to, but you won't be conspicuous in this section without it."

I felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day and left.
All day I walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of the office,
hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a mistake.  That
hall was built on the general heavenly plan--it naturally couldn't be
small.  At last I got so tired I couldn't go any farther; so I sat down
to rest, and begun to tackle the queerest sort of strangers and ask for
information, but I didn't get any; they couldn't understand my language,
and I could not understand theirs.  I got dreadfully lonesome.  I was so
down-hearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died.  I
turned back, of course.  About noon next day, I got back at last and was
on hand at the booking-office once more.  Says I to the head clerk--

"I begin to see that a man's got to be in his own Heaven to be happy."

"Perfectly correct," says he.  "Did you imagine the same heaven would
suit all sorts of men?"

"Well, I had that idea--but I see the foolishness of it.  Which way am I
to go to get to my district?"

He called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he gave me
general directions.  I thanked him and started; but he says--

"Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here.  Go outside and
stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your breath, and
wish yourself there."

"I'm much obliged," says I; "why didn't you dart me through when I first
arrived?"

"We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of it
and ask for it.  Good-by; we probably sha'n't see you in this region for
a thousand centuries or so."

"In that case, o revoor," says I.

I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and wished I
was in the booking-office of my own section.  The very next instant a
voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way--

"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for Cap'n Eli
Stormfield, of San Francisco!--make him out a clean bill of health, and
let him in."

I opened my eyes.  Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to know in
Tulare County; mighty good fellow--I remembered being at his funeral,
which consisted of him being burnt and the other Injuns gauming their
faces with his ashes and howling like wildcats.  He was powerful glad to
see me, and you may make up your mind I was just as glad to see him, and
feel that I was in the right kind of a heaven at last.

Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks, running
and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and Mexicans and
English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their new outfits; and when
they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and took a look in the glass, I
could have jumped over a house for joy, I was so happy.  "Now THIS is
something like!" says I.  "Now," says I, "I'm all right--show me a
cloud."

Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-banks
and about a million people along with me.  Most of us tried to fly, but
some got crippled and nobody made a success of it.  So we concluded to
walk, for the present, till we had had some wing practice.

We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back.  Some had harps
and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some had nothing
at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one young fellow
hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying that in his hand;
all of a sudden he offered it to me and says--

"Will you hold it for me a minute?"

Then he disappeared in the crowd.  I went on.  A woman asked me to hold
her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared.  A girl got me to hold her
harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on and so on, till I
was about loaded down to the guards.  Then comes a smiling old gentleman
and asked me to hold HIS things.  I swabbed off the perspiration and
says, pretty tart--

"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend,--_I_ ain't no hat-rack."

About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying in the
road.  I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them. I looked
around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following me were loaded
down the same as I'd been.  The return crowd had got them to hold their
things a minute, you see.  They all dumped their loads, too, and we went
on.

When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other people, I
never felt so good in my life.  Says I, "Now this is according to the
promises; I've been having my doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure
enough."  I gave my palm branch a wave or two, for luck, and then I
tautened up my harp-strings and struck in.  Well, Peters, you can't
imagine anything like the row we made.  It was grand to listen to, and
made a body thrill all over, but there was considerable many tunes going
on at once, and that was a drawback to the harmony, you understand; and
then there was a lot of Injun tribes, and they kept up such another
war-whooping that they kind of took the tuck out of the music.  By and by
I quit performing, and judged I'd take a rest.  There was quite a nice
mild old gentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he didn't take a hand;
I encouraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was afraid to
try before so many people.  By and by the old gentleman said he never
could seem to enjoy music somehow.  The fact was, I was beginning to feel
the same way; but I didn't say anything.  Him and I had a considerable
long silence, then, but of course it warn't noticeable in that place.
After about sixteen or seventeen hours, during which I played and sung a
little, now and then --always the same tune, because I didn't know any
other--I laid down my harp and begun to fan myself with my palm branch.
Then we both got to sighing pretty regular.  Finally, says he--

"Don't you know any tune but the one you've been pegging at all day?"

"Not another blessed one," says I.

"Don't you reckon you could learn another one?" says he.

"Never," says I; "I've tried to, but I couldn't manage it."

"It's a long time to hang to the one--eternity, you know."

"Don't break my heart," says I; "I'm getting low-spirited enough
already."

After another long silence, says he--

"Are you glad to be here?"

Says I, "Old man, I'll be frank with you.  This AIN'T just as near my
idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when I used to go to
church."

Says he, "What do you say to knocking off and calling it half a day?"

"That's me," says I.  "I never wanted to get off watch so bad in my
life."

So we started.  Millions were coming to the cloud-bank all the time,
happy and hosannahing; millions were leaving it all the time, looking
mighty quiet, I tell you.  We laid for the new-comers, and pretty soon
I'd got them to hold all my things a minute, and then I was a free man
again and most outrageously happy.  Just then I ran across old Sam
Bartlett, who had been dead a long time, and stopped to have a talk with
him.  Says I--

"Now tell me--is this to go on forever?  Ain't there anything else for a
change?"

Says he--

"I'll set you right on that point very quick.  People take the figurative
language of the Bible and the allegories for literal, and the first thing
they ask for when they get here is a halo and a harp, and so on.  Nothing
that's harmless and reasonable is refused a body here, if he asks it in
the right spirit.  So they are outfitted with these things without a
word.  They go and sing and play just about one day, and that's the last
you'll ever see them in the choir.  They don't need anybody to tell them
that that sort of thing wouldn't make a heaven--at least not a heaven
that a sane man could stand a week and remain sane.  That cloud-bank is
placed where the noise can't disturb the old inhabitants, and so there
ain't any harm in letting everybody get up there and cure himself as soon
as he comes.

"Now you just remember this--heaven is as blissful and lovely as it can
be; but it's just the busiest place you ever heard of.  There ain't any
idle people here after the first day.  Singing hymns and waving palm
branches through all eternity is pretty when you hear about it in the
pulpit, but it's as poor a way to put in valuable time as a body could
contrive.  It would just make a heaven of warbling ignoramuses, don't you
see?  Eternal Rest sounds comforting in the pulpit, too.  Well, you try
it once, and see how heavy time will hang on your hands.  Why,
Stormfield, a man like you, that had been active and stirring all his
life, would go mad in six months in a heaven where he hadn't anything to
do.  Heaven is the very last place to come to REST in,--and don't you be
afraid to bet on that!"

Says I--

"Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry.  I'm glad I come,
now."

Says he--

"Cap'n, ain't you pretty physically tired?"

Says I--

"Sam, it ain't any name for it!  I'm dog-tired."

"Just so--just so.  You've earned a good sleep, and you'll get it. You've
earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your dinner.  It's the same here
as it is on earth--you've got to earn a thing, square and honest, before
you enjoy it.  You can't enjoy first and earn afterwards.  But there's
this difference, here:  you can choose your own occupation, and all the
powers of heaven will be put forth to help you make a success of it, if
you do your level best.  The shoe-maker on earth that had the soul of a
poet in him won't have to make shoes here."

"Now that's all reasonable and right," says I.  "Plenty of work, and the
kind you hanker after; no more pain, no more suffering--"

"Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here--but it don't kill. There's
plenty of suffering here, but it don't last.  You see, happiness ain't a
THING IN ITSELF--it's only a CONTRAST with something that ain't pleasant.
That's all it is.  There ain't a thing you can mention that is happiness
in its own self--it's only so by contrast with the other thing.  And so,
as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it
ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.  Well,
there's plenty of pain and suffering in heaven--consequently there's
plenty of contrasts, and just no end of happiness."

Says I, "It's the sensiblest heaven I've heard of yet, Sam, though it's
about as different from the one I was brought up on as a live princess is
different from her own wax figger."

Along in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom, making
friends and looking at the country, and finally settled down in a pretty
likely region, to have a rest before taking another start.  I went on
making acquaintances and gathering up information.  I had a good deal of
talk with an old bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy McWilliams.  He
was from somewhere in New Jersey.  I went about with him, considerable.
We used to lay around, warm afternoons, in the shade of a rock, on some
meadow-ground that was pretty high and out of the marshy slush of his
cranberry-farm, and there we used to talk about all kinds of things, and
smoke pipes.  One day, says I--

"About how old might you be, Sandy?"

"Seventy-two."

"I judged so.  How long you been in heaven?"

"Twenty-seven years, come Christmas."

"How old was you when you come up?"

"Why, seventy-two, of course."

"You can't mean it!"

"Why can't I mean it?"

"Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally ninety-nine
now."

"No, but I ain't.  I stay the same age I was when I come."

"Well," says I, "come to think, there's something just here that I want
to ask about.  Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven we would
all be young, and bright, and spry."

"Well, you can be young if you want to.  You've only got to wish."

"Well, then, why didn't you wish?"

"I did.  They all do.  You'll try it, some day, like enough; but you'll
get tired of the change pretty soon."

"Why?"

"Well, I'll tell you.  Now you've always been a sailor; did you ever try
some other business?"

"Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; but I couldn't
stand it; it was too dull--no stir, no storm, no life about it; it was
like being part dead and part alive, both at the same time.  I wanted to
be one thing or t'other.  I shut up shop pretty quick and went to sea."

"That's it.  Grocery people like it, but you couldn't.  You see you
wasn't used to it.  Well, I wasn't used to being young, and I couldn't
seem to take any interest in it.  I was strong, and handsome, and had
curly hair,--yes, and wings, too!--gay wings like a butterfly.  I went to
picnics and dances and parties with the fellows, and tried to carry on
and talk nonsense with the girls, but it wasn't any use; I couldn't take
to it--fact is, it was an awful bore.  What I wanted was early to bed and
early to rise, and something to DO; and when my work was done, I wanted
to sit quiet, and smoke and think--not tear around with a parcel of giddy
young kids.  You can't think what I suffered whilst I was young."

"How long was you young?"

"Only two weeks.  That was plenty for me.  Laws, I was so lonesome! You
see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two years; the
deepest subject those young folks could strike was only a-b-c to me.  And
to hear them argue--oh, my! it would have been funny, if it hadn't been
so pitiful.  Well, I was so hungry for the ways and the sober talk I was
used to, that I tried to ring in with the old people, but they wouldn't
have it.  They considered me a conceited young upstart, and gave me the
cold shoulder.  Two weeks was a-plenty for me.  I was glad to get back my
bald head again, and my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade
of a rock or a tree."

"Well," says I, "do you mean to say you're going to stand still at
seventy-two, forever?"

"I don't know, and I ain't particular.  But I ain't going to drop back to
twenty-five any more--I know that, mighty well.  I know a sight more than
I did twenty-seven years ago, and I enjoy learning, all the time, but I
don't seem to get any older.  That is, bodily --my mind gets older, and
stronger, and better seasoned, and more satisfactory."

Says I, "If a man comes here at ninety, don't he ever set himself back?"

"Of course he does.  He sets himself back to fourteen; tries it a couple
of hours, and feels like a fool; sets himself forward to twenty; it ain't
much improvement; tries thirty, fifty, eighty, and finally ninety--finds
he is more at home and comfortable at the same old figure he is used to
than any other way.  Or, if his mind begun to fail him on earth at
eighty, that's where he finally sticks up here.  He sticks at the place
where his mind was last at its best, for there's where his enjoyment is
best, and his ways most set and established."

"Does a chap of twenty-five stay always twenty-five, and look it?"

"If he is a fool, yes.  But if he is bright, and ambitious and
industrious, the knowledge he gains and the experiences he has, change
his ways and thoughts and likings, and make him find his best pleasure in
the company of people above that age; so he allows his body to take on
that look of as many added years as he needs to make him comfortable and
proper in that sort of society; he lets his body go on taking the look of
age, according as he progresses, and by and by he will be bald and
wrinkled outside, and wise and deep within."

"Babies the same?"

"Babies the same.  Laws, what asses we used to be, on earth, about these
things!  We said we'd be always young in heaven.  We didn't say HOW
young--we didn't think of that, perhaps--that is, we didn't all think
alike, anyway.  When I was a boy of seven, I suppose I thought we'd all
be twelve, in heaven; when I was twelve, I suppose I thought we'd all be
eighteen or twenty in heaven; when I was forty, I begun to go back; I
remember I hoped we'd all be about THIRTY years old in heaven.  Neither a
man nor a boy ever thinks the age he HAS is exactly the best one--he puts
the right age a few years older or a few years younger than he is.  Then
he makes that ideal age the general age of the heavenly people.  And he
expects everybody TO STICK at that age--stand stock-still--and expects
them to enjoy it!--Now just think of the idea of standing still in
heaven!  Think of a heaven made up entirely of hoop-rolling,
marble-playing cubs of seven years!--or of awkward, diffident,
sentimental immaturities of nineteen!--or of vigorous people of thirty,
healthy-minded, brimming with ambition, but chained hand and foot to that
one age and its limitations like so many helpless galley-slaves!  Think
of the dull sameness of a society made up of people all of one age and
one set of looks, habits, tastes and feelings.  Think how superior to it
earth would be, with its variety of types and faces and ages, and the
enlivening attrition of the myriad interests that come into pleasant
collision in such a variegated society."

"Look here," says I, "do you know what you're doing?"

"Well, what am I doing?"

"You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, but you are playing
the mischief with it in another."

"How d'you mean?"

"Well," I says, "take a young mother that's lost her child, and--"

"Sh!" he says.  "Look!"

It was a woman.  Middle-aged, and had grizzled hair.  She was walking
slow, and her head was bent down, and her wings hanging limp and droopy;
and she looked ever so tired, and was crying, poor thing!  She passed
along by, with her head down, that way, and the tears running down her
face, and didn't see us.  Then Sandy said, low and gentle, and full of
pity:

"SHE'S hunting for her child!  No, FOUND it, I reckon.  Lord, how she's
changed!  But I recognized her in a minute, though it's twenty-seven
years since I saw her.  A young mother she was, about twenty two or four,
or along there; and blooming and lovely and sweet? oh, just a flower!
And all her heart and all her soul was wrapped up in her child, her
little girl, two years old.  And it died, and she went wild with grief,
just wild!  Well, the only comfort she had was that she'd see her child
again, in heaven --'never more to part,' she said, and kept on saying it
over and over, 'never more to part.'  And the words made her happy; yes,
they did; they made her joyful, and when I was dying, twenty-seven years
ago, she told me to find her child the first thing, and say she was
coming--'soon, soon, VERY soon, she hoped and believed!'"

"Why, it's pitiful, Sandy."

He didn't say anything for a while, but sat looking at the ground,
thinking.  Then he says, kind of mournful:

"And now she's come!"

"Well?  Go on."

"Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child, but _I_ think she has.
Looks so to me.  I've seen cases before.  You see, she's kept that child
in her head just the same as it was when she jounced it in her arms a
little chubby thing.  But here it didn't elect to STAY a child.  No, it
elected to grow up, which it did.  And in these twenty-seven years it has
learned all the deep scientific learning there is to learn, and is
studying and studying and learning and learning more and more, all the
time, and don't give a damn for anything BUT learning; just learning, and
discussing gigantic problems with people like herself."

"Well?"

"Stormfield, don't you see?  Her mother knows CRANBERRIES, and how to
tend them, and pick them, and put them up, and market them; and not
another blamed thing!  Her and her daughter can't be any more company for
each other NOW than mud turtle and bird o' paradise. Poor thing, she was
looking for a baby to jounce; _I_ think she's struck a disapp'intment."

"Sandy, what will they do--stay unhappy forever in heaven?"

"No, they'll come together and get adjusted by and by.  But not this
year, and not next.  By and by."



CHAPTER II



I had been having considerable trouble with my wings.  The day after I
helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, but was not lucky.
First off, I flew thirty yards, and then fouled an Irishman and brought
him down--brought us both down, in fact. Next, I had a collision with a
Bishop--and bowled him down, of course.  We had some sharp words, and I
felt pretty cheap, to come banging into a grave old person like that,
with a million strangers looking on and smiling to themselves.

I saw I hadn't got the hang of the steering, and so couldn't rightly tell
where I was going to bring up when I started.  I went afoot the rest of
the day, and let my wings hang.  Early next morning I went to a private
place to have some practice.  I got up on a pretty high rock, and got a
good start, and went swooping down, aiming for a bush a little over three
hundred yards off; but I couldn't seem to calculate for the wind, which
was about two points abaft my beam.  I could see I was going considerable
to looard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went ahead
strong on the port one, but it wouldn't answer; I could see I was going
to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit.  I went back to the rock
and took another chance at it.  I aimed two or three points to starboard
of the bush--yes, more than that--enough so as to make it nearly a
head-wind.  I done well enough, but made pretty poor time.  I could see,
plain enough, that on a head-wind, wings was a mistake.  I could see that
a body could sail pretty close to the wind, but he couldn't go in the
wind's eye.  I could see that if I wanted to go a-visiting any distance
from home, and the wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for
a change; and I could see, too, that these things could not be any use at
all in a gale; if you tried to run before the wind, you would make a mess
of it, for there isn't anyway to shorten sail--like reefing, you
know--you have to take it ALL in--shut your feathers down flat to your
sides.  That would LAND you, of course.  You could lay to, with your head
to the wind--that is the best you could do, and right hard work you'd
find it, too.  If you tried any other game, you would founder, sure.

I judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I dropped
old Sandy McWilliams a note one day--it was a Tuesday--and asked him to
come over and take his manna and quails with me next day; and the first
thing he did when he stepped in was to twinkle his eye in a sly way, and
say,--

"Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?"

I saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in that rag
somewheres, but I never let on.  I only says,--

"Gone to the wash."

"Yes," he says, in a dry sort of way, "they mostly go to the wash --about
this time--I've often noticed it.  Fresh angels are powerful neat.  When
do you look for 'em back?"

"Day after to-morrow," says I.

He winked at me, and smiled.

Says I,--

"Sandy, out with it.  Come--no secrets among friends.  I notice you don't
ever wear wings--and plenty others don't.  I've been making an ass of
myself--is that it?"

"That is about the size of it.  But it is no harm.  We all do it at
first.  It's perfectly natural.  You see, on earth we jump to such
foolish conclusions as to things up here.  In the pictures we always saw
the angels with wings on--and that was all right; but we jumped to the
conclusion that that was their way of getting around --and that was all
wrong.  The wings ain't anything but a uniform, that's all.  When they
are in the field--so to speak,--they always wear them; you never see an
angel going with a message anywhere without his wings, any more than you
would see a military officer presiding at a court-martial without his
uniform, or a postman delivering letters, or a policeman walking his
beat, in plain clothes.  But they ain't to FLY with!  The wings are for
show, not for use.  Old experienced angels are like officers of the
regular army--they dress plain, when they are off duty.  New angels are
like the militia--never shed the uniform--always fluttering and
floundering around in their wings, butting people down, flapping here,
and there, and everywhere, always imagining they are attracting the
admiring eye--well, they just think they are the very most important
people in heaven.  And when you see one of them come sailing around with
one wing tipped up and t'other down, you make up your mind he is saying
to himself:  'I wish Mary Ann in Arkansaw could see me now.  I reckon
she'd wish she hadn't shook me.'  No, they're just for show, that's
all--only just for show."

"I judge you've got it about right, Sandy," says I.

"Why, look at it yourself," says he.  "YOU ain't built for wings --no man
is.  You know what a grist of years it took you to come here from the
earth--and yet you were booming along faster than any cannon-ball could
go.  Suppose you had to fly that distance with your wings--wouldn't
eternity have been over before you got here? Certainly.  Well, angels
have to go to the earth every day --millions of them--to appear in
visions to dying children and good people, you know--it's the heft of
their business.  They appear with their wings, of course, because they
are on official service, and because the dying persons wouldn't know they
were angels if they hadn't wings--but do you reckon they fly with them?
It stands to reason they don't.  The wings would wear out before they got
half-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames would be
as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on.  The distances in
heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to go all over heaven
every day; could they do it with their wings alone?  No, indeed; they
wear the wings for style, but they travel any distance in an instant by
WISHING.  The wishing-carpet of the Arabian Nights was a sensible
idea--but our earthly idea of angels flying these awful distances with
their clumsy wings was foolish.

"Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time--blazing red
ones, and blue and green, and gold, and variegated, and rainbowed, and
ring-streaked-and-striped ones--and nobody finds fault.  It is suitable
to their time of life.  The things are beautiful, and they set the young
people off.  They are the most striking and lovely part of their
outfit--a halo don't BEGIN."

"Well," says I, "I've tucked mine away in the cupboard, and I allow to
let them lay there till there's mud."

"Yes--or a reception."

"What's that?"

"Well, you can see one to-night if you want to.  There's a barkeeper from
Jersey City going to be received."

"Go on--tell me about it."

"This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey meeting, in New York,
and started home on the ferry-boat, and there was a collision and he got
drowned.  He is of a class that think all heaven goes wild with joy when
a particularly hard lot like him is saved; they think all heaven turns
out hosannahing to welcome them; they think there isn't anything talked
about in the realms of the blest but their case, for that day.  This
barkeeper thinks there hasn't been such another stir here in years, as
his coming is going to raise. --And I've always noticed this peculiarity
about a dead barkeeper--he not only expects all hands to turn out when he
arrives, but he expects to be received with a torchlight procession."

"I reckon he is disappointed, then."

"No, he isn't.  No man is allowed to be disappointed here. Whatever he
wants, when he comes--that is, any reasonable and unsacrilegious
thing--he can have.  There's always a few millions or billions of young
folks around who don't want any better entertainment than to fill up
their lungs and swarm out with their torches and have a high time over a
barkeeper.  It tickles the barkeeper till he can't rest, it makes a
charming lark for the young folks, it don't do anybody any harm, it don't
cost a rap, and it keeps up the place's reputation for making all comers
happy and content."

"Very good.  I'll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper."

"It is manners to go in full dress.  You want to wear your wings, you
know, and your other things."

"Which ones?"

"Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all that."

"Well," says I, "I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself, but the fact
is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the choir.  I
haven't got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings."

"That's all right.  You'll find they've been raked up and saved for you.
Send for them."

"I'll do it, Sandy.  But what was it you was saying about unsacrilegious
things, which people expect to get, and will be disappointed about?"

"Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don't get.
For instance, there's a Brooklyn preacher by the name of Talmage, who is
laying up a considerable disappointment for himself.  He says, every now
and then in his sermons, that the first thing he does when he gets to
heaven, will be to fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and
kiss them and weep on them.  There's millions of people down there on
earth that are promising themselves the same thing.  As many as sixty
thousand people arrive here every single day, that want to run straight
to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them.  Now mind
you, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old
people.  If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't ever have
anything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged and wept
on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four.  They would be tired out and as
wet as muskrats all the time.  What would heaven be, to THEM?  It would
be a mighty good place to get out of--you know that, yourself.  Those are
kind and gentle old Jews, but they ain't any fonder of kissing the
emotional highlights of Brooklyn than you be.  You mark my words, Mr.
T.'s endearments are going to be declined, with thanks.  There are limits
to the privileges of the elect, even in heaven.  Why, if Adam was to show
himself to every new comer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike
him for his autograph, he would never have time to do anything else but
just that.  Talmage has said he is going to give Adam some of his
attentions, as well as A., I. and J.  But he will have to change his mind
about that."

"Do you think Talmage will really come here?"

"Why, certainly, he will; but don't you be alarmed; he will run with his
own kind, and there's plenty of them.  That is the main charm of
heaven--there's all kinds here--which wouldn't be the case if you let the
preachers tell it.  Anybody can find the sort he prefers, here, and he
just lets the others alone, and they let him alone.  When the Deity
builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a liberal plan."

Sandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and about nine in
the evening we begun to dress.  Sandy says,--

"This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy.  Like as not some of
the patriarchs will turn out."

"No, but will they?"

"Like as not.  Of course they are pretty exclusive.  They hardly ever
show themselves to the common public.  I believe they never turn out
except for an eleventh-hour convert.  They wouldn't do it then, only
earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on that kind of an
occasion."

"Do they an turn out, Sandy?"

"Who?--all the patriarchs?  Oh, no--hardly ever more than a couple. You
will be here fifty thousand years--maybe more--before you get a glimpse
of all the patriarchs and prophets.  Since I have been here, Job has been
to the front once, and once Ham and Jeremiah both at the same time.  But
the finest thing that has happened in my day was a year or so ago; that
was Charles Peace's reception --him they called 'the Bannercross
Murderer'--an Englishman.  There were four patriarchs and two prophets on
the Grand Stand that time --there hasn't been anything like it since
Captain Kidd came; Abel was there--the first time in twelve hundred
years.  A report got around that Adam was coming; well, of course, Abel
was enough to bring a crowd, all by himself, but there is nobody that can
draw like Adam.  It was a false report, but it got around, anyway, as I
say, and it will be a long day before I see the like of it again. The
reception was in the English department, of course, which is eight
hundred and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line.  I went, along
with a good many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to see, I can tell
you.  Flocks came from all the departments.  I saw Esquimaux there, and
Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen--people from everywhere.  You see a mixture
like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you land here, but you hardly
ever see it again.  There were billions of people; when they were singing
or hosannahing, the noise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were
still the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for
all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels.  Although Adam was
not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three archangels on
the Grand Stand--it is a seldom thing that even one comes out."

"What did they look like, Sandy?"

"Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and wonderful rainbow
wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and wore swords, and held their
heads up in a noble way, and looked like soldiers."

"Did they have halos?"

"No--anyway, not the hoop kind.  The archangels and the upper-class
patriarchs wear a finer thing than that.  It is a round, solid, splendid
glory of gold, that is blinding to look at.  You have often seen a
patriarch in a picture, on earth, with that thing on --you remember
it?--he looks as if he had his head in a brass platter.  That don't give
you the right idea of it at all--it is much more shining and beautiful."

"Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?"

"Who--_I_?  Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy?  I ain't worthy
to speak to such as they."

"Is Talmage?"

"Of course not.  You have got the same mixed-up idea about these things
that everybody has down there.  I had it once, but I got over it.  Down
there they talk of the heavenly King--and that is right--but then they go
right on speaking as if this was a republic and everybody was on a dead
level with everybody else, and privileged to fling his arms around
anybody he comes across, and be hail-fellow-well-met with all the elect,
from the highest down. How tangled up and absurd that is!  How are you
going to have a republic under a king?  How are you going to have a
republic at all, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his
place forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in his
affairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole universe
with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a hand in its
matters, and nobody ALLOWED to do it?  Fine republic, ain't it?"

"Well, yes--it IS a little different from the idea I had--but I thought I
might go around and get acquainted with the grandees, anyway--not exactly
splice the main-brace with them, you know, but shake hands and pass the
time of day."

"Could Tom, Dick and Harry call on the Cabinet of Russia and do that?--on
Prince Gortschakoff, for instance?"

"I reckon not, Sandy."

"Well, this is Russia--only more so.  There's not the shadow of a
republic about it anywhere.  There are ranks, here.  There are viceroys,
princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and a hundred
orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-ducal archangels, stage
by stage, till the general level is struck, where there ain't any titles.
Do you know what a prince of the blood is, on earth?"

"No."

"Well, a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal family exactly,
and he don't belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom; he is lower than
the one, and higher than t'other.  That's about the position of the
patriarchs and prophets here.  There's some mighty high nobility
here--people that you and I ain't worthy to polish sandals for--and THEY
ain't worthy to polish sandals for the patriarchs and prophets.  That
gives you a kind of an idea of their rank, don't it?  You begin to see
how high up they are, don't you? just to get a two-minute glimpse of one
of them is a thing for a body to remember and tell about for a thousand
years.  Why, Captain, just think of this:  if Abraham was to set his foot
down here by this door, there would be a railing set up around that
foot-track right away, and a shelter put over it, and people would flock
here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds of years, to look at
it.  Abraham is one of the parties that Mr. Talmage, of Brooklyn, is
going to embrace, and kiss, and weep on, when he comes.  He wants to lay
in a good stock of tears, you know, or five to one he will go dry before
he gets a chance to do it."

"Sandy," says I, "I had an idea that _I_ was going to be equals with
everybody here, too, but I will let that drop.  It don't matter, and I am
plenty happy enough anyway."

"Captain, you are happier than you would be, the other way.  These old
patriarchs and prophets have got ages the start of you; they know more in
two minutes than you know in a year.  Did you ever try to have a sociable
improving-time discussing winds, and currents and variations of compass
with an undertaker?"

"I get your idea, Sandy.  He couldn't interest me.  He would be an
ignoramus in such things--he would bore me, and I would bore him."

"You have got it.  You would bore the patriarchs when you talked, and
when they talked they would shoot over your head.  By and by you would
say, 'Good morning, your Eminence, I will call again' --but you wouldn't.
Did you ever ask the slush-boy to come up in the cabin and take dinner
with you?"

"I get your drift again, Sandy.  I wouldn't be used to such grand people
as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be sheepish and tongue-tied
in their company, and mighty glad to get out of it. Sandy, which is the
highest rank, patriarch or prophet?"

"Oh, the prophets hold over the patriarchs.  The newest prophet, even, is
of a sight more consequence than the oldest patriarch. Yes, sir, Adam
himself has to walk behind Shakespeare."

"Was Shakespeare a prophet?"

"Of course he was; and so was Homer, and heaps more.  But Shakespeare and
the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from Tennessee, by the name
of Billings; and behind a horse-doctor named Sakka, from Afghanistan.
Jeremiah, and Billings and Buddha walk together, side by side, right
behind a crowd from planets not in our astronomy; next come a dozen or
two from Jupiter and other worlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and
Confucius; next a lot from systems outside of ours; next come Ezekiel,
and Mahomet, Zoroaster, and a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt; then
there is a long string, and after them, away down toward the bottom, come
Shakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named Marais, from the back
settlements of France."

"Have they really rung in Mahomet and all those other heathens?"

"Yes--they all had their message, and they all get their reward. The man
who don't get his reward on earth, needn't bother--he will get it here,
sure."

"But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way, and put him away
down there below those shoe-makers and horse-doctors and
knife-grinders--a lot of people nobody ever heard of?"

"That is the heavenly justice of it--they warn't rewarded according to
their deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank. That
tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry that Homer and Shakespeare
couldn't begin to come up to; but nobody would print it, nobody read it
but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they laughed at it.  Whenever the
village had a drunken frolic and a dance, they would drag him in and
crown him with cabbage leaves, and pretend to bow down to him; and one
night when he was sick and nearly starved to death, they had him out and
crowned him, and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and
everybody followed along, beating tin pans and yelling.  Well, he died
before morning. He wasn't ever expecting to go to heaven, much less that
there was going to be any fuss made over him, so I reckon he was a good
deal surprised when the reception broke on him."

"Was you there, Sandy?"

"Bless you, no!"

"Why?  Didn't you know it was going to come off?"

"Well, I judge I did.  It was the talk of these realms--not for a day,
like this barkeeper business, but for twenty years before the man died."

"Why the mischief didn't you go, then?"

"Now how you talk!  The like of me go meddling around at the reception of
a prophet?  A mudsill like me trying to push in and help receive an awful
grandee like Edward J. Billings?  Why, I should have been laughed at for
a billion miles around.  I shouldn't ever heard the last of it."

"Well, who did go, then?"

"Mighty few people that you and I will ever get a chance to see, Captain.
Not a solitary commoner ever has the luck to see a reception of a
prophet, I can tell you.  All the nobility, and all the patriarchs and
prophets--every last one of them--and all the archangels, and all the
princes and governors and viceroys, were there,--and NO small fry--not a
single one.  And mind you, I'm not talking about only the grandees from
OUR world, but the princes and patriarchs and so on from ALL the worlds
that shine in our sky, and from billions more that belong in systems upon
systems away outside of the one our sun is in.  There were some prophets
and patriarchs there that ours ain't a circumstance to, for rank and
illustriousness and all that.  Some were from Jupiter and other worlds in
our own system, but the most celebrated were three poets, Saa, Bo and
Soof, from great planets in three different and very remote systems.
These three names are common and familiar in every nook and corner of
heaven, clear from one end of it to the other --fully as well known as
the eighty Supreme Archangels, in fact --where as our Moses, and Adam,
and the rest, have not been heard of outside of our world's little corner
of heaven, except by a few very learned men scattered here and there--and
they always spell their names wrong, and get the performances of one
mixed up with the doings of another, and they almost always locate them
simply IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, and think that is enough without going into
little details such as naming the particular world they are from. It is
like a learned Hindoo showing off how much he knows by saying Longfellow
lives in the United States--as if he lived all over the United States,
and as if the country was so small you couldn't throw a brick there
without hitting him.  Between you and me, it does gravel me, the cool way
people from those monster worlds outside our system snub our little
world, and even our system.  Of course we think a good deal of Jupiter,
because our world is only a potato to it, for size; but then there are
worlds in other systems that Jupiter isn't even a mustard-seed to--like
the planet Goobra, for instance, which you couldn't squeeze inside the
orbit of Halley's comet without straining the rivets.  Tourists from
Goobra (I mean parties that lived and died there--natives) come here, now
and then, and inquire about our world, and when they find out it is so
little that a streak of lightning can flash clear around it in the eighth
of a second, they have to lean up against something to laugh.  Then they
screw a glass into their eye and go to examining us, as if we were a
curious kind of foreign bug, or something of that sort.  One of them
asked me how long our day was; and when I told him it was twelve hours
long, as a general thing, he asked me if people where I was from
considered it worth while to get up and wash for such a day as that.
That is the way with those Goobra people--they can't seem to let a chance
go by to throw it in your face that their day is three hundred and
twenty-two of our years long.  This young snob was just of age--he was
six or seven thousand of his days old--say two million of our years--and
he had all the puppy airs that belong to that time of life--that
turning-point when a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't quite
a man exactly.  If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I would have
given him a piece of my mind.  Well, anyway, Billings had the grandest
reception that has been seen in thousands of centuries, and I think it
will have a good effect.  His name will be carried pretty far, and it
will make our system talked about, and maybe our world, too, and raise us
in the respect of the general public of heaven.  Why, look
here--Shakespeare walked backwards before that tailor from Tennessee, and
scattered flowers for him to walk on, and Homer stood behind his chair
and waited on him at the banquet. Of course that didn't go for much
THERE, amongst all those big foreigners from other systems, as they
hadn't heard of Shakespeare or Homer either, but it would amount to
considerable down there on our little earth if they could know about it.
I wish there was something in that miserable spiritualism, so we could
send them word.  That Tennessee village would set up a monument to
Billings, then, and his autograph would outsell Satan's.  Well, they had
grand times at that reception--a small-fry noble from Hoboken told me all
about it--Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet."

"What, Sandy, a nobleman from Hoboken?  How is that?"

"Easy enough.  Duffer kept a sausage-shop and never saved a cent in his
life because he used to give all his spare meat to the poor, in a quiet
way.  Not tramps,--no, the other sort--the sort that will starve before
they will beg--honest square people out of work. Dick used to watch
hungry-looking men and women and children, and track them home, and find
out all about them from the neighbors, and then feed them and find them
work.  As nobody ever saw him give anything to anybody, he had the
reputation of being mean; he died with it, too, and everybody said it was
a good riddance; but the minute he landed here, they made him a baronet,
and the very first words Dick the sausage-maker of Hoboken heard when he
stepped upon the heavenly shore were, 'Welcome, Sir Richard Duffer!'  It
surprised him some, because he thought he had reasons to believe he was
pointed for a warmer climate than this one."

All of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash of eleven
hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at once, and Sandy says,--

"There, that's for the barkeep."

I jumped up and says,--

"Then let's be moving along, Sandy; we don't want to miss any of this
thing, you know."

"Keep your seat," he says; "he is only just telegraphed, that is all."

"How?"

"That blast only means that he has been sighted from the signal-station.
He is off Sandy Hook.  The committees will go down to meet him, now, and
escort him in.  There will be ceremonies and delays; they won't be coming
up the Bay for a considerable time, yet.  It is several billion miles
away, anyway."

"_I_ could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot just as well as not,"
says I, remembering the lonesome way I arrived, and how there wasn't any
committee nor anything.

"I notice some regret in your voice," says Sandy, "and it is natural
enough; but let bygones be bygones; you went according to your lights,
and it is too late now to mend the thing."

"No, let it slide, Sandy, I don't mind.  But you've got a Sandy Hook
HERE, too, have you?"

"We've got everything here, just as it is below.  All the States and
Territories of the Union, and all the kingdoms of the earth and the
islands of the sea are laid out here just as they are on the globe--all
the same shape they are down there, and all graded to the relative size,
only each State and realm and island is a good many billion times bigger
here than it is below.  There goes another blast."

"What is that one for?"

"That is only another fort answering the first one.  They each fire
eleven hundred and one thunder blasts at a single dash--it is the usual
salute for an eleventh-hour guest; a hundred for each hour and an extra
one for the guest's sex; if it was a woman we would know it by their
leaving off the extra gun."

"How do we know there's eleven hundred and one, Sandy, when they all go
off at once?--and yet we certainly do know."

"Our intellects are a good deal sharpened up, here, in some ways, and
that is one of them.  Numbers and sizes and distances are so great, here,
that we have to be made so we can FEEL them--our old ways of counting and
measuring and ciphering wouldn't ever give us an idea of them, but would
only confuse us and oppress us and make our heads ache."

After some more talk about this, I says:  "Sandy, I notice that I hardly
ever see a white angel; where I run across one white angel, I strike as
many as a hundred million copper-colored ones--people that can't speak
English.  How is that?"

"Well, you will find it the same in any State or Territory of the
American corner of heaven you choose to go to.  I have shot along, a
whole week on a stretch, and gone millions and millions of miles, through
perfect swarms of angels, without ever seeing a single white one, or
hearing a word I could understand.  You see, America was occupied a
billion years and more, by Injuns and Aztecs, and that sort of folks,
before a white man ever set his foot in it. During the first three
hundred years after Columbus's discovery, there wasn't ever more than one
good lecture audience of white people, all put together, in America--I
mean the whole thing, British Possessions and all; in the beginning of
our century there were only 6,000,000 or 7,000,000--say seven; 12,000,000
or 14,000,000 in 1825; say 23,000,000 in 1850; 40,000,000 in 1875. Our
death-rate has always been 20 in 1000 per annum.  Well, 140,000 died the
first year of the century; 280,000 the twenty-fifth year; 500,000 the
fiftieth year; about a million the seventy-fifth year. Now I am going to
be liberal about this thing, and consider that fifty million whites have
died in America from the beginning up to to-day--make it sixty, if you
want to; make it a hundred million --it's no difference about a few
millions one way or t'other.  Well, now, you can see, yourself, that when
you come to spread a little dab of people like that over these hundreds
of billions of miles of American territory here in heaven, it is like
scattering a ten-cent box of homoeopathic pills over the Great Sahara and
expecting to find them again.  You can't expect us to amount to anything
in heaven, and we DON'T--now that is the simple fact, and we have got to
do the best we can with it.  The learned men from other planets and other
systems come here and hang around a while, when they are touring around
the Kingdom, and then go back to their own section of heaven and write a
book of travels, and they give America about five lines in it.  And what
do they say about us?  They say this wilderness is populated with a
scattering few hundred thousand billions of red angels, with now and then
a curiously complected DISEASED one.  You see, they think we whites and
the occasional nigger are Injuns that have been bleached out or blackened
by some leprous disease or other--for some peculiarly rascally SIN, mind
you.  It is a mighty sour pill for us all, my friend--even the modestest
of us, let alone the other kind, that think they are going to be received
like a long-lost government bond, and hug Abraham into the bargain.  I
haven't asked you any of the particulars, Captain, but I judge it goes
without saying--if my experience is worth anything--that there wasn't
much of a hooraw made over you when you arrived--now was there?"

"Don't mention it, Sandy," says I, coloring up a little; "I wouldn't have
had the family see it for any amount you are a mind to name.  Change the
subject, Sandy, change the subject."

"Well, do you think of settling in the California department of bliss?"

"I don't know.  I wasn't calculating on doing anything really definite in
that direction till the family come.  I thought I would just look around,
meantime, in a quiet way, and make up my mind. Besides, I know a good
many dead people, and I was calculating to hunt them up and swap a little
gossip with them about friends, and old times, and one thing or another,
and ask them how they like it here, as far as they have got.  I reckon my
wife will want to camp in the California range, though, because most all
her departed will be there, and she likes to be with folks she knows."

"Don't you let her.  You see what the Jersey district of heaven is, for
whites; well, the Californian district is a thousand times worse.  It
swarms with a mean kind of leather-headed mud-colored angels--and your
nearest white neighbor is likely to be a million miles away.  WHAT A MAN
MOSTLY MISSES, IN HEAVEN, IS COMPANY --company of his own sort and color
and language.  I have come near settling in the European part of heaven
once or twice on that account."

"Well, why didn't you, Sandy?"

"Oh, various reasons.  For one thing, although you SEE plenty of whites
there, you can't understand any of them, hardly, and so you go about as
hungry for talk as you do here.  I like to look at a Russian or a German
or an Italian--I even like to look at a Frenchman if I ever have the luck
to catch him engaged in anything that ain't indelicate--but LOOKING don't
cure the hunger--what you want is talk."

"Well, there's England, Sandy--the English district of heaven."

"Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of the heavenly
domain.  As long as you run across Englishmen born this side of three
hundred years ago, you are all right; but the minute you get back of
Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up, and the further back you
go the foggier it gets.  I had some talk with one Langland and a man by
the name of Chaucer--old-time poets--but it was no use, I couldn't quite
understand them, and they couldn't quite understand me.  I have had
letters from them since, but it is such broken English I can't make it
out.  Back of those men's time the English are just simply foreigners,
nothing more, nothing less; they talk Danish, German, Norman French, and
sometimes a mixture of all three; back of THEM, they talk Latin, and
ancient British, Irish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come billions
and billions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that Satan himself
couldn't understand.  The fact is, where you strike one man in the
English settlements that you can understand, you wade through awful
swarms that talk something you can't make head nor tail of.  You see,
every country on earth has been overlaid so often, in the course of a
billion years, with different kinds of people and different sorts of
languages, that this sort of mongrel business was bound to be the result
in heaven."

"Sandy," says I, "did you see a good many of the great people history
tells about?"

"Yes--plenty.  I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people."

"Do the kings rank just as they did below?"

"No; a body can't bring his rank up here with him.  Divine right is a
good-enough earthly romance, but it don't go, here.  Kings drop down to
the general level as soon as they reach the realms of grace.  I knew
Charles the Second very well--one of the most popular comedians in the
English section--draws first rate.  There are better, of course--people
that were never heard of on earth --but Charles is making a very good
reputation indeed, and is considered a rising man.  Richard the
Lion-hearted is in the prize-ring, and coming into considerable favor.
Henry the Eighth is a tragedian, and the scenes where he kills people are
done to the very life.  Henry the Sixth keeps a religious-book stand."

"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?"

"Often--sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French. He
always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around with his
arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as grand, gloomy
and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very much bothered because
he don't stand as high, here, for a soldier, as he expected to."

"Why, who stands higher?"

"Oh, a LOT of people WE never heard of before--the shoemaker and
horse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know--clodhoppers from goodness
knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in their
lives--but the soldiership was in them, though they never had a chance to
show it.  But here they take their right place, and Caesar and Napoleon
and Alexander have to take a back seat.  The greatest military genius our
world ever produced was a brick-layer from somewhere back of Boston--died
during the Revolution--by the name of Absalom Jones.  Wherever he goes,
crowds flock to see him. You see, everybody knows that if he had had a
chance he would have shown the world some generalship that would have
made all generalship before look like child's play and 'prentice work.
But he never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a
private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth, and the
recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him.  However, as I say, everybody
knows, now, what he WOULD have been,--and so they flock by the million to
get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is going to be anywhere.
Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and Napoleon are all on his staff,
and ever so many more great generals; but the public hardly care to look
at THEM when HE is around.  Boom!  There goes another salute.  The
barkeeper's off quarantine now."

Sandy and I put on our things.  Then we made a wish, and in a second we
were at the reception-place.  We stood on the edge of the ocean of space,
and looked out over the dimness, but couldn't make out anything.  Close
by us was the Grand Stand--tier on tier of dim thrones rising up toward
the zenith.  From each side of it spread away the tiers of seats for the
general public.  They spread away for leagues and leagues--you couldn't
see the ends.  They were empty and still, and hadn't a cheerful look, but
looked dreary, like a theatre before anybody comes--gas turned down.
Sandy says,--

"We'll sit down here and wait.  We'll see the head of the procession come
in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now."

Says I,--

"It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch somewheres. Nobody
but just you and me--it ain't much of a display for the barkeeper."

"Don't you fret, it's all right.  There'll be one more gun-fire --then
you'll see."

In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off on the
horizon.

"Head of the torchlight procession," says Sandy.

It spread, and got lighter and brighter:  soon it had a strong glare like
a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter and brighter till it
was like the sun peeping above the horizon-line at sea--the big red rays
shot high up into the sky.

"Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats--sharp!" says
Sandy, "and listen for the gun-fire."

Just then it burst out, "Boom-boom-boom!" like a million thunderstorms in
one, and made the whole heavens rock.  Then there was a sudden and awful
glare of light all about us, and in that very instant every one of the
millions of seats was occupied, and as far as you could see, in both
directions, was just a solid pack of people, and the place was all
splendidly lit up!  It was enough to take a body's breath away.  Sandy
says,--

"That is the way we do it here.  No time fooled away; nobody straggling
in after the curtain's up.  Wishing is quicker work than travelling.  A
quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of miles from here.
When they heard the last signal, all they had to do was to wish, and here
they are."

The prodigious choir struck up,--

     "We long to hear thy voice,
      To see thee face to face."

It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it, just as
the congregations used to do on earth.

The head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a wonderful
sight.  It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred thousand angels
abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and singing--the whirring
thunder of the wings made a body's head ache. You could follow the line
of the procession back, and slanting upward into the sky, far away in a
glittering snaky rope, till it was only a faint streak in the distance.
The rush went on and on, for a long time, and at last, sure enough, along
comes the barkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that
made the heavens shake, I tell you!  He was all smiles, and had his halo
tilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-looking
saint I ever saw.  While he marched up the steps of the Grand Stand, the
choir struck up,--

     "The whole wide heaven groans,
      And waits to hear that voice."

There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place of
honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand Stand, with
a shining guard of honor round about them.  The tents had been shut up
all this time.  As the barkeeper climbed along up, bowing and smiling to
everybody, and at last got to the platform, these tents were jerked up
aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four noble thrones of gold, all caked
with jewels, and in the two middle ones sat old white-whiskered men, and
in the two others a couple of the most glorious and gaudy giants, with
platter halos and beautiful armor.  All the millions went down on their
knees, and stared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of
murmurs.  They said,--

"Two archangels!--that is splendid.  Who can the others be?"

The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the two
old men rose; one of them said, "Moses and Esau welcome thee!" and then
all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.

The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating to hug
those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and proudest multitude
you ever saw--because they had seen Moses and Esau.  Everybody was
saying, "Did you see them?--I did--Esau's side face was to me, but I saw
Moses full in the face, just as plain as I see you this minute!"

The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again, and the
crowd broke up and scattered.  As we went along home, Sandy said it was a
great success, and the barkeeper would have a right to be proud of it
forever.  And he said we were in luck, too; said we might attend
receptions for forty thousand years to come, and not have a chance to see
a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and Esau.  We found afterwards that
we had come near seeing another patriarch, and likewise a genuine prophet
besides, but at the last moment they sent regrets.  Sandy said there
would be a monument put up there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with
the date and circumstances, and all about the whole business, and
travellers would come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb
over it, and scribble their names on it.



Footnotes:

{1}  The captain could not remember what this word was.  He said it was
in a foreign tongue.



End of Project Gutenberg's EXTRACT FROM CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN,
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)






GOLDSMITH'S FRIEND ABROAD AGAIN

by Mark Twain



NOTE.--No experience is set down in the following letters which had to be
invented.  Fancy is not needed to give variety to the history of a
Chinaman's sojourn in America.  Plain fact is amply sufficient.


LETTER I

                                             SHANGHAI, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: It is all settled, and I am to leave my oppressed and
overburdened native land and cross the sea to that noble realm where all
are free and all equal, and none reviled or abused--America!  America,
whose precious privilege it is to call herself the Land of the Free and
the Home of the Brave.  We and all that are about us here look over the
waves longingly, contrasting the privations of this our birthplace with
the opulent comfort of that happy refuge.  We know how America has
welcomed the Germans and the Frenchmen and the stricken and sorrowing
Irish, and we know how she has given them bread and work, and liberty,
and how grateful they are.  And we know that America stands ready to
welcome all other oppressed peoples and offer her abundance to all that
come, without asking what their nationality is, or their creed or color.
And, without being told it, we know that the, foreign sufferers she has
rescued from oppression and starvation are the most eager of her children
to welcome us, because, having suffered themselves, they know what
suffering is, and having been generously succored, they long to be
generous to other unfortunates and thus show that magnanimity is not
wasted upon them.
                                             AH SONG HI.



LETTER II

                                                  AT SEA, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO:  We are far away at sea now; on our way to the beautiful
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  We shall soon be where all men
are alike, and where sorrow is not known.

The good American who hired me to go to his country is to pay me $12 a
month, which is immense wages, you know--twenty times as much as one gets
in China.  My passage in the ship is a very large sum--indeed, it is a
fortune--and this I must pay myself eventually, but I am allowed ample
time to make it good to my employer in, he advancing it now.  For a mere
form, I have turned over my wife, my boy, and my two daughters to my
employer's partner for security for the payment of the ship fare.  But my
employer says they are in no danger of being sold, for he knows I will be
faithful to him, and that is the main security.

I thought I would have twelve dollars to, begin life with in America, but
the American Consul took two of them for making a certificate that I was
shipped on the steamer.  He has no right to do more than charge the ship
two dollars for one certificate for the ship, with the number of her
Chinese passengers set down in it; but he chooses to force a certificate
upon each and every Chinaman and put the two dollars in his pocket.  As
1,300 of my countrymen are in this vessel, the Consul received $2,600 for
certificates.  My employer tells me that the Government at Washington
know of this fraud, and are so bitterly opposed to the existence of such
a wrong that they tried hard to have the extor--the fee, I mean,
legalised by the last Congress;--[Pacific and Mediterranean steamship
bills.(Ed.  Mem.)]--but as the bill did not pass, the Consul will have
to take the fee dishonestly until next Congress makes it legitimate.  It
is a great and good and noble country, and hates all forms of vice and
chicanery.

We are in that part of the vessel always reserved for my countrymen.
It is called the steerage.  It is kept for us, my employer says, because
it is not subject to changes of temperature and dangerous drafts of air.
It is only another instance of the loving unselfishness of the Americans
for all unfortunate foreigners.  The steerage is a little crowded, and
rather warm and close, but no doubt it is best for us that it should be
so.

Yesterday our people got to quarrelling among themselves, and the captain
turned a volume of hot steam upon a mass of them and scalded eighty or
ninety of them more or less severely.  Flakes and ribbons of skin came
off some of them.  There was wild shrieking and struggling while the
vapour enveloped the great throng, and so some who were not scalded got
trampled upon and hurt.  We do not complain, for my employer says this is
the usual way of quieting disturbances on board the ship, and that it is
done in the cabins among the Americans every day or two.

Congratulate me, Ching-Fool In ten days more I shall step upon the shore
of America, and be received by her great-hearted people; and I shall
straighten myself up and feel that I am a free man among freemen.

                                                       AH SONG HI.



LETTER III

                                             SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: I stepped ashore jubilant!  I wanted to dance, shout,
sing, worship the generous Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.  But
as I walked from the gangplank a man in a gray uniform--[Policeman]
--kicked me violently behind and told me to look out--so my employer
translated it.  As I turned, another officer of the same kind struck me
with a short club and also instructed me to look out.  I was about to
take hold of my end of the pole which had mine and Hong-Wo's basket and
things suspended from it, when a third officer hit me with his club to
signify that I was to drop it, and then kicked me to signify that he was
satisfied with my promptness.  Another person came now, and searched all
through our basket and bundles, emptying everything out on the dirty
wharf.  Then this person and another searched us all over.  They found a
little package of opium sewed into the artificial part of Hong-Wo's
queue, and they took that, and also they made him prisoner and handed him
over to an officer, who marched him away.  They took his luggage, too,
because of his crime, and as our luggage was so mixed together that they
could not tell mine from his, they took it all.  When I offered to help
divide it, they kicked me and desired me to look out.

Having now no baggage and no companion, I told my employer that if he was
willing, I would walk about a little and see the city and the people
until he needed me.  I did not like to seem disappointed with my
reception in the good land of refuge for the oppressed, and so I looked
and spoke as cheerily as I could.  But he said, wait a minute--I must be
vaccinated to prevent my taking the small-pox.  I smiled and said I had
already had the small-pox, as he could see by the marks, and so I need
not wait to be "vaccinated," as he called it.  But he said it was the
law, and I must be vaccinated anyhow.  The doctor would never let me
pass, for the law obliged him to vaccinate all Chinamen and charge them
ten dollars apiece for it, and I might be sure that no doctor who would
be the servant of that law would let a fee slip through his fingers to
accommodate any absurd fool who had seen fit to have the disease in some
other country.  And presently the doctor came and did his work and took
my last penny--my ten dollars which were the hard savings of nearly a
year and a half of labour and privation.  Ah, if the law-makers had only
known there were plenty of doctors in the city glad of a chance to
vaccinate people for a dollar or two, they would never have put the price
up so high against a poor friendless Irish, or Italian, or Chinese pauper
fleeing to the good land to escape hunger and hard times.

                                                            AH SONG HI.




LETTER IV

                                             SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: I have been here about a month now, and am learning a
little of the language every day.  My employer was disappointed in the
matter of hiring us out to service to the plantations in the far eastern
portion of this continent.  His enterprise was a failure, and so he set
us all free, merely taking measures to secure to himself the repayment of
the passage money which he paid for us.  We are to make this good to him
out of the first moneys we earn here.  He says it is sixty dollars
apiece.

We were thus set free about two weeks after we reached here.  We had been
massed together in some small houses up to that time, waiting.  I walked
forth to seek my fortune.  I was to begin life a stranger in a strange
land, without a friend, or a penny, or any clothes but those I had on my
back.  I had not any advantage on my side in the world--not one, except
good health and the lack of any necessity to waste any time or anxiety on
the watching of my baggage.  No, I forget.  I reflected that I had one
prodigious advantage over paupers in other lands--I was in America!  I
was in the heaven-provided refuge of the oppressed and the forsaken!

Just as that comforting thought passed through my mind, some young men
set a fierce dog on me.  I tried to defend myself, but could do nothing.
I retreated to the recess of a closed doorway, and there the dog had me
at his mercy, flying at my throat and face or any part of my body that
presented itself.  I shrieked for help, but the young men only jeered and
laughed.  Two men in gray uniforms ( policemen is their official title)
looked on for a minute and then walked leisurely away.  But a man stopped
them and brought them back and told them it was a shame to leave me in
such distress.  Then the two policemen beat off the dog with small clubs,
and a comfort it was to be rid of him, though I was just rags and blood
from head to foot.  The man who brought the policemen asked the young men
why they abused me in that way, and they said they didn't want any of his
meddling.  And they said to him:

"This Ching divil comes till Ameriky to take the bread out o' dacent
intilligent white men's mouths, and whir they try to defind their rights
there's a dale o' fuss made about it."

They began to threaten my benefactor, and as he saw no friendliness in
the faces that had gathered meanwhile, he went on his way.  He got many a
curse when he was gone.  The policemen now told me I was under arrest and
must go with them.  I asked one of them what wrong I had done to any one
that I should be arrested, and he only struck me with his club and
ordered me to "hold my yap."  With a jeering crowd of street boys and
loafers at my heels, I was taken up an alley and into a stone-paved
dungeon which had large cells all down one side of it, with iron gates to
them.  I stood up by a desk while a man behind it wrote down certain
things about me on a slate.  One of my captors said:

"Enter a charge against this Chinaman of being disorderly and disturbing
the peace."

I attempted to say a word, but he said:

"Silence!  Now ye had better go slow, my good fellow.  This is two or
three times you've tried to get off some of your d---d insolence.  Lip
won't do here.  You've got to simmer down, and if you don't take to it
paceable we'll see if we can't make you.  Fat's your name?"

"Ah Song Hi."

"Alias what?"

I said I did not understand, and he said what he wanted was my true name,
for he guessed I picked up this one since I stole my last chickens.  They
all laughed loudly at that.

Then they searched me.  They found nothing, of course.  They seemed very
angry and asked who I supposed would "go my bail or pay my fine."  When
they explained these things to me, I said I had done nobody any harm, and
why should I need to have bail or pay a fine?  Both of them kicked me and
warned me that I would find it to my advantage to try and be as civil as
convenient.  I protested that I had not meant anything disrespectful.
Then one of them took me to one side and said:

"Now look here, Johnny, it's no use you playing softly wid us.  We mane
business, ye know; and the sooner ye put us on the scent of a V, the
asier yell save yerself from a dale of trouble.  Ye can't get out o' this
for anny less.  Who's your frinds?"

I told him I had not a single friend in all the land of America, and that
I was far from home and help, and very poor.  And I begged him to let me
go.

He gathered the slack of my blouse collar in his grip and jerked and
shoved and hauled at me across the dungeon, and then unlocking an iron
cell-gate thrust me in with a kick and said:

"Rot there, ye furrin spawn, till ye lairn that there's no room in
America for the likes of ye or your nation."

                                                  AH SONG HI.




LETTER V

                                                  SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: You will remember that I had just been thrust violently
into a cell in the city prison when I wrote last.  I stumbled and fell on
some one.  I got a blow and a curse= and on top of these a kick or two
and a shove.  In a second or two it was plain that I was in a nest of
prisoners and was being "passed around"--for the instant I was knocked
out of the way of one I fell on the head or heels of another and was
promptly ejected, only to land on a third prisoner and get a new
contribution of kicks and curses and a new destination.  I brought up at
last in an unoccupied corner, very much battered and bruised and sore,
but glad enough to be let alone for a little while.  I was on the
flag-stones, for there was, no furniture in the den except a long, broad
board, or combination of boards, like a barn-door, and this bed was
accommodating five or six persons, and that was its full capacity.  They
lay stretched side by side, snoring--when not fighting.  One end of the
board was four, inches higher than the other, and so the slant answered
for a pillow.  There were no blankets, and the night was a little chilly;
the nights are always a little chilly in San Francisco, though never
severely cold.  The board was a deal more comfortable than the stones,
and occasionally some flag-stone plebeian like me would try to creep to a
place on it; and then the aristocrats would hammer him good and make him
think a flag pavement was a nice enough place after all.

I lay quiet in my corner, stroking my bruises, and listening to the
revelations the prisoners made to each other--and to me for some that
were near me talked to me a good deal.  I had long had an idea that
Americans, being free, had no need of prisons, which are a contrivance of
despots for keeping restless patriots out of mischief.  So I was
considerably surprised to find out my mistake.

Ours was a big general cell, it seemed, for the temporary accommodation
of all comers whose crimes were trifling.  Among us they were two
Americans, two "Greasers" (Mexicans), a Frenchman, a German, four
Irishmen, a Chilenean (and, in the next cell, only separated from us by a
grating, two women), all drunk, and all more or less noisy; and as night
fell and advanced, they grew more and more discontented and disorderly,
occasionally; shaking the prison bars and glaring through them at the
slowly pacing officer, and cursing him with all their hearts.  The two
women were nearly middle-aged, and they had only had enough liquor to
stimulate instead of stupefy them.  Consequently they would fondle and
kiss each other for some minutes, and then fall to fighting and keep it
up till they were just two grotesque tangles of rags and blood and
tumbled hair.  Then they would rest awhile and pant and swear.  While
they were affectionate they always spoke of each other as "ladies," but
while they were fighting "strumpet" was the mildest name they could think
of--and they could only make that do by tacking some sounding profanity
to it.  In their last fight, which was toward midnight, one of them bit
off the other's finger, and then the officer interfered and put the
"Greaser" into the "dark cell" to answer for it because the woman that
did it laid it on him, and the other woman did not deny it because, as
she said afterward, she "wanted another crack at the huzzy when her
finger quit hurting," and so she did not want her removed.  By this time
those two women had mutilated each other's clothes to that extent that
there was not sufficient left to cover their nakedness.  I found that one
of these creatures had spent nine years in the county jail, and that the
other one had spent about four or five years in the same place.  They had
done it from choice.  As soon as they were discharged from captivity they
would go straight and get drunk, and then steal some trifling thing while
an officer was observing them.  That would entitle them to another two,
months in jail, and there they would occupy clean, airy apartments, and
have good food in plenty, and being at no expense at all, they, could
make shirts for the clothiers at half a dollar apiece and thus keep
themselves in smoking tobacco and such other luxuries as they wanted.
When the two months were up they would go just as straight as they could
walk to Mother Leonard's and get drunk; and from there to Kearney street
and steal something; and thence to this city prison, and next day back to
the old quarters in the county jail again.  One of them had really kept
this up for nine years and the other four or five, and both said they
meant to end their days in that prison. **--[**The former of the two
did.--Ed. Men.]--Finally, both these creatures fell upon me while I was
dozing with my head against their grating, and battered me considerably,
because they discovered that I was a Chinaman, and they said I was "a
bloody interlopin' loafer come from the devil's own country to take the
bread out of dacent people's mouths and put down the wages for work whin
it was all a Christian could do to kape body and sowl together as it
was."  "Loafer" means one who will not work.
                                                       AH SONG HI.




LETTER VI

                                             SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.

DEAR CHING-FOO:  To continue--the two women became reconciled to each
other again through the common bond of interest and sympathy created
between them by pounding me in partnership, and when they had finished me
they fell to embracing each other again and swearing more eternal
affection like that which had subsisted between them all the evening,
barring occasional interruptions.  They agreed to swear the finger-biting
on the Greaser in open court, and get him sent to the penitentiary for
the crime of mayhem.

Another of our company was a boy of fourteen who had been watched for
some time by officers and teachers, and repeatedly detected in enticing
young girls from the public schools to the lodgings of gentlemen down
town.  He  had been furnished with lures in the form of pictures and
books of a peculiar kind, and these he had distributed among his clients.
There were likenesses of fifteen of these young girls on exhibition (only
to prominent citizens and persons in authority, it was said, though most
people came to get a sight) at the police headquarters, but no punishment
at all was to be inflicted on the poor little misses.  The boy was
afterward sent into captivity at the House of Correction for some months,
and there was a strong disposition to punish the gentlemen who had
employed the boy to entice the girls, but as that could not be done
without making public the names of those gentlemen and thus injuring them
socially, the idea was finally given up.

There was also in our cell that night a photographer (a kind of artist
who makes likenesses of people with a machine), who had been for some
time patching the pictured heads of well-known and respectable young
ladies to the nude, pictured bodies of another class of women; then from
this patched creation he would make photographs and sell them privately
at high prices to rowdies and blackguards, averring that these, the best
young ladies of the city, had hired him to take their likenesses in that
unclad condition.  What a lecture the police judge read that photographer
when he was convicted!  He told him his crime was little less than an
outrage.  He abused that photographer till he almost made him sink
through the floor, and then he fined him a hundred dollars.  And he told
him he might consider himself lucky that he didn't fine him a hundred and
twenty-five dollars.  They are awfully severe on crime here.

About two or two and a half hours after midnight, of that first
experience of mine in the city prison, such of us as were dozing were
awakened by a noise of beating and dragging and groaning, and in a little
while a man was pushed into our den with a "There, d---n you, soak there
a spell!"--and then the gate was closed and the officers went away again.
The man who was thrust among us fell limp and helpless by the grating,
but as nobody could reach him with a kick without the trouble of hitching
along toward him or getting fairly up to deliver it, our people only
grumbled at him, and cursed him, and called him insulting names--for
misery and hardship do not make their victims gentle or charitable toward
each other.  But as he neither tried humbly to conciliate our people nor
swore back at them, his unnatural conduct created surprise, and several
of the party crawled to him where he lay in the dim light that came
through the grating, and examined into his case.  His head was very
bloody and his wits were gone.  After about an hour, he sat up and stared
around; then his eyes grew more natural and he began to tell how that he
was going along with a bag on his shoulder and a brace of policemen
ordered him to stop, which he did not do--was chased and caught, beaten
ferociously about the head on the way to the prison and after arrival
there, and finally I thrown into our den like a dog.

And in a few seconds he sank down again and grew flighty of speech.  One
of our people was at last penetrated with something vaguely akin to
compassion, may be, for he looked out through the gratings at the
guardian officer, pacing to and fro, and said:

"Say, Mickey, this shrimp's goin' to die."

"Stop your noise!" was all the answer he got.  But presently our man
tried it again.  He drew himself to the gratings, grasping them with his
hands, and looking out through them, sat waiting till the officer was
passing once more, and then said:

"Sweetness, you'd better mind your eye, now, because you beats have
killed this cuss.  You've busted his head and he'll pass in his checks
before sun-up.  You better go for a doctor, now, you bet you had."

The officer delivered a sudden rap on our man's knuckles with his club,
that sent him scampering and howling among the sleeping forms on the
flag-stones, and an answering burst of laughter came from the half dozen
policemen idling about the railed desk in the middle of the dungeon.

But there was a putting of heads together out there presently, and a
conversing in low voices, which seemed to show that our man's talk had
made an impression; and presently an officer went away in a hurry, and
shortly came back with a person who entered our cell and felt the bruised
man's pulse and threw the glare of a lantern on his drawn face, striped
with blood, and his glassy eyes, fixed and vacant.  The doctor examined
the man's broken head also, and presently said:

"If you'd called me an hour ago I might have saved this man, may be too
late now."

Then he walked out into the dungeon and the officers surrounded him, and
they kept up a low and earnest buzzing of conversation for fifteen
minutes, I should think, and then the doctor took his departure from the
prison.  Several of the officers now came in and worked a little with the
wounded man, but toward daylight he died.

It was the longest, longest night!  And when the daylight came filtering
reluctantly into the dungeon at last, it was the grayest, dreariest,
saddest daylight!  And yet, when an officer by and by turned off the
sickly yellow gas flame, and immediately the gray of dawn became fresh
and white, there was a lifting of my spirits that acknowledged and
believed that the night was gone, and straightway I fell to stretching my
sore limbs, and looking about me with a grateful sense of relief and a
returning interest in life.  About me lay the evidences that what seemed
now a feverish dream and a nightmare was the memory of a reality instead.
For on the boards lay four frowsy, ragged, bearded vagabonds, snoring
--one turned end-for-end and resting an unclean foot, in a ruined
stocking, on the hairy breast of a neighbour; the young boy was uneasy,
and lay moaning in his sleep; other forms lay half revealed and half
concealed about the floor; in the furthest corner the gray light fell
upon a sheet, whose elevations and depressions indicated the places of
the dead man's face and feet and folded hands; and through the dividing
bars one could discern the almost nude forms of the two exiles from the
county jail twined together in a drunken embrace, and sodden with sleep.

By and by all the animals in all the cages awoke, and stretched
themselves, and exchanged a few cuffs and curses, and then began to
clamour for breakfast.  Breakfast was brought in at last--bread and
beefsteak on tin plates, and black coffee in tin cups, and no grabbing
allowed.  And after several dreary hours of waiting, after this, we were
all marched out into the dungeon and joined there by all manner of
vagrants and vagabonds, of all shades and colours and nationalities, from
the other cells and cages of the place; and pretty soon our whole
menagerie was marched up-stairs and locked fast behind a high railing in
a dirty room with a dirty audience in it.  And this audience stared at
us, and at a man seated on high behind what they call a pulpit in this
country, and at some clerks and other officials seated below him--and
waited.  This was the police court.

The court opened.  Pretty soon I was compelled to notice that a culprit's
nationality made for or against him in this court.  Overwhelming proofs
were necessary to convict an Irishman of crime, and even then his
punishment amounted to little; Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians had
strict and unprejudiced justice meted out to them, in exact accordance
with the evidence; negroes were promptly punished, when there was the
slightest preponderance of testimony against them; but Chinamen were
punished always, apparently.  Now this gave me some uneasiness, I
confess.  I knew that this state of things must of necessity be
accidental, because in this country all men were free and equal, and one
person could not take to himself an advantage not accorded to all other
individuals.  I knew that, and yet in spite of it I was uneasy.

And I grew still more uneasy, when I found that any succored and
befriended refugee from Ireland or elsewhere could stand up before that
judge and swear, away the life or liberty or character of a refugee from
China; but that by the law of the land the Chinaman could not testify
against the Irishman.  I was really and truly uneasy, but still my faith
in the universal liberty that America accords and defends, and my deep
veneration for the land that offered all distressed outcasts a home and
protection, was strong within me, and I said to myself that it would all
come out right yet.
                                                  AH SONG HI.




LETTER VII

                                                  SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.
DEAR CHING FOO:  I was glad enough when my case came up.  An hour's
experience had made me as tired of the police court as of the dungeon.
I was not uneasy about the result of the trial, but on the contrary felt
that as soon as the large auditory of Americans present should hear how
that the rowdies had set the dogs on me when I was going peacefully along
the street, and how, when I was all torn and bleeding, the officers
arrested me and put me in jail and let the rowdies go free, the gallant
hatred of oppression which is part of the very flesh and blood of every
American would be stirred to its utmost, and I should be instantly set at
liberty.  In truth I began to fear for the other side.  There in full
view stood the ruffians who had misused me, and I began to fear that in
the first burst of generous anger occasioned by the revealment of what
they had done, they might be harshly handled, and possibly even banished
the country as having dishonoured her and being no longer worthy to
remain upon her sacred soil.

The official interpreter of the court asked my name, and then spoke it
aloud so that all could hear.  Supposing that all was now ready, I
cleared my throat and began--in Chinese, because of my imperfect English:

"Hear, O high and mighty mandarin, and believe!  As I went about my
peaceful business in the street, behold certain men set a dog on me,
and--

"Silence!"

It was the judge that spoke.  The interpreter whispered to me that I must
keep perfectly still.  He said that no statement would be received from
me--I must only talk through my lawyer.

I had no lawyer.  In the early morning a police court lawyer (termed, in
the higher circles of society, a "shyster") had come into our den in the
prison and offered his services to me, but I had been obliged to go
without them because I could not pay in advance or give security.  I told
the interpreter how the matter stood.  He said I must take my chances on
the witnesses then.  I glanced around, and my failing confidence revived.

"Call those four Chinamen yonder," I said.  "They saw it all.  I remember
their faces perfectly.  They will prove that the white men set the dog on
me when I was not harming them."

"That won't work," said he.  "In this country white men can testify
against Chinamen all they want to, but Chinamen ain't allowed to testify
against white men!"

What a chill went through me!  And then I felt the indignant blood rise
to my cheek at this libel upon the Home of the Oppressed, where all men
are free and equal--perfectly equal--perfectly free and perfectly equal.
I despised this Chinese-speaking Spaniard for his mean slander of the
land that was sheltering and feeding him.  I sorely wanted to sear his
eyes with that sentence from the great and good American Declaration of
Independence which we have copied in letters of gold in China and keep
hung up over our family altars and in our temples--I mean the one about
all men being created free and equal.

But woe is me, Ching Foo, the man was right.  He was right, after all.
There were my witnesses, but I could not use them.  But now came a new
hope.  I saw my white friend come in, and I felt that he had come there
purposely to help me.  I may almost say I knew it.  So I grew easier.
He passed near enough to me to say under his breath, "Don't be afraid,"
and then I had no more fear.  But presently the rowdies recognised him
and began to scowl at him in no friendly way, and to make threatening
signs at him.  The two officers that arrested me fixed their eyes
steadily on his; he bore it well, but gave in presently, and dropped his
eyes.  They still gazed at his eyebrows, and every time he raised his
eyes he encountered their winkless stare--until after a minute or two he
ceased to lift his head at all.  The judge had been giving some
instructions privately to some one for a little while, but now he was
ready to resume business.  Then the trial so unspeakably important to me,
and freighted with such prodigious consequence to my wife and children,
began, progressed, ended, was recorded in the books, noted down by the
newspaper reporters, and forgotten by everybody but me--all in the little
space of two minutes!

"Ah Song Hi, Chinaman.  Officers O'Flannigan and O'Flaherty, witnesses.
Come forward, Officer O'Flannigan."

OFFICER--"He was making a disturbance in Kearny street."

JUDGE--"Any witnesses on the other side?"  No response.  The white friend
raised his eyes encountered Officer O'Flaherty's--blushed a little--got
up and left the courtroom, avoiding all glances and not taking his own
from the floor.

JUDGE--"Give him five dollars or ten days."

In my desolation there was a glad surprise in the words; but it passed
away when I found that he only meant that I was to be fined five dollars
or imprisoned ten days longer in default of it.

There were twelve or fifteen Chinamen in our crowd of prisoners, charged
with all manner of little thefts and misdemeanors, and their cases were
quickly disposed of, as a general thing.  When the charge came from a
policeman or other white man, he made his statement and that was the end
of it, unless the Chinaman's lawyer could find some white person to
testify in his client's behalf, for, neither the accused Chinaman nor his
countrymen being allowed to say anything, the statement of the officers
or other white person was amply sufficient to convict.  So, as I said,
the Chinamen's cases were quickly disposed of, and fines and imprisonment
promptly distributed among them.  In one or two of the cases the charges
against Chinamen were brought by Chinamen themselves, and in those cases
Chinamen testified against Chinamen, through the interpreter; but the
fixed rule of the court being that the preponderance of testimony in such
cases should determine the prisoner's guilt or innocence, and there being
nothing very binding about an oath administered to the lower orders of
our people without the ancient solemnity of cutting off a chicken's head
and burning some yellow paper at the same time, the interested parties
naturally drum up a cloud of witnesses who are cheerfully willing to give
evidence without ever knowing anything about the matter in hand.  The
judge has a custom of rattling through with as much of this testimony as
his patience will stand, and then shutting off the rest and striking an
average.

By noon all the business of the court was finished, and then several of
us who had not fared well were remanded to prison; the judge went home;
the lawyers, and officers, and spectators departed their several ways,
and left the uncomely court-room to silence, solitude, and Stiggers, the
newspaper reporter, which latter would now write up his items (said an
ancient Chinaman to me), in the which he would praise all the policemen
indiscriminately and abuse the Chinamen and dead people.

                                                       AH SONG HI.


End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)






HOW TO TELL A STORY AND OTHERS

by Mark Twain



CONTENTS:
     HOW TO TELL A STORY
          THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
          THE GOLDEN ARM
     MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN
     THE INVALIDS STORY



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 pretence 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 to-day.

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 whooping 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 gaspings
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 were 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
[and if too long] 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 practise 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, Gaze 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?  --zzz--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 towards 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 up-stairs en jump in de bed en
kiver up, head and years, en lay dah 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 acomin' up-stairs!  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.







MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN

I have three or four curious incidents to tell about.  They seem to come
under the head of what I named "Mental Telegraphy" in a paper written
seventeen years ago, and published long afterwards.--[The paper entitled
"Mental Telegraphy," which originally appeared in Harper's Magazine for
December, 1893, is included in the volume entitled The American Claimant
and Other Stories and Sketches.]

Several years ago I made a campaign on the platform with Mr. George W.
Cable.  In Montreal we were honored with a reception.  It began at two in
the afternoon in a long drawing-room in the Windsor Hotel.  Mr. Cable and
I stood at one end of this room, and the ladies and gentlemen entered it
at the other end, crossed it at that end, then came up the long left-hand
side, shook hands with us, said a word or two, and passed on, in the
usual way.  My sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently
recognized a familiar face among the throng of strangers drifting in at
the distant door, and I said to myself, with surprise and high
gratification, "That is Mrs. R.; I had forgotten that she was a
Canadian."  She had been a great friend of mine in Carson City, Nevada,
in the early days.  I had not seen her or heard of her for twenty years;
I had not been thinking about her; there was nothing to suggest her to
me, nothing to bring her to my mind; in fact, to me she had long ago
ceased to exist, and had disappeared from my consciousness.  But I knew
her instantly; and I saw her so clearly that I was able to note some of
the particulars of her dress, and did note them, and they remained
in my mind.  I was impatient for her to come.  In the midst of the
hand-shakings I snatched glimpses of her and noted her progress with the
slow-moving file across the end of the room; then I saw her start up the
side, and this gave me a full front view of her face.  I saw her last
when she was within twenty-five feet of me.  For an hour I kept thinking
she must still be in the room somewhere and would come at last, but I was
disappointed.

When I arrived in the lecture-hall that evening some one said: "Come into
the waiting-room; there's a friend of yours there who wants to see you.
You'll not be introduced--you are to do the recognizing without help if
you can."

I said to myself: "It is Mrs. R.; I shan't have any trouble."

There were perhaps ten ladies present, all seated.  In the midst of them
was Mrs. R., as I had expected.  She was dressed exactly as she was when
I had seen her in the afternoon.  I went forward and shook hands with her
and called her by name, and said:

"I knew you the moment you appeared at the reception this afternoon."
She looked surprised, and said: "But I was not at the reception.  I have
just arrived from Quebec, and have not been in town an hour."

It was my turn to be surprised now.  I said: "I can't help it.  I give
you my word of honor that it is as I say.  I saw you at the reception,
and you were dressed precisely as you are now.  When they told me a
moment ago that I should find a friend in this room, your image rose
before me, dress and all, just as I had seen you at the reception."

Those are the facts.  She was not at the reception at all, or anywhere
near it; but I saw her there nevertheless, and most clearly and
unmistakably.  To that I could make oath.  How is one to explain this?  I
was not thinking of her at the time; had not thought of her for years.
But she had been thinking of me, no doubt; did her thoughts flit through
leagues of air to me, and bring with it that clear and pleasant vision of
herself?  I think so.  That was and remains my sole experience in the
matter of apparitions--I mean apparitions that come when one is
(ostensibly) awake.  I could have been asleep for a moment; the
apparition could have been the creature of a dream.  Still, that is
nothing to the point; the feature of interest is the happening of the
thing just at that time, instead of at an earlier or later time, which is
argument that its origin lay in thought-transference.

My next incident will be set aside by most persons as being merely
a "coincidence," I suppose.  Years ago I used to think sometimes of
making a lecturing trip through the antipodes and the borders of the
Orient, but always gave up the idea, partly because of the great length
of the journey and partly because my wife could not well manage to go
with me.  Towards the end of last January that idea, after an interval of
years, came suddenly into my head again--forcefully, too, and without any
apparent reason.  Whence came it?  What suggested it?  I will touch upon
that presently.

I was at that time where I am now--in Paris.  I wrote at once to Henry M.
Stanley (London), and asked him some questions about his Australian
lecture tour, and inquired who had conducted him and what were the terms.
After a day or two his answer came.  It began:

          "The lecture agent for Australia and New Zealand is par
          excellence Mr.  R. S. Smythe, of Melbourne."

He added his itinerary, terms, sea expenses, and some other matters, and
advised me to write Mr. Smythe, which I did--February 3d.  I began my
letter by saying in substance that while he did not know me personally we
had a mutual friend in Stanley, and that would answer for an
introduction.  Then I proposed my trip, and asked if he would give me the
same terms which he had given Stanley.

I mailed my letter to Mr. Smythe February 6th, and three days later I got
a letter from the selfsame Smythe, dated Melbourne, December 17th.  I
would as soon have expected to get a letter from the late George
Washington.  The letter began somewhat as mine to him had begun--with a
self-introduction:

          "DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--It is so long since Archibald Forbes and I
          spent that pleasant afternoon in your comfortable house at
          Hartford that you have probably quite forgotten the occasion."

In the course of his letter this occurs:

          "I am willing to give you" [here he named the terms which he
          had given Stanley] "for an antipodean tour to last, say, three
          months."

Here was the single essential detail of my letter answered three days
after I had mailed my inquiry.  I might have saved myself the trouble and
the postage--and a few years ago I would have done that very thing, for I
would have argued that my sudden and strong impulse to write and ask some
questions of a stranger on the under side of the globe meant that the
impulse came from that stranger, and that he would answer my questions of
his own motion if I would let him alone.

Mr. Smythe's letter probably passed under my nose on its way to lose
three weeks traveling to America and back, and gave me a whiff of its
contents as it went along.  Letters often act like that.  Instead of the
thought coming to you in an instant from Australia, the (apparently)
unsentient letter imparts it to you as it glides invisibly past your
elbow in the mail-bag.

Next incident.  In the following month--March--I was in America.  I spent
a Sunday at Irvington-on-the-Hudson with Mr. John Brisben Walker, of the
Cosmopolitan magazine.  We came into New York next morning, and went to
the Century Club for luncheon.  He said some praiseful things about the
character of the club and the orderly serenity and pleasantness of its
quarters, and asked if I had never tried to acquire membership in it.
I said I had not, and that New York clubs were a continuous expense to
the country members without being of frequent use or benefit to them.

"And now I've got an idea!" said I.  "There's the Lotos--the first New
York club I was ever a member of--my very earliest love in that line.
I have been a member of it for considerably more than twenty years, yet
have seldom had a chance to look in and see the boys.  They turn gray and
grow old while I am not watching.  And my dues go on.  I am going to
Hartford this afternoon for a day or two, but as soon as I get back I
will go to John Elderkin very privately and say: 'Remember the veteran
and confer distinction upon him, for the sake of old times.  Make me an
honorary member and abolish the tax.  If you haven't any such thing as
honorary membership, all the better--create it for my honor and glory.'
That would be a great thing; I will go to John Elderkin as soon as I get
back from Hartford."

I took the last express that afternoon, first telegraphing Mr. F. G.
Whitmore to come and see me next day.  When he came he asked: "Did you
get a letter from Mr. John Elderkin, secretary of the Lotos Club, before
you left New York?"

"Then it just missed you.  If I had known you were coming I would have
kept it.  It is beautiful, and will make you proud.  The Board of
Directors, by unanimous vote, have made you a life member, and squelched
those dues; and, you are to be on hand and receive your distinction on
the night of the 30th, which is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
founding of the club, and it will not surprise me if they have some great
times there."

What put the honorary membership in my head that day in the Century Club?
for I had never thought of it before.  I don't know what brought the
thought to me at that particular time instead of earlier, but I am well
satisfied that it originated with the Board of Directors, and had been on
its way to my brain through the air ever since the moment that saw their
vote recorded.

Another incident.  I was in Hartford two or three days as a guest of the
Rev. Joseph H. Twichell.  I have held the rank of Honorary Uncle to his
children for a quarter of a century, and I went out with him in the
trolley-car to visit one of my nieces, who is at Miss Porter's famous
school in Farmington.  The distance is eight or nine miles.  On the way,
talking, I illustrated something with an anecdote.  This is the anecdote:

Two years and a half ago I and the family arrived at Milan on our way to
Rome, and stopped at the Continental.  After dinner I went below and took
a seat in the stone-paved court, where the customary lemon-trees stand in
the customary tubs, and said to myself, "Now this is comfort, comfort and
repose, and nobody to disturb it; I do not know anybody in Milan."

Then a young gentleman stepped up and shook hands, which damaged my
theory.  He said, in substance:

"You won't remember me, Mr. Clemens, but I remember you very well.  I was
a cadet at West Point when you and Rev. Joseph H. Twichell came there
some years ago and talked to us on a Hundredth Night.  I am a lieutenant
in the regular army now, and my name is H.  I am in Europe, all alone,
for a modest little tour; my regiment is in Arizona."

We became friendly and sociable, and in the course of the talk he told me
of an adventure which had befallen him--about to this effect:

"I was at Bellagio, stopping at the big hotel there, and ten days ago I
lost my letter of credit.  I did not know what in the world to do.  I was
a stranger; I knew no one in Europe; I hadn't a penny in my pocket; I
couldn't even send a telegram to London to get my lost letter replaced;
my hotel bill was a week old, and the presentation of it imminent--so
imminent that it could happen at any moment now.  I was so frightened
that my wits seemed to leave me.  I tramped and tramped, back and forth,
like a crazy person.  If anybody approached me I hurried away, for no
matter what a person looked like, I took him for the head waiter with the
bill.

"I was at last in such a desperate state that I was ready to do any wild
thing that promised even the shadow of help, and so this is the insane
thing that I did.  I saw a family lunching at a small table on the
veranda, and recognized their nationality--Americans--father, mother, and
several young daughters--young, tastefully dressed, and pretty--the rule
with our people.  I went straight there in my civilian costume, named my
name, said I was a lieutenant in the army, and told my story and asked
for help.

"What do you suppose the gentleman did?  But you would not guess in
twenty years.  He took out a handful of gold coin and told me to help
myself--freely.  That is what he did."

The next morning the lieutenant told me his new letter of credit had
arrived in the night, so we strolled to Cook's to draw money to pay back
the benefactor with.  We got it, and then went strolling through the
great arcade.  Presently he said, "Yonder they are; come and be
introduced."  I was introduced to the parents and the young ladies; then
we separated, and I never saw him or them any m---

"Here we are at Farmington," said Twichell, interrupting.

We left the trolley-car and tramped through the mud a hundred yards or so
to the school, talking about the time we and Warner walked out there
years ago, and the pleasant time we had.

We had a visit with my niece in the parlor, then started for the trolley
again.  Outside the house we encountered a double rank of twenty or
thirty of Miss Porter's young ladies arriving from a walk, and we stood
aside, ostensibly to let them have room to file past, but really to look
at them.  Presently one of them stepped out of the rank and said:

"You don't know me, Mr. Twichell; but I know your daughter, and that
gives me the privilege of shaking hands with you."

Then she put out her hand to me, and said:

"And I wish to shake hands with you too, Mr. Clemens.  You don't remember
me, but you were introduced to me in the arcade in Milan two years and a
half ago by Lieutenant H."

What had put that story into my head after all that stretch of time?  Was
it just the proximity of that young girl, or was it merely an odd
accident?







THE INVALID'S STORY

I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due to my condition and
sufferings, for I am a bachelor, and only forty-one.  It will be hard for
you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, was a hale, hearty man
two short years ago, a man of iron, a very athlete!--yet such is the
simple truth.  But stranger still than this fact is the way in which I
lost my health.  I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns
on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's night.  It is the
actual truth, and I will tell you about it.

I belong in Cleveland, Ohio.  One winter's night, two years ago, I
reached home just after dark, in a driving snow-storm, and the first
thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend
and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day before, and that his
last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains home to
his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin.  I was greatly shocked and
grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions; I must start at
once.  I took the card, marked "Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem,
Wisconsin," and hurried off through the whistling storm to the railway
station.  Arrived there I found the long white-pine box which had been
described to me; I fastened the card to it with some tacks, saw it put
safely aboard the express car, and then ran into the eating-room to
provide myself with a sandwich and some cigars.  When I returned,
presently, there was my coffin-box back again, apparently, and a young
fellow examining around it, with a card in his hands, and some tacks and
a hammer!  I was astonished and puzzled.  He began to nail on his card,
and I rushed out to the express car, in a good deal of a state of mind,
to ask for an explanation.  But no--there was my box, all right, in the
express car; it hadn't been disturbed.  [The fact is that without my
suspecting it a prodigious mistake had been made.  I was carrying off a
box of guns which that young fellow had come to the station to ship to a
rifle company in Peoria, Illinois, and he had got my corpse!]  Just then
the conductor sung out "All aboard," and I jumped into the express car
and got a comfortable seat on a bale of buckets.  The expressman was
there, hard at work,--a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest,
good-natured face, and a breezy, practical heartiness in his general
style. As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the car and set a
package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of
my coffin-box--I mean my box of guns.  That is to say, I know now that it
was Limburger cheese, but at that time I never had heard of the article
in my life, and of course was wholly ignorant of its character.  Well, we
sped through the wild night, the bitter storm raged on, a cheerless
misery stole over me, my heart went down, down, down!  The old expressman
made a brisk remark or two about the tempest and the arctic weather,
slammed his sliding doors to, and bolted them, closed his window down
tight, and then went bustling around, here and there and yonder, setting
things to rights, and all the time contentedly humming "Sweet By and By,"
in a low tone, and flatting a good deal.  Presently I began to detect a
most evil and searching odor stealing about on the frozen air.  This
depressed my spirits still more, because of course I attributed it to my
poor departed friend.  There was something infinitely saddening about his
calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb pathetic way, so it was
hard to keep the tears back.  Moreover, it distressed me on account of
the old expressman, who, I was afraid, might notice it.  However, he went
humming tranquilly on, and gave no sign; and for this I was grateful.
Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; and soon I began to feel more and more
uneasy every minute, for every minute that went by that odor thickened up
the more, and got to be more and more gamey and hard to stand. Presently,
having got things arranged to his satisfaction, the expressman got some
wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove.

This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could not but feel that it
was a mistake.  I was sure that the effect would be deleterious upon my
poor departed friend.  Thompson--the expressman's name was Thompson, as I
found out in the course of the night--now went poking around his car,
stopping up whatever stray cracks he could find, remarking that it didn't
make any difference what kind of a night it was outside, he calculated to
make us comfortable, anyway.  I said nothing, but I believed he was not
choosing the right way.  Meantime he was humming to himself just as
before; and meantime, too, the stove was getting hotter and hotter, and
the place closer and closer.  I felt myself growing pale and qualmish,
but grieved in silence and said nothing.

Soon I noticed that the "Sweet By and By" was gradually fading out; next
it ceased altogether, and there was an ominous stillness.  After a few
moments Thompson said,

"Pfew!  I reckon it ain't no cinnamon 't I've loaded up thish-yer stove
with!"

He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the cof--gun-box, stood over
that Limburger cheese part of a moment, then came back and sat down near
me, looking a good deal impressed.  After a contemplative pause, he said,
indicating the box with a gesture,

"Friend of yourn?"

"Yes," I said with a sigh.

"He's pretty ripe, ain't he!"

Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of minutes, each being busy
with his own thoughts; then Thompson said, in a low, awed voice,

"Sometimes it's uncertain whether they're really gone or not,--seem gone,
you know--body warm, joints limber--and so, although you think they're
gone, you don't really know.  I've had cases in my car.  It's perfectly
awful, becuz you don't know what minute they'll rise up and look at you!"
Then, after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow toward the box,
--"But he ain't in no trance!  No, sir, I go bail for him!"

We sat some time, in meditative silence, listening to the wind and the
roar of the train; then Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling,

"Well-a-well, we've all got to go, they ain't no getting around it.  Man
that is born of woman is of few days and far between, as Scriptur' says.
Yes, you look at it any way you want to, it's awful solemn and cur'us:
they ain't nobody can get around it; all's got to go--just everybody, as
you may say.  One day you're hearty and strong"--here he scrambled to his
feet and broke a pane and stretched his nose out at it a moment or two,
then sat down again while I struggled up and thrust my nose out at the
same place, and this we kept on doing every now and then--"and next day
he's cut down like the grass, and the places which knowed him then knows
him no more forever, as Scriptur' says.  Yes'ndeedy, it's awful solemn
and cur'us; but we've all got to go, one time or another; they ain't no
getting around it."

There was another long pause; then,--

"What did he die of?"

I said I didn't know.

"How long has he ben dead?"

It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the probabilities; so I
said,

"Two or three days."

But it did no good; for Thompson received it with an injured look which
plainly said, "Two or three years, you mean."  Then he went right along,
placidly ignoring my statement, and gave his views at considerable length
upon the unwisdom of putting off burials too long.  Then he lounged off
toward the box, stood a moment, then came back on a sharp trot and
visited the broken pane, observing,

"'Twould 'a' ben a dum sight better, all around, if they'd started him
along last summer."

Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red silk handkerchief, and
began to slowly sway and rock his body like one who is doing his best to
endure the almost unendurable.  By this time the fragrance--if you may
call it fragrance--was just about suffocating, as near as you can come at
it.  Thompson's face was turning gray; I knew mine hadn't any color left
in it.  By and by Thompson rested his forehead in his left hand, with his
elbow on his knee, and sort of waved his red handkerchief towards the box
with his other hand, and said,--

"I've carried a many a one of 'em,--some of 'em considerable overdue,
too,--but, lordy, he just lays over 'em all!--and does it easy Cap., they
was heliotrope to HIM!"

This recognition of my poor friend gratified me, in spite of the sad
circumstances, because it had so much the sound of a compliment.

Pretty soon it was plain that something had got to be done.  I suggested
cigars.  Thompson thought it was a good idea.  He said,

"Likely it'll modify him some."

We puffed gingerly along for a while, and tried hard to imagine that
things were improved.  But it wasn't any use.  Before very long, and
without any consultation, both cigars were quietly dropped from our
nerveless fingers at the same moment.  Thompson said, with a sigh,

"No, Cap., it don't modify him worth a cent.  Fact is, it makes him
worse, becuz it appears to stir up his ambition.  What do you reckon we
better do, now?"

I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had to be swallowing and
swallowing, all the time, and did not like to trust myself to speak.
Thompson fell to maundering, in a desultory and low-spirited way, about
the miserable experiences of this night; and he got to referring to my
poor friend by various titles,--sometimes military ones, sometimes civil
ones; and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend's effectiveness grew,
Thompson promoted him accordingly,--gave him a bigger title.  Finally he
said,

"I've got an idea.  Suppos' n we buckle down to it and give the Colonel a
bit of a shove towards t'other end of the car?--about ten foot, say.  He
wouldn't have so much influence, then, don't you reckon?"

I said it was a good scheme.  So we took in a good fresh breath at the
broken pane, calculating to hold it till we got through; then we went
there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a grip on the box.
Thompson nodded "All ready," and then we threw ourselves forward with all
our might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down with his nose on the
cheese, and his breath got loose.  He gagged and gasped, and floundered
up and made a break for the door, pawing the air and saying hoarsely,
"Don't hender me! --gimme the road!  I'm a-dying; gimme the road!"
Out on the cold platform I sat down and held his head a while, and he
revived.  Presently he said,

"Do you reckon we started the Gen'rul any?"

I said no; we hadn't budged him.

"Well, then, that idea's up the flume.  We got to think up something
else.  He's suited wher' he is, I reckon; and if that's the way he feels
about it, and has made up his mind that he don't wish to be disturbed,
you bet he's a-going to have his own way in the business.  Yes, better
leave him right wher' he is, long as he wants it so; becuz he holds all
the trumps, don't you know, and so it stands to reason that the man that
lays out to alter his plans for him is going to get left."

But we couldn't stay out there in that mad storm; we should have frozen
to death.  So we went in again and shut the door, and began to suffer
once more and take turns at the break in the window.  By and by, as we
were starting away from a station where we had stopped a moment Thompson.
pranced in cheerily, and exclaimed,

"We're all right, now!  I reckon we've got the Commodore this time.  I
judge I've got the stuff here that'll take the tuck out of him."

It was carbolic acid.  He had a carboy of it.  He sprinkled it all around
everywhere; in fact he drenched everything with it, rifle-box, cheese and
all.  Then we sat down, feeling pretty hopeful.  But it wasn't for long.
You see the two perfumes began to mix, and then--well, pretty soon we
made a break for the door; and out there Thompson swabbed his face with
his bandanna and said in a kind of disheartened way,

"It ain't no use.  We can't buck agin him.  He just utilizes everything
we put up to modify him with, and gives it his own flavor and plays it
back on us.  Why, Cap., don't you know, it's as much as a hundred times
worse in there now than it was when he first got a-going.  I never did
see one of 'em warm up to his work so, and take such a dumnation interest
in it.  No, Sir, I never did, as long as I've ben on the road; and I've
carried a many a one of 'em, as I was telling you."

We went in again after we were frozen pretty stiff; but my, we couldn't
stay in, now.  So we just waltzed back and forth, freezing, and thawing,
and stifling, by turns.  In about an hour we stopped at another station;
and as we left it Thompson came in with a bag, and said,--

"Cap., I'm a-going to chance him once more,--just this once; and if we
don't fetch him this time, the thing for us to do, is to just throw up
the sponge and withdraw from the canvass.  That's the way I put it up."
He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, and dried apples, and leaf
tobacco, and rags, and old shoes, and sulphur, and asafoetida, and one
thing or another; and he, piled them on a breadth of sheet iron in the
middle of the floor, and set fire to them.

When they got well started, I couldn't see, myself, how even the corpse
could stand it.  All that went before was just simply poetry to that
smell,--but mind you, the original smell stood up out of it just as
sublime as ever,--fact is, these other smells just seemed to give it a
better hold; and my, how rich it was!  I didn't make these reflections
there--there wasn't time--made them on the platform.  And breaking for
the platform, Thompson got suffocated and fell; and before I got him
dragged out, which I did by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself.
When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly,--

"We got to stay out here, Cap.  We got to do it.  They ain't no other
way.  The Governor wants to travel alone, and he's fixed so he can
outvote us."

And presently he added,

"And don't you know, we're pisoned.  It's our last trip, you can make up
your mind to it.  Typhoid fever is what's going to come of this.  I feel
it acoming right now.  Yes, sir, we're elected, just as sure as you're
born."

We were taken from the platform an hour later, frozen and insensible, at
the next station, and I went straight off into a virulent fever, and
never knew anything again for three weeks.  I found out, then, that I had
spent that awful night with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of
innocent cheese; but the news was too late to save me; imagination had
done its work, and my health was permanently shattered; neither Bermuda
nor any other land can ever bring it back tome.  This is my last trip; I
am on my way home to die.


End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How Tell a Story and Others
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)






MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES

by Mark Twain


CONTENTS:

     INTRODUCTION
     PREFACE
     THE STORY OF A SPEECH
     PLYMOUTH ROCK AND THE PILGRIMS
     COMPLIMENTS AND DEGREES
     BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND HATS
     DEDICATION SPEECH
     DIE SCHRECKEN DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE.
     THE HORRORS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE
     GERMAN FOR THE HUNGARIANS
     A NEW GERMAN WORD
     UNCONSCIOUS PLAGIARISM
     THE WEATHER
     THE BABIES
     OUR CHILDREN AND GREAT DISCOVERIES
     EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS
     THE EDUCATIONAL THEATRE
     POETS AS POLICEMEN
     PUDD'NHEAD WILSON DRAMATIZED
     DALY THEATRE
     THE DRESS OF CIVILIZED WOMAN
     DRESS REFORM AND COPYRIGHT
     COLLEGE GIRLS
     GIRLS
     THE LADIES
     WOMAN'S PRESS CLUB
     VOTES FOR WOMEN
     WOMAN-AN OPINION
     ADVICE TO GIRLS
     TAXES AND MORALS
     TAMMANY AND CROKER
     MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION
     MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
     CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES
     THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL MORALS
     LAYMAN'S SERMON
     UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT SOCIETY
     PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
     EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP
     COURAGE
     THE DINNER TO MR. CHOATE
     ON STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE
     HENRY M. STANLEY
     DINNER TO MR. JEROME
     HENRY IRVING
     DINNER TO HAMILTON W. MABIE
     INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY
     DINNER TO WHITELAW REID
     ROGERS AND RAILROADS
     THE OLD-FASHIONED PRINTER
     SOCIETY OF AMERICAN AUTHORS
     READING-ROOM OPENING
     LITERATURE
     DISAPPEARANCE OF LITERATURE
     THE NEW YORK PRESS CLUB DINNER
     THE ALPHABET AND SIMPLIFIED SPELLING
     SPELLING AND PICTURES
     BOOKS AND BURGLARS
     AUTHORS' CLUB
     BOOKSELLERS
     "MARK TWAIN's FIRST APPEARANCE"
     MORALS AND MEMORY
     QUEEN VICTORIA
     JOAN OF ARC
     ACCIDENT INSURANCE--ETC.
     OSTEOPATHY
     WATER-SUPPLY
     MISTAKEN IDENTITY
     CATS AND CANDY
     OBITUARY POETRY
     CIGARS AND TOBACCO
     BILLIARDS
     THE UNION RIGHT OR WRONG?
     AN IDEAL FRENCH ADDRESS
     STATISTICS
     GALVESTON ORPHAN BAZAAR
     SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
     CHARITY AND ACTORS
     RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
     RUSSIAN SUFFERERS
     WATTERSON AND TWAIN AS REBELS
     ROBERT FULTON FUND
     FULTON DAY, JAMESTOWN
     LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF MARK TWAIN
     COPYRIGHT
     IN AID OF THE BLIND
     DR. MARK TWAIN, FARMEOPATH
     MISSOURI UNIVERSITY SPEECH
     BUSINESS
     CARNEGIE THE BENEFACTOR
     ON POETRY, VERACITY, AND SUICIDE
     WELCOME HOME
     AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH
     SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY
     TO THE WHITEFRIARS
     THE ASCOT GOLD CUP
     THE SAVAGE CLUB DINNER
     GENERAL MILES AND THE DOG
     WHEN IN DOUBT, TELL THE TRUTH
     THE DAY WE CELEBRATE
     INDEPENDENCE DAY
     AMERICANS AND THE ENGLISH
     ABOUT LONDON
     PRINCETON
     THE ST. LOUIS HARBOR-BOAT "MARK TWAIN"
     SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY




INTRODUCTION

These speeches will address themselves to the minds and hearts of those
who read them, but not with the effect they had with those who heard
them; Clemens himself would have said, not with half the effect.  I have
noted elsewhere how he always held that the actor doubled the value of
the author's words; and he was a great actor as well as a great author.
He was a most consummate actor, with this difference from other actors,
that he was the first to know the thoughts and invent the fancies to
which his voice and action gave the color of life.  Representation is the
art of other actors; his art was creative as well as representative; it
was nothing at second hand.

I never heard Clemens speak when I thought he quite failed; some burst
or spurt redeemed him when he seemed flagging short of the goal, and,
whoever else was in the running, he came in ahead.  His near-failures
were the error of a rare trust to the spontaneity in which other speakers
confide, or are believed to confide, when they are on their feet.  He
knew that from the beginning of oratory the orator's spontaneity was for
the silence and solitude of the closet where he mused his words to an
imagined audience; that this was the use of orators from Demosthenes and
Cicero up and down.  He studied every word and syllable, and memorized
them by a system of mnemonics peculiar to himself, consisting of an
arbitrary arrangement of things on a table--knives, forks, salt-cellars;
inkstands, pens, boxes, or whatever was at hand--which stood for points
and clauses and climaxes, and were at once indelible diction and constant
suggestion.  He studied every tone and every gesture, and he forecast the
result with the real audience from its result with that imagined
audience.  Therefore, it was beautiful to see him and to hear him; he
rejoiced in the pleasure he gave and the blows of surprise which he
dealt; and because he had his end in mind, he knew when to stop.

I have been talking of his method and manner; the matter the reader has
here before him; and it is good matter, glad, honest, kind, just.

                                             W.  D.  HOWELLS.






PREFACE

FROM THE PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION OF "MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES"

If I were to sell the reader a barrel of molasses, and he, instead of
sweetening his substantial dinner with the same at judicious intervals,
should eat the entire barrel at one sitting, and then abuse me for making
him sick, I would say that he deserved to be made sick for not knowing
any better how to utilize the blessings this world affords.  And if I
sell to the reader this volume of nonsense, and he, instead of seasoning
his graver reading with a chapter of it now and then, when his mind
demands such relaxation, unwisely overdoses himself with several chapters
of it at a single sitting, he will deserve to be nauseated, and he will
have nobody to blame but himself if he is.  There is no more sin in
publishing an entire volume of nonsense than there is in keeping a
candy-store with no hardware in it.  It lies wholly with the customer
whether he will injure himself by means of either, or will derive from
them the benefits which they will afford him if he uses their
possibilities judiciously.
                                   Respectfully submitted,
                                                       THE AUTHOR.





                          MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES




THE STORY OF A SPEECH

          An address delivered in 1877, and a review of it twenty-nine
          years later.  The original speech was delivered at a dinner
          given by the publishers of The Atlantic Monthly in honor of the
          seventieth anniversary o f the birth of John Greenleaf
          Whittier, at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, December 17, 1877.

This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant
reminiscences concerning literary folk; therefore I will drop lightly
into history myself.  Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic and
contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded of a
thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just succeeded
in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose
spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly Californiaward.  I started an
inspection tramp through the southern mines of California.  I was callow
and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my 'nom de guerre'.

I very soon had an opportunity.  I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin
in the foot-hills of the Sierras just at nightfall.  It was snowing at
the time.  A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door
to me.  When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than
before.  He let me in--pretty reluctantly, I thought--and after the
customary bacon and beans, black coffee and hot whiskey, I took a pipe.
This sorrowful man had not said three words up to this time.  Now he
spoke up and said, in the voice of one who is secretly suffering, "You're
the fourth--I'm going to move."  "The fourth what?" said I.  "The fourth
littery man that has been here in twenty-four hours--I'm going to move."
"You don't tell me!" said I; "who were the others?"  "Mr. Longfellow,
Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound the lot!"

You can, easily believe I was interested.  I supplicated--three hot
whiskeys did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began.  Said he:

"They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in of
course.  Said they were going to the Yosemite.  They were a rough lot,
but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot.
Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed.  Mr. Holmes was
as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundred, and had double
chins all the way down to his stomach.  Mr. Longfellow was built like a
prizefighter.  His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a wig
made of hair-brushes.  His nose lay straight down, his face, like a
finger with the end joint tilted up.  They had been drinking, I could see
that.  And what queer talk they used!  Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin,
then he took me by the buttonhole, and says he:

          "'Through the deep caves of thought
          I hear a voice that sings,
          Build thee more stately mansions,
          O my soul!'

"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want to.'
Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a stranger, that
way.  However, I started to get out my bacon and beans, when Mr. Emerson
came and looked on awhile, and then he takes me aside by the buttonhole
and says:

          "'Give me agates for my meat;
          Give me cantharids to eat;
          From air and ocean bring me foods,
          From all zones and altitudes.'

"Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.'
You see it sort of riled me--I warn't used to the ways of littery swells.
But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr. Longfellow and
buttonholes me, and interrupts me.  Says he:

          "'Honor be to Mudjekeewis!
          You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--'

"But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll
be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and let me get
this grub ready, you'll do me proud.'  Well, sir, after they'd filled up
I set out the jug.  Mr. Holmes looks at it, and then he fires up all of a
sudden and yells:

          "Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!
          For I would drink to other days.'

"By George, I was getting kind of worked up.  I don't deny it, I was
getting kind of worked up.  I turns to Mr. Holmes, and says I, 'Looky
here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the court knows
herself, you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry.'  Them's the very
words I said to him.  Now I don't want to sass such famous littery
people, but you see they kind of forced me.  There ain't nothing
onreasonable 'bout me; I don't mind a passel of guests a-treadin' on my
tail three or four times, but when it comes to standing on it it's
different, 'and if the court knows herself,' I says, 'you'll take whiskey
straight or you'll go dry.'  Well, between drinks they'd swell around the
cabin and strike attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a
greasy old deck and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner--on
trust.  I began to notice some pretty suspicious things.  Mr. Emerson
dealt, looked at his hand, shook his head, says:

          "'I am the doubter and the doubt--'

and ca'mly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new layout.
Says he:

          "'They reckon ill who leave me out;
          They know not well the subtle ways I keep.
          I pass and deal again!'

Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too!  Oh, he was a cool one!
Well, in about a minute things were running pretty tight, but all of a
sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em.  He had already
corralled two tricks, and each of the others one.  So now he kind of
lifts a little in his chair and says:

          "'I tire of globes and aces!
          Too long the game is played!'

--and down he fetched a right bower.  Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet as
pie and says:

          "'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
          For the lesson thou hast taught,'

--and blamed if he didn't down with another right bower!  Emerson claps
his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went
under a bunk.  There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes
rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the
first man that draws, I'll lay down on him and smother him!'  All quiet
on the Potomac, you bet!

"They were pretty how-come-you-so' by now, and they begun to blow.
Emerson says, 'The nobbiest thing I ever wrote was "Barbara Frietchie."'
Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my "Biglow Papers."'  Says Holmes,
'My "Thanatopsis" lays over 'em both.'  They mighty near ended in a fight.
Then they wished they had some more company--and Mr. Emerson pointed to
me and says:

          "'Is yonder squalid peasant all
          That this proud nursery could breed?'

He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pass.  Well, sir,
next they took it into their heads that they would like some music; so
they made me stand up and sing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" till I
dropped-at thirteen minutes past four this morning.  That's what I've
been through, my friend.  When I woke at seven, they were leaving, thank
goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my only boots on, and his'n under his
arm.  Says I, 'Hold on, there, Evangeline, what are you going to do with
them?'  He says, 'Going to make tracks with 'em; because:

          "'Lives of great men all remind us
          We can make our lives sublime;
          And, departing, leave behind us
          Footprints on the sands of time.'

"As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours--and I'm
going to move; I ain't suited to a littery atmosphere."

I said to the miner, "Why, my dear sir, these were not the gracious
singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and homage; these
were impostors."

The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said he, "Ah!
impostors, were they?  Are you?"

I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not travelled on my
'nom de guerre' enough to hurt.  Such was the reminiscence I was moved to
contribute, Mr. Chairman.  In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the
details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I
believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular
fact on an occasion like this.

                        .........................

From Mark Twain's Autobiography.

                                             January 11, 1906.

Answer to a letter received this morning:

     DEAR MRS. H.,--I am forever your debtor for reminding me of that
     curious passage in my life.  During the first year or, two after it
     happened, I could not bear to think of it.  My pain and shame were
     so intense, and my sense of having been an imbecile so settled,
     established and confirmed, that I drove the episode entirely from my
     mind--and so all these twenty-eight or twenty-nine years I have
     lived in the conviction that my performance of that time was coarse,
     vulgar, and destitute of humor.  But your suggestion that you and
     your family found humor in it twenty-eight years ago moved me to
     look into the matter.  So I commissioned a Boston typewriter to
     delve among the Boston papers of that bygone time and send me a copy
     of it.

     It came this morning, and if there is any vulgarity about it I am
     not able to discover it.  If it isn't innocently and ridiculously
     funny, I am no judge.  I will see to it that you get a copy.


What I have said to Mrs. H. is true.  I did suffer during a year or two
from the deep humiliations of that episode.  But at last, in 1888, in
Venice, my wife and I came across Mr. and Mrs.  A. P. C., of Concord,
Massachusetts, and a friendship began then of the sort which nothing but
death terminates.  The C.'s were very bright people and in every way
charming and companionable.  We were together a month or two in Venice
and several months in Rome, afterward, and one day that lamented break of
mine was mentioned.  And when I was on the point of lathering those
people for bringing it to my mind when I had gotten the memory of it
almost squelched, I perceived with joy that the C.'s were indignant about
the way that my performance had been received in Boston.  They poured out
their opinions most freely and frankly about the frosty attitude of the
people who were present at that performance, and about the Boston
newspapers for the position they had taken in regard to the matter.
That position was that I had been irreverent beyond belief, beyond
imagination.  Very well; I had accepted that as a fact for a year or two,
and had been thoroughly miserable about it whenever I thought of it
--which was not frequently, if I could help it.  Whenever I thought of it
I wondered how I ever could have been inspired to do so unholy a thing.
Well, the C.'s comforted me, but they did not persuade me to continue to
think about the unhappy episode.  I resisted that.  I tried to get it out
of my mind, and let it die, and I succeeded.  Until Mrs. H.'s letter
came, it had been a good twenty-five years since I had thought of that
matter; and when she said that the thing was funny I wondered if possibly
she might be right.  At any rate, my curiosity was aroused, and I wrote
to Boston and got the whole thing copied, as above set forth.

I vaguely remember some of the details of that gathering--dimly I can see
a hundred people--no, perhaps fifty--shadowy figures sitting at tables
feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless forevermore.  I don't know who
they were, but I can very distinctly see, seated at the grand table and
facing the rest of us, Mr. Emerson, supernaturally grave, unsmiling;
Mr. Whittier, grave, lovely, his beautiful spirit shining out of his
face; Mr. Longfellow, with his silken white hair and his benignant face;
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, flashing smiles and affection and all
good-fellowship everywhere like a rose-diamond whose facets are being
turned toward the light first one way and then another--a charming man,
and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was sitting
still (what he would call still, but what would be more or less motion to
other people).  I can see those figures with entire distinctness across
this abyss of time.

One other feature is clear--Willie Winter (for these past thousand years
dramatic editor of the New York Tribune, and still occupying that high
post in his old age) was there.  He was much younger then than he is now,
and he showed 'it.  It was always a pleasure to me to see Willie Winter
at a banquet.  During a matter of twenty years I was seldom at a banquet
where Willie Winter was not also present, and where he did not read a
charming poem written for the occasion.  He did it this time, and it was
up to standard: dainty, happy, choicely phrased, and as good to listen to
as music, and sounding exactly as if it was pouring unprepared out of
heart and brain.

Now at that point ends all that was pleasurable about that notable
celebration of Mr. Whittier's seventieth birthday--because I got up at
that point and followed Winter, with what I have no doubt I supposed
would be the gem of the evening--the gay oration above quoted from the
Boston paper.  I had written it all out the day before and had perfectly
memorized it, and I stood up there at my genial and happy and
self-satisfied ease, and began to deliver it.  Those majestic guests;
that row of venerable and still active volcanoes, listened; as did
everybody else in the house, with attentive interest.  Well, I delivered
myself of--we'll say the first two hundred words of my speech.  I was
expecting no returns from that part of the speech, but this was not the
case as regarded the rest of it.  I arrived now at the dialogue:  "The
old miner said, 'You are the fourth, I'm going to move.'  'The fourth
what?' said I.  He answered, 'The fourth littery man that has been here
in twenty-four hours.  I am going to move.'  'Why, you don't tell me;'
said I. 'Who were the others?'  'Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, consound the lot--'"

Now, then, the house's attention continued, but the expression of
interest in the faces turned to a sort of black frost.  I wondered what
the trouble was.  I didn't know.  I went on, but with difficulty
--I struggled along, and entered upon that miner's fearful description of
the bogus Emerson, the bogus Holmes, the bogus Longfellow, always hoping
--but with a gradually perishing hope that somebody--would laugh, or that
somebody would at least smile, but nobody did.  I didn't know enough to
give it up and sit down, I was too new to public speaking, and so I went
on with this awful performance, and carried it clear through to the end,
in front of a body of people who seemed turned to stone with horror.
It was the sort of expression their faces would have worn if I had been
making these remarks about the Deity and the rest of the Trinity; there
is no milder way, in which to describe the petrified condition and the
ghastly expression of those people.

When I sat down it was with a heart which had long ceased to beat.
I shall never be as dead again as I was then.  I shall never be as
miserable again as I was then.  I speak now as one who doesn't know what
the condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I shall
never be as wretched again as I was then.  Howells, who was near me,
tried to say a comforting word, but couldn't get beyond a gasp.  There
was no use--he understood the whole size of the disaster.  He had good
intentions, but the words froze before they could get out.  It was an
atmosphere that would freeze anything.  If Benvenuto Cellini's salamander
had been in that place he would not have survived to be put into
Cellini's autobiography.  There was a frightful pause.  There was an
awful silence, a desolating silence.  Then the next man on the list had
to get up--there was no help for it.  That was Bishop--Bishop had just
burst handsomely upon the world with a most acceptable novel, which had
appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, a place which would make any novel
respectable and any author noteworthy.  In this case the novel itself was
recognized as being, without extraneous help, respectable.  Bishop was
away up in the public favor, and he was an object of high interest,
consequently there was a sort of national expectancy in the air; we may
say our American millions were standing, from Maine to Texas and from
Alaska to Florida, holding their breath, their lips parted, their hands
ready to applaud, when Bishop should get up on that occasion, and for the
first time in his life speak in public.  It was under these damaging
conditions that he got up to "make good," as the vulgar say.  I had
spoken several times before, and that is the reason why I was able to go
on without dying in my tracks, as I ought to have done--but Bishop had
had no experience.  He was up facing those awful deities--facing those
other people, those strangers--facing human beings for the first time in
his life, with a speech to utter.  No doubt it was well packed away in
his memory, no doubt it was fresh and usable, until I had been heard
from.  I suppose that after that, and under the smothering pall of that
dreary silence, it began to waste away and disappear out of his head like
the rags breaking from the edge of a fog, and presently there wasn't any
fog left.  He didn't go on--he didn't last long.  It was not many
sentence's after his first before he began to hesitate, and break, and
lose his grip, and totter, and wobble, and at last he slumped down in a
limp and mushy pile.

Well, the programme for the occasion was probably not more than
one-third finished, but it ended there.  Nobody rose.  The next man
hadn't strength enough to get up, and everybody looked so dazed, so
stupefied, paralyzed; it was impossible for anybody to do anything, or
even try. Nothing could go on in that strange atmosphere.  Howells
mournfully, and without words, hitched himself to Bishop and me and
supported us out of the room.  It was very kind--he was most generous.
He towed us tottering away into same room in that building, and we sat
down there.  I don't know what my remark was now, but I know the nature
of it.  It was the kind of remark you make when you know that nothing in
the world can help your case.  But Howells was honest--he had to say the
heart-breaking things he did say: that there was no help for this
calamity, this shipwreck, this cataclysm; that this was the most
disastrous thing that had ever happened in anybody's history--and then he
added, "That is, for you--and consider what you have done for Bishop.  It
is bad enough in your case, you deserve, to suffer.  You have committed
this crime, and you deserve to have all you are going to get.  But here
is an innocent man.  Bishop had never done you any harm, and see what you
have done to him.  He can never hold his head up again.  The world can
never look upon Bishop as being a live person.  He is a corpse."

That is the history of that episode of twenty-eight years ago, which
pretty nearly killed me with shame during that first year or two whenever
it forced its way into my mind.

Now then, I take that speech up and examine it.  As I said, it arrived
this morning, from Boston.  I have read it twice, and unless I am an
idiot, it hasn't a single defect in it from the first word to the last.
It is just as good as good can be.  It is smart; it is saturated with
humor.  There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it
anywhere.  What could have been the matter with that house?  It is
amazing, it is incredible, that they didn't shout with laughter, and
those deities the loudest of them all.  Could the fault have been with
me?  Did I lose courage when I saw those great men up there whom I was
going to describe in such a strange fashion?  If that happened, if I
showed doubt, that can account for it, for you can't be successfully
funny if you show that you are afraid of it.  Well, I can't account for
it, but if I had those beloved and revered old literary immortals back
here now on the platform at Carnegie Hall I would take that same old
speech, deliver it, word for word, and melt them till they'd run all over
that stage.  Oh, the fault must have been with me, it is not in the
speech at all.






PLYMOUTH ROCK AND THE PILGRIMS

          ADDRESS AT THE FIRST ANNUAL DINNER, N. E.  SOCIETY,
          PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 22, 1881

          On calling upon Mr. Clemens to make response,
          President Rollins said:

          "This sentiment has been assigned to one who was never exactly
          born in New England, nor, perhaps, were any of his ancestors.
          He is not technically, therefore, of New England descent.
          Under the painful circumstances in which he has found himself,
          however, he has done the best he could--he has had all his
          children born there, and has made of himself a New England
          ancestor.  He is a self-made man.  More than this, and better
          even, in cheerful, hopeful, helpful literature he is of New
          England ascent.  To ascend there in any thing that's reasonable
          is difficult; for--confidentially, with the door shut--we all
          know that they are the brightest, ablest sons of that goodly
          land who never leave it, and it is among and above them that
          Mr. Twain has made his brilliant and permanent ascent--become
          a man of mark."

I rise to protest.  I have kept still for years; but really I think there
is no sufficient justification for this sort of thing.  What do you want
to celebrate those people for?--those ancestors of yours of 1620--the
Mayflower tribe, I mean.  What do you want to celebrate them for?  Your
pardon: the gentleman at my left assures me that you are not celebrating
the Pilgrims themselves, but the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth rock
on the 22d of December.  So you are celebrating their landing.  Why, the
other pretext was thin enough, but this is thinner than ever; the other
was tissue, tinfoil, fish-bladder, but this is gold-leaf.  Celebrating
their lauding!  What was there remarkable about it, I would like to know?
What can you be thinking of?  Why, those Pilgrims had been at sea three
or four months.  It was the very middle of winter: it was as cold as
death off Cape Cod there.  Why shouldn't they come ashore?  If they
hadn't landed there would be some reason for celebrating the fact: It
would have been a case of monumental leatherheadedness which the world
would not willingly let die.  If it had been you, gentlemen, you probably
wouldn't have landed, but you have no shadow of right to be celebrating,
in your ancestors, gifts which they did not exercise, but only
transmitted.  Why, to be celebrating the mere landing of the Pilgrims
--to be trying to make out that this most natural and simple and
customary procedure was an extraordinary circumstance--a circumstance to
be amazed at, and admired, aggrandized and glorified, at orgies like this
for two hundred and sixty years--hang it, a horse would have known enough
to land; a horse--Pardon again; the gentleman on my right assures me that
it was not merely the landing of the Pilgrims that we are celebrating,
but the Pilgrims themselves.  So we have struck an inconsistency here
--one says it was the landing, the other says it was the Pilgrims.  It
is an inconsistency characteristic of your intractable and disputatious
tribe, for you never agree about anything but Boston.  Well, then, what
do you want to celebrate those Pilgrims for?  They were a mighty hard
lot--you know it.  I grant you, without the slightest unwillingness, that
they were a deal more gentle and merciful and just than were the people
of Europe of that day; I grant you that they are better than their
predecessors.  But what of that?--that is nothing.  People always
progress.  You are better than your fathers and grandfathers were
(this is the first time I have ever aimed a measureless slander at the
departed, for I consider such things improper).  Yes, those among you who
have not been in the penitentiary, if such there be, are better than your
fathers and grandfathers were; but is that any sufficient reason, for
getting up annual dinners and celebrating you?  No, by no means--by no
means.  Well, I repeat, those Pilgrims were a hard lot.  They took good
care of themselves, but they abolished everybody else's ancestors.  I am
a border-ruffian from the State of Missouri.  I am a Connecticut Yankee
by adoption.  In me, you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture; this,
gentlemen, is the combination which makes the perfect man.  But where are
my ancestors?  Whom shall I celebrate?  Where shall I find the raw
material?

My first American ancestor, gentlemen, was an Indian--an early Indian.
Your ancestors skinned him alive, and I am an orphan.  Not one drop of my
blood flows in that Indian's veins today.  I stand here, lone and
forlorn, without an ancestor.  They skinned him!  I do not object to
that, if they needed his fur; but alive, gentlemen-alive!  They skinned
him alive--and before company!  That is what rankles.  Think how he must
have felt; for he was a sensitive person and easily embarrassed.  If he
had been a bird, it would have been all right, and no violence done to
his feelings, because he would have been considered "dressed."  But he
was not a bird, gentlemen, he was a man, and probably one of the most
undressed men that ever was.  I ask you to put yourselves in his place.
I ask it as a favor; I ask it as a tardy act of justice; I ask it in the
interest of fidelity to the traditions of your ancestors; I ask it that
the world may contemplate, with vision unobstructed by disguising
swallow-tails and white cravats, the spectacle which the true New England
Society ought to present.  Cease to come to these annual orgies in this
hollow modern mockery--the surplusage of raiment.  Come in character;
come in the summer grace, come in the unadorned simplicity, come in the
free and joyous costume which your sainted ancestors provided for mine.

Later ancestors of mine were the Quakers William Robinson, Marmaduke
Stevenson, et al.  Your tribe chased them put of the country for their
religion's sake; promised them death if they came back; for your
ancestors had forsaken the homes they loved, and braved the perils of the
sea, the implacable climate, and the savage wilderness, to acquire that
highest and most precious of boons, freedom for every man on this broad
continent to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience--and
they were not going to allow a lot of pestiferous Quakers to interfere
with it.  Your ancestors broke forever the chains of political slavery,
and gave the vote to every man in this wide land, excluding none!--none
except those who did not belong to the orthodox church.  Your ancestors
--yes, they were a hard lot; but, nevertheless, they gave us religious
liberty to worship as they required us to worship, and political liberty
to vote as the church required; and so I the bereft one, I the forlorn
one, am here to do my best to help you celebrate them right.

The Quaker woman Elizabeth Hooton was an ancestress of mine.  Your people
were pretty severe with her you will confess that.  But, poor thing!
I believe they changed her opinions before she died, and took her into
their fold; and so we have every reason to presume that when she died she
went to the same place which your ancestors went to.  It is a great pity,
for she was a good woman.  Roger Williams was an ancestor of mine.
I don't really remember what your people did with him.  But they banished
him to Rhode Island, anyway.  And then, I believe, recognizing that this
was really carrying harshness to an unjustifiable extreme, they took pity
on him and burned him.  They were a hard lot!  All those Salem witches
were ancestors of mine!  Your people made it tropical for them.  Yes,
they did; by pressure and the gallows they made such a clean deal with
them that there hasn't been a witch and hardly a halter in our family
from that day to this, and that is one hundred and eighty-nine years.
The first slave brought into New England out of Africa by your
progenitors was an ancestor of mine--for I am of a mixed breed, an
infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel.  I'm not one of your sham
meerschaums that you can color in a week.  No, my complexion is the
patient art of eight generations.  Well, in my own time, I had acquired a
lot of my kin--by purchase, and swapping around, and one way and another
--and was getting along very well.  Then, with the inborn perversity of
your lineage, you got up a war, and took them all away from me.  And so,
again am I bereft, again am I forlorn; no drop of my blood flows in the
veins of any living being who is marketable.

O my friends, hear me and reform!  I seek your good, not mine.  You have
heard the speeches.  Disband these New England societies--nurseries of a
system of steadily augmenting laudation and hosannaing, which; if
persisted in uncurbed, may some day in the remote future beguile you into
prevaricating and bragging.  Oh, stop, stop, while you are still
temperate in your appreciation of your ancestors!  Hear me, I beseech
you; get up an auction and sell Plymouth Rock!  The Pilgrims were a
simple and ignorant race.  They never had seen any good rocks before, or
at least any that were not watched, and so they were excusable for
hopping ashore in frantic delight and clapping an iron fence around this
one.  But you, gentlemen, are educated; you are enlightened; you know
that in the rich land of your nativity, opulent New England, overflowing
with rocks, this one isn't worth, at the outside, more than thirty-five
cents.  Therefore, sell it, before it is injured by exposure, or at least
throw it open to the patent-medicine advertisements, and let it earn its
taxes:

Yes, hear your true friend-your only true friend--list to his voice.
Disband these societies, hotbeds of vice, of moral decay--perpetuators of
ancestral superstition.  Here on this board I see water, I see milk, I
see the wild and deadly lemonade.  These are but steps upon the downward
path.  Next we shall see tea, then chocolate, then coffee--hotel coffee.
A few more years--all too few, I fear--mark my words, we shall have
cider!  Gentlemen, pause ere it be too late.  You are on the broad road
which leads to dissipation, physical ruin, moral decay, gory crime and
the gallows!  I beseech you, I implore you, in the name of your anxious
friends, in the name of your suffering families, in the name of your
impending widows and orphans, stop ere it be too late.  Disband these New
England societies, renounce these soul-blistering saturnalia, cease from
varnishing the rusty reputations of your long-vanished ancestors--the
super-high-moral old iron-clads of Cape Cod, the pious buccaneers of
Plymouth Rock--go home, and try to learn to behave!

However, chaff and nonsense aside, I think I honor and appreciate your
Pilgrim stock as much as you do yourselves, perhaps; and I endorse and
adopt a sentiment uttered by a grandfather of mine once--a man of sturdy
opinions, of sincere make of mind, and not given to flattery.  He said:
"People may talk as they like about that Pilgrim stock, but, after all's
said and done, it would be pretty hard to improve on those people; and,
as for me, I don't mind coming out flatfooted and saying there ain't any
way to improve on them--except having them born in, Missouri!"






COMPLIMENTS AND DEGREES

          DELIVERED AT THE LOTOS CLUB, JANUARY 11, 1908

          In introducing Mr. Clemens, Frank R.  Lawrence, the President
          of the Lotos Club, recalled the fact that the first club dinner
          in the present club-house, some fourteen years ago, was in
          honor of Mark Twain.

I wish to begin this time at the beginning, lest I forget it altogether;
that is to say, I wish to thank you for this welcome that you are giving,
and the welcome which you gave me seven years ago, and which I forgot to
thank you for at that time.  I also wish to thank you for the welcome you
gave me fourteen years ago, which I also forgot to thank you for at the
time.

I hope you will continue this custom to give me a dinner every seven
years before I join the hosts in the other world--I do not know which
world.

Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Porter have paid me many compliments.  It is very
difficult to take compliments.  I do not care whether you deserve the
compliments or not, it is just as difficult to take them.  The other
night I was at the Engineers' Club, and enjoyed the sufferings of
Mr. Carnegie.  They were complimenting him there; there it was all
compliments, and none of them deserved.  They say that you cannot live
by bread alone, but I can live on compliments.

I do not make any pretence that I dislike compliments.  The stronger the
better, and I can manage to digest them.  I think I have lost so much by
not making a collection of compliments, to put them away and take them
out again once in a while.  When in England I said that I would start to
collect compliments, and I began there and I have brought some of them
along.

The first one of these lies--I wrote them down and preserved them
--I think they are mighty good and extremely just.  It is one of Hamilton
Mabie's compliments.  He said that La Salle was the first one to make a
voyage of the Mississippi, but Mark Twain was the first to chart, light,
and navigate it for the whole world.

If that had been published at the time that I issued that book [Life on
the Mississippi], it would have been money in my pocket.  I tell you, it
is a talent by itself to pay compliments gracefully and have them ring
true.  It's an art by itself.

Here is another compliment by Albert Bigelow Paine, my biographer.  He is
writing four octavo volumes about me, and he has been at my elbow two and
one-half years.

I just suppose that he does not know me, but says he knows me.  He says
"Mark Twain is not merely a great writer, a great philosopher, a great
man; he is the supreme expression of the human being, with his strength
and his weakness."  What a talent for compression!  It takes a genius in
compression to compact as many facts as that.

W. D. Howells spoke of me as first of Hartford, and ultimately of the
solar system, not to say of the universe:

You know how modest Howells is.  If it can be proved that my fame reaches
to Neptune and Saturn; that will satisfy even me.  You know how modest
and retiring Howells seems to be, but deep down he is as vain as I am.

Mr. Howells had been granted a degree at Oxford, whose gown was red.
He had been invited to an exercise at Columbia, and upon inquiry had been
told that it was usual to wear the black gown: Later he had found that
three other men wore bright gowns, and he had lamented that he had been
one of the black mass, and not a red torch.

Edison wrote: "The average American loves his family.  If he has any love
left over for some other person, he generally selects Mark Twain."

Now here's the compliment of a little Montana girl which came to me
indirectly.  She was in a room in which there was a large photograph of
me.  After gazing at it steadily for a time, she said:

"We've got a John the Baptist like that."  She also said: "Only ours has
more trimmings."

I suppose she meant the halo.  Now here is a gold-miner's compliment.
It is forty-two years old.  It was my introduction to an audience to
which I lectured in a log school-house.  There were no ladies there.
I wasn't famous then.  They didn't know me.  Only the miners were there,
with their breeches tucked into their boottops and with clay all over
them.  They wanted some one to introduce me, and they selected a miner,
who protested, saying:

"I don't know anything about this man.  Anyhow, I only know two things
about him.  One is, he has never been in jail, and the other is, I don't
know why."

There's one thing I want to say about that English trip.  I knew his
Majesty the King of England long years ago, and I didn't meet him for the
first time then.  One thing that I regret was that some newspapers said
I talked with the Queen of England with my hat on.  I don't do that with
any woman.  I did not put it on until she asked me to.  Then she told me
to put it on, and it's a command there.  I thought I had carried my
American democracy far enough.  So I put it on.  I have no use for a hat,
and never did have.

Who was it who said that the police of London knew me?  Why, the police
know me everywhere.  There never was a day over there when a policeman
did not salute me, and then put up his hand and stop the traffic of the
world.  They treated me as though I were a duchess.

The happiest experience I had in England was at a dinner given in the
building of the Punch publication, a humorous paper which is appreciated
by all Englishmen.  It was the greatest privilege ever allowed a
foreigner.  I entered the dining-room of the building, where those men
get together who have been running the paper for over fifty years.  We
were about to begin dinner when the toastmaster said: "Just a minute;
there ought to be a little ceremony."  Then there was that meditating
silence for a while, and out of a closet there came a beautiful little
girl dressed in pink, holding in her hand a copy of the previous week's
paper, which had in it my cartoon.  It broke me all up.  I could not even
say "Thank you."  That was the prettiest incident of the dinner, the
delight of all that wonderful table.  When she was about to go; I said,
"My child, you are not going to leave me; I have hardly got acquainted
with you." She replied, "You know I've got to go; they never let me come
in here before, and they never will again."  That is one of the beautiful
incidents that I cherish.

     [At the conclusion of his speech, and while the diners were still
     cheering him, Colonel Porter brought forward the red-and-gray gown
     of the Oxford "doctor," and Mr. Clemens was made to don it.
     The diners rose to their feet in their enthusiasm. With the
     mortar-board on his head, and looking down admiringly at himself,
     Mr. Twain said--]

I like that gown.  I always did like red.  The redder it is the better
I like it.  I was born for a savage.  Now, whoever saw any red like this?
There is no red outside the arteries of an archangel that could compare
with this.  I know you all envy me.  I am going to have luncheon shortly
with ladies just ladies.  I will be the only lady of my sex present, and
I shall put on this gown and make those ladies look dim.






BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND HATS

          ADDRESS AT THE PILGRIMS' CLUB LUNCHEON, GIVEN IN HONOR OF Mr.
          CLEMENS AT THE SAVOY HOTEL, LONDON, JUNE 25, 1907.

          Mr. Birrell, M.P., Chief-Secretary for Ireland, in introducing
          Mr. Clemens said: "We all love Mark Twain, and we are here to
          tell him so.  One more point--all the world knows it, and that
          is why it is dangerous to omit it--our guest is a distinguished
          citizen of the Great Republic beyond the seas.  In America his
          'Huckleberry Finn' and his 'Tom Sawyer' are what 'Robinson
          Crusoe' and 'Tom Brown's School Days' have been to us.  They
          are racy of the soil.  They are books to which it is impossible
          to place any period of termination.  I will not speak of the
          classics--reminiscences of much evil in our early lives.  We do
          not meet here to-day as critics with our appreciations and
          depreciations, our twopenny little prefaces or our forewords.
          I am not going to say what the world a thousand years hence
          will think of Mark Twain.  Posterity will take care of itself,
          will read what it wants to read, will forget what it chooses to
          forget, and will pay no attention whatsoever to our critical
          mumblings and jumblings.  Let us therefore be content to say to
          our friend and guest that we are here speaking for ourselves
          and for our children, to say what he has been to us.  I
          remember in Liverpool, in 1867, first buying the copy, which I
          still preserve, of the celebrated 'Jumping Frog.'  It had a few
          words of preface which reminded me then that our guest in those
          days was called 'the wild humorist of the Pacific slope,' and a
          few lines later down, 'the moralist of the Main.'  That was
          some forty years ago.  Here he is, still the humorist, still
          the moralist.  His humor enlivens and enlightens his morality,
          and his morality is all the better for his humor.  That is one
          of the reasons why we love him.  I am not here to mention any
          book of his--that is a subject of dispute in my family circle,
          which is the best and which is the next best--but I must put in
          a word, lest I should not be true to myself--a terrible thing
          --for his Joan of Arc, a book of chivalry, of nobility, and of
          manly sincerity for which I take this opportunity of thanking
          him.  But you can all drink this toast, each one of you with
          his own intention.  You can get into it what meaning you like.
          Mark Twain is a man whom English and Americans do well to
          honor.  He is the true consolidator of nations.  His delightful
          humor is of the kind which dissipates and destroys national
          prejudices.  His truth and his honor, his love of truth, and
          his love of honor, overflow all boundaries.  He has made the
          world better by his presence.  We rejoice to see him here.
          Long may he live to reap the plentiful harvest of hearty,
          honest human affection!"

Pilgrims, I desire first to thank those undergraduates of Oxford.
When a man has grown so old as I am, when he has reached the verge of
seventy-two years, there is nothing that carries him back to the
dreamland of his life, to his boyhood, like recognition of those young
hearts up yonder. And so I thank them out of my heart.  I desire to thank
the Pilgrims of New York also for their kind notice and message which
they have cabled over here.  Mr. Birrell says he does not know how he got
here.  But he will be able to get away all right--he has not drunk
anything since he came here.  I am glad to know about those friends of
his, Otway and Chatterton--fresh, new names to me.  I am glad of the
disposition he has shown to rescue them from the evils of poverty, and if
they are still in London, I hope to have a talk with them.  For a while I
thought he was going to tell us the effect which my book had upon his
growing manhood. I thought he was going to tell us how much that effect
amounted to, and whether it really made him what he now is, but with the
discretion born of Parliamentary experience he dodged that, and we do not
know now whether he read the book or not.  He did that very neatly.  I
could not do it any better myself.

My books have had effects, and very good ones, too, here and there, and
some others not so good.  There is no doubt about that.  But I remember
one monumental instance of it years and years ago.  Professor Norton, of
Harvard, was over here, and when he came back to Boston I went out with
Howells to call on him.  Norton was allied in some way by marriage with
Darwin.

Mr. Norton was very gentle in what he had to say, and almost delicate,
and he said: "Mr. Clemens, I have been spending some time with Mr. Darwin
in England, and I should like to tell you something connected with that
visit.  You were the object of it, and I myself would have been very
proud of it, but you may not be proud of it.  At any rate, I am going to
tell you what it was, and to leave to you to regard it as you please.
Mr. Darwin took me up to his bedroom and pointed out certain things
there-pitcher-plants, and so on, that he was measuring and watching from
day to day--and he said: 'The chambermaid is permitted to do what she
pleases in this room, but she must never touch those plants and never
touch those books on that table by that candle.  With those books I read
myself to sleep every night.'  Those were your own books."  I said:
"There is no question to my mind as to whether I should regard that as a
compliment or not.  I do regard it as a very great compliment and a very
high honor that that great mind, laboring for the whole human race,
should rest itself on my books.  I am proud that he should read himself
to sleep with them."

Now, I could not keep that to myself--I was so proud of it.  As soon as I
got home to Hartford I called up my oldest friend--and dearest enemy on
occasion--the Rev. Joseph Twichell, my pastor, and I told him about that,
and, of course, he was full of interest and venom.  Those people who get
no compliments like that feel like that.  He went off.  He did not issue
any applause of any kind, and I did not hear of that subject for some
time.  But when Mr. Darwin passed away from this life, and some time
after Darwin's Life and Letters came out, the Rev. Mr. Twichell procured
an early copy of that work and found something in it which he considered
applied to me.  He came over to my house--it was snowing, raining,
sleeting, but that did not make any difference to Twichell.  He produced
the book, and turned over and over, until he came to a certain place,
when he said: "Here, look at this letter from Mr. Darwin to Sir Joseph
Hooker."  What Mr. Darwin said--I give you the idea and not the very
words--was this: I do not know whether I ought to have devoted my whole
life to these drudgeries in natural history and the other sciences or
not, for while I may have gained in one way I have lost in another.  Once
I had a fine perception and appreciation of high literature, but in me
that quality is atrophied.  "That was the reason," said Mr. Twichell, "he
was reading your books."

Mr. Birrell has touched lightly--very lightly, but in not an
uncomplimentary way--on my position in this world as a moralist.  I am
glad to have that recognition, too, because I have suffered since I have
been in this town; in the first place, right away, when I came here, from
a newsman going around with a great red, highly displayed placard in the
place of an apron.  He was selling newspapers, and there were two
sentences on that placard which would have been all right if they had
been punctuated; but they ran those two sentences together without a
comma or anything, and that would naturally create a wrong impression,
because it said, "Mark Twain arrives Ascot Cup stolen."  No doubt many a
person was misled by those sentences joined together in that unkind way.
I have no doubt my character has suffered from it.  I suppose I ought to
defend my character, but how can I defend it?  I can say here and now
--and anybody can see by my face that I am sincere, that I speak the truth
--that I have never seen that Cup.  I have not got the Cup--I did not have
a chance to get it.  I have always had a good character in that way.  I
have hardly ever stolen anything, and if I did steal anything I had
discretion enough to know about the value of it first.  I do not steal
things that are likely to get myself into trouble.  I do not think any of
us do that.  I know we all take things--that is to be expected--but
really, I have never taken anything, certainly in England, that amounts
to any great thing.  I do confess that when I was here seven years ago I
stole a hat, but that did not amount to anything.  It was not a good hat,
and was only a clergyman's hat, anyway.

I was at a luncheon party, and Archdeacon Wilberforce was there also.  I
dare say he is Archdeacon now--he was a canon then--and he was serving in
the Westminster battery, if that is the proper term--I do not know, as
you mix military and ecclesiastical things together so much.  He left the
luncheon table before I did.  He began this.  I did steal his hat, but he
began by taking mine.  I make that interjection because I would not
accuse Archdeacon Wilberforce of stealing my hat--I should not think of
it.  I confine that phrase to myself.  He merely took my hat.
And with good judgment, too--it was a better hat than his.  He came out
before the luncheon was over, and sorted the hats in the hall, and
selected one which suited.  It happened to be mine.  He went off with it.
When I came out by-and-by there was no hat there which would go on my
head except his, which was left behind.  My head was not the customary
size just at that time.  I had been receiving a good many very nice and
complimentary attentions, and my head was a couple of sizes larger than
usual, and his hat just suited me.  The bumps and corners were all right
intellectually.  There were results pleasing to me--possibly so to him.
He found out whose hat it was, and wrote me saying it was pleasant that
all the way home, whenever he met anybody his gravities, his solemnities,
his deep thoughts, his eloquent remarks were all snatched up by the
people he met, and mistaken for brilliant humorisms.

I had another experience.  It was not unpleasing.  I was received with a
deference which was entirely foreign to my experience by everybody whom I
met, so that before I got home I had a much higher opinion of myself than
I have ever had before or since.  And there is in that very connection an
incident which I remember at that old date which is rather melancholy to
me, because it shows how a person can deteriorate in a mere seven years.
It is seven years ago.  I have not that hat now.  I was going down
Pall-Mall, or some other of your big streets, and I recognized that that
hat needed ironing.  I went into a big shop and passed in my hat, and
asked that it might be ironed.  They were courteous, very courteous, even
courtly.  They brought that hat back to me presently very sleek and nice,
and I asked how much there was to pay.  They replied that they did not
charge the clergy anything.  I have cherished the delight of that moment
from that day to this.  It was the first thing I did the other day to go
and hunt up that shop and hand in my hat to have it ironed.  I said when
it came back, "How much to pay?"  They said, "Ninepence."  In seven years
I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I
was seven years ago.

But now I am chaffing and chaffing and chaffing here, and I hope you will
forgive me for that; but when a man stands on the verge of seventy-two
you know perfectly well that he never reached that place without knowing
what this life is heart-breaking bereavement.  And so our reverence is
for our dead.  We do not forget them; but our duty is toward the living;
and if we can be cheerful, cheerful in spirit, cheerful in speech and in
hope, that is a benefit to those who are around us.

My own history includes an incident which will always connect me with
England in a pathetic way, for when I arrived here seven years ago with
my wife and my daughter--we had gone around the globe lecturing to raise
money to clear off a debt--my wife and one of my daughters started across
the ocean to bring to England our eldest daughter.  She was twenty four
years of age and in the bloom of young womanhood, and we were
unsuspecting.  When my wife and daughter--and my wife has passed from
this life since--when they had reached mid Atlantic, a cablegram--one of
those heartbreaking cablegrams which we all in our days have to
experience--was put into my hand.  It stated that that daughter of ours
had gone to her long sleep. And so, as I say, I cannot always be
cheerful, and I cannot always be chaffing; I must sometimes lay the cap
and bells aside, and recognize that I am of the human race like the rest,
and must have my cares and griefs.  And therefore I noticed what Mr.
Birrell said--I was so glad to hear him say it--something that was in the
nature of these verses here at the top of this:

              "He lit our life with shafts of sun
               And vanquished pain.
               Thus two great nations stand as one
               In honoring Twain."

I am very glad to have those verses.  I am very glad and very grateful
for what Mr. Birrell said in that connection.  I have received since I
have been here, in this one week, hundreds of letters from all conditions
of people in England--men, women, and children--and there is in them
compliment, praise, and, above all and better than all, there is in them
a note of affection.  Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection
--that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can
win, whether by character or achievement, and I am very grateful to have
that reward.  All these letters make me feel that here in England--as in
America--when I stand under the English flag, I am not a stranger.  I am
not an alien, but at home.






DEDICATION SPEECH

          AT THE DEDICATION OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
          MAY 16, 1908

          Mr. Clemens wore his gown as Doctor of Laws, Oxford University.
          Ambassador Bryce and Mr. Choate had made the formal addresses.

How difficult, indeed, is the higher education.  Mr. Choate needs a
little of it.  He is not only short as a statistician of New York, but he
is off, far off, in his mathematics.  The four thousand citizens of
Greater New York, indeed!

But I don't think it was wise or judicious on the part of Mr. Choate to
show this higher education he has obtained.  He sat in the lap of that
great education (I was there at the time), and see the result--the
lamentable result.  Maybe if he had had a sandwich here to sustain him
the result would not have been so serious.

For seventy-two years I have been striving to acquire that higher
education which stands for modesty and diffidence, and it doesn't work.

And then look at Ambassador Bryce, who referred to his alma mater,
Oxford.  He might just as well have included me.  Well, I am a later
production.

If I am the latest graduate, I really and sincerely hope I am not the
final flower of its seven centuries; I hope it may go on for seven ages
longer.






DIE SCHRECKEN DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE [THE HORRORS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE]

          ADDRESS TO THE VIENNA PRESS CLUB, NOVEMBER 21, 1897,
          DELIVERED IN GERMAN [Here in literal translation]

It has me deeply touched, my gentlemen, here so hospitably received to
be.  From colleagues out of my own profession, in this from my own home
so far distant land.  My heart is full of gratitude, but my poverty of
German words forces me to greater economy of expression.  Excuse you, my
gentlemen, that I read off, what I you say will.  [But he didn't read].

The German language speak I not good, but have numerous connoisseurs me
assured that I her write like an angel.  Maybe--maybe--I know not.  Have
till now no acquaintance with the angels had.  That comes later--when it
the dear God please--it has no hurry.

Since long, my gentlemen, have I the passionate longing nursed a speech
on German to hold, but one has me not permitted.  Men, who no feeling for
the art had, laid me ever hindrance in the way and made naught my desire
--sometimes by excuses, often by force.  Always said these men to me:
"Keep you still, your Highness!  Silence!  For God's sake seek another
way and means yourself obnoxious to make."

In the present case, as usual it is me difficult become, for me the
permission to obtain.  The committee sorrowed deeply, but could me the
permission not grant on account of a law which from the Concordia demands
she shall the German language protect.  Du liebe Zeit!  How so had one to
me this say could--might--dared--should?  I am indeed the truest friend
of the German language--and not only now, but from long since--yes,
before twenty years already.  And never have I the desire had the noble
language to hurt; to the contrary, only wished she to improve--I would
her only reform.  It is the dream of my life been.  I have already visits
by the various German governments paid and for contracts prayed.  I am
now to Austria in the same task come.  I would only some changes effect.
I would only the language method--the luxurious, elaborate construction
compress, the eternal parenthesis suppress, do away with, annihilate; the
introduction of more than thirteen subjects in one sentence forbid; the
verb so far to the front pull that one it without a telescope discover
can.  With one word, my gentlemen, I would your beloved language simplify
so that, my gentlemen, when you her for prayer need, One her yonder-up
understands.

I beseech you, from me yourself counsel to let, execute these mentioned
reforms.  Then will you an elegant language possess, and afterward, when
you some thing say will, will you at least yourself understand what you
said had.  But often nowadays, when you a mile-long sentence from you
given and you yourself somewhat have rested, then must you have a
touching inquisitiveness have yourself to determine what you actually
spoken have.  Before several days has the correspondent of a local paper
a sentence constructed which hundred and twelve words contain, and
therein were seven parentheses smuggled in, and the subject seven times
changed.  Think you only, my gentlemen, in the course of the voyage of a
single sentence must the poor, persecuted, fatigued subject seven times
change position!

Now, when we the mentioned reforms execute, will it no longer so bad be.
Doch noch eins.  I might gladly the separable verb also a little bit
reform.  I might none do let what Schiller did: he has the whole history
of the Thirty Years' War between the two members of a separable verb
in-pushed.  That has even Germany itself aroused, and one has Schiller the
permission refused the History of the Hundred Years' War to compose--God
be it thanked!  After all these reforms established be will, will the
German language the noblest and the prettiest on the world be.

Since to you now, my gentlemen, the character of my mission known is,
beseech I you so friendly to be and to me your valuable help grant.
Mr. Potzl has the public believed make would that I to Vienna come am in
order the bridges to clog up and the traffic to hinder, while I
observations gather and note.  Allow you yourselves but not from him
deceived.  My frequent presence on the bridges has an entirely innocent
ground.  Yonder gives it the necessary space, yonder can one a noble long
German sentence elaborate, the bridge-railing along, and his whole
contents with one glance overlook.  On the one end of the railing pasted
I the first member of a separable verb and the final member cleave I to
the other end--then spread the body of the sentence between it out!
Usually are for my purposes the bridges of the city long enough; when I
but Potzl's writings study will I ride out and use the glorious endless
imperial bridge.  But this is a calumny; Potzl writes the prettiest
German.  Perhaps not so pliable as the mine, but in many details much
better.  Excuse you these flatteries.  These are well deserved.

Now I my speech execute--no, I would say I bring her to the close.  I am a
foreigner--but here, under you, have I it entirely forgotten.  And so
again and yet again proffer I you my heartiest thanks.






GERMAN FOR THE HUNGARIANS

          ADDRESS AT THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION OF THE EMANCIPATION OF THE
          HUNGARIAN PRESS,  MARCH 26, 1899

          The Ministry and members of Parliament were present.  The
          subject was the "Ausgleich"--i. e., the arrangement for the
          apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria.
          Paragraph 14 of the ausgleich fixes the proportion each country
          must pay to the support of the army.  It is the paragraph which
          caused the trouble and prevented its renewal.

Now that we are all here together, I think it will be a good idea to
arrange the ausgleich.  If you will act for Hungary I shall be quite
willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time for it.  There
couldn't be a better, for we are all feeling friendly, fair-minded, and
hospitable now, and, full of admiration for each other, full of
confidence in each other, full of the spirit of welcome, full of the
grace of forgiveness, and the disposition to let bygones be bygones.

Let us not waste this golden, this beneficent, this providential
opportunity.  I am willing to make any concession you want, just so we
get it settled.  I am not only willing to let grain come in free, I am
willing to pay the freight on it, and you may send delegates to the
Reichsrath if you like.  All I require is that they shall be quiet,
peaceable people like your own deputies, and not disturb our proceedings.

If you want the Gegenseitigengeldbeitragendenverhaltnismassigkeiten
rearranged and readjusted I am ready for that.  I will let you off at
twenty-eight per cent.--twenty-seven--even twenty-five if you insist,
for there is nothing illiberal about me when I am out on a diplomatic
debauch.

Now, in return for these concessions, I am willing to take anything in
reason, and I think we may consider the business settled and the
ausgleich ausgegloschen at last for ten solid years, and we will sign the
papers in blank, and do it here and now.

Well, I am unspeakably glad to have that ausgleich off my hands.  It has
kept me awake nights for anderthalbjahr.

But I never could settle it before, because always when I called at the
Foreign Office in Vienna to talk about it, there wasn't anybody at home,
and that is not a place where you can go in and see for yourself whether
it is a mistake or not, because the person who takes care of the front
door there is of a size that discourages liberty of action and the free
spirit of investigation.  To think the ausgleich is abgemacht at last!
It is a grand and beautiful consummation, and I am glad I came.

The way I feel now I do honestly believe I would rather be just my own
humble self at this moment than paragraph 14.






A NEW GERMAN WORD

          To aid a local charity Mr. Clemens appeared before a
          fashionable audience in Vienna, March 10, 1899, reading his
          sketch "The Lucerne Girl," and describing how he had been
          interviewed and ridiculed.  He said in part:

I have not sufficiently mastered German, to allow my using it with
impunity.  My collection of fourteen-syllable German words is still
incomplete.  But I have just added to that collection a jewel
--a veritable jewel.  I found it in a telegram from Linz, and it
contains ninety-five letters:

Personaleinkommensteuerschatzungskommissionsmitgliedsreisekostenrechnungs
erganzungsrevisionsfund

If I could get a similar word engraved upon my tombstone I should sleep
beneath it in peace.






UNCONSCIOUS PLAGIARISM

          DELIVERED AT THE DINNER GIVEN BY THE PUBLISHERS OF "THE
          ATLANTIC MONTHLY" TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, IN HONOR OF HIS
          SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, AUGUST 29, 1879

I would have travelled a much greater distance than I have come to
witness the paying of honors to Doctor Holmes; for my feeling toward him
has always been one of peculiar warmth.  When one receives a letter from
a great man for the first time in his life, it is a large event to him,
as all of you know by your own experience.  You never can receive letters
enough from famous men afterward to obliterate that one, or dim the
memory of the pleasant surprise it was, and the gratification it gave
you.  Lapse of time cannot make it commonplace or cheap.

Well, the first great man who ever wrote me a letter was our guest
--Oliver Wendell Holmes.  He was also the first great literary man I ever
stole anything from--and that is how I came to write to him and he to me.
When my first book was new, a friend of mine said to me, "The dedication
is very neat."  Yes, I said, I thought it was.  My friend said, "I always
admired it, even before I saw it in The Innocents Abroad."  I naturally
said: "What do you mean?   Where did you ever see it before?"  "Well, I
saw it first some years ago as Doctor Holmes's dedication to his Songs in
Many Keys."  Of course, my first impulse was to prepare this man's
remains for burial, but upon reflection I said I would reprieve him for a
moment or two and give him a chance to prove his assertion if he could:
We stepped into a book-store, and he did prove it.  I had really stolen
that dedication, almost word for word.  I could not imagine how this
curious thing had happened; for I knew one thing--that a certain amount
of pride always goes along with a teaspoonful of brains, and that this
pride protects a man from deliberately stealing other people's ideas.
That is what a teaspoonful of brains will do for a man--and admirers had
often told me I had nearly a basketful--though they were rather reserved
as to the size of the basket.

However, I thought the thing out, and solved the mystery.  Two years
before, I had been laid up a couple of weeks in the Sandwich Islands, and
had read and re-read Doctor Holmes's poems till my mental reservoir was
filled up with them to the brim.  The dedication lay on the top, and
handy, so, by-and-by, I unconsciously stole it.  Perhaps I unconsciously
stole the rest of the volume, too, for many people have told me that my
book was pretty poetical, in one way or another.  Well, of course, I
wrote Doctor Holmes and told him I hadn't meant to steal, and he wrote
back and said in the kindest way that it was all right and no harm done;
and added that he believed we all unconsciously worked over ideas
gathered in reading and hearing, imagining they were original with
ourselves.  He stated a truth, and did it in such a pleasant way, and
salved over my sore spot so gently and so healingly, that I was rather
glad I had committed the crime, far the sake of the letter.  I afterward
called on him and told him to make perfectly free with any ideas of mine
that struck him as being good protoplasm for poetry.  He could see by
that that there wasn't anything mean about me; so we got along right from
the start.  I have not met Doctor Holmes many times since; and lately he
said--However, I am wandering wildly away from the one thing which
I got on my feet to do; that is, to make my compliments to you, my
fellow-teachers of the great public, and likewise to say that I am right
glad to see that Doctor Holmes is still in his prime and full of generous
life; and as age is not determined by years, but by trouble and
infirmities of mind and body, I hope it may be a very long time yet
before any one can truthfully say, "He is growing old."






THE WEATHER

          ADDRESS AT THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY'S SEVENTY FIRST
          ANNUAL DINNER, NEW YORK CITY

The next toast was: "The Oldest Inhabitant-The Weather of New England."

                   "Who can lose it and forget it?
                    Who can have it and regret it?
                    Be interposer 'twixt us Twain."
                                        --Merchant of Venice.

I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in
New England but the weather.  I don't know who makes that, but I think it
must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and
learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted
to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take
their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.  There is a sumptuous
variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's
admiration--and regret.  The weather is always doing something there;
always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and
trying them on the people to see how they will go.  But it gets through
more business in spring than in any other season.  In the spring I have
counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of
four-and-twenty hours.  It was I that made the fame and fortune of that
man that had that marvellous collection of weather on exhibition at the
Centennial, that so astounded the foreigners.  He was going to travel all
over the world and get specimens from all the climes.  I said, "Don't you
do it; you come to New England on a favorable spring day."  I told him
what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity.  Well, he
came and he made his collection in four days.  As to variety, why, he
confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never
heard of before.  And as to quantity well, after he had picked out and
discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather
enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; to
deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor.  The people of
New England are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some
things which they will not stand.  Every year they kill a lot of poets
for writing about "Beautiful Spring."  These are generally casual
visitors, who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and
cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring.  And so the
first thing they know the opportunity to inquire how they feel has
permanently gone by.  Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for
accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it.  You take up the
paper and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day's
weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States,
in the Wisconsin region.  See him sail along in the joy and pride of his
power till he gets to New England, and then see his tail drop.
He doesn't know what the weather is going to be in New England.
Well, he mulls over it, and by and-by he gets out something about like
this:  Probably northeast to southwest winds, varying to the southward
and westward and eastward, and points between, high and low barometer
swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail,
and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and
lightning.  Then he jots down his postscript from his wandering mind, to
cover accidents.  "But it is possible that the programme may be wholly
changed in the mean time."  Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New
England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.  There is only one
thing certain about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of
it--a perfect grand review; but you never can tell which end of the
procession is going to move first.  You fix up for the drought; you leave
your umbrella in the house and sally out, and two to one you get
drowned.  You make up your mind that the earthquake is due; you stand
from under, and take hold of something to steady yourself, and the first
thing you know you get struck by lightning.  These are great
disappointments; but they can't be helped.  The lightning there is
peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't
leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd
think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.
And the thunder.  When the thunder begins to merely tune up and scrape
and saw, and key up the instruments for the performance, strangers say,
"Why, what awful thunder you have here!" But when the baton is raised and
the real concert begins, you'll find that stranger down in the cellar
with his head in the ash-barrel.  Now as to the size of the weather in
New England--lengthways, I mean.  It is utterly disproportioned to the
size of that little country.  Half the time, when it is packed as full as
it can stick, you will see that New England weather sticking out beyond
the edges and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the
neighboring States.  She can't hold a tenth part of her weather.  You can
see cracks all about where she has strained herself trying to do it.
I could speak volumes about the inhuman perversity of the New England
weather, but I will give but a single specimen.  I like to hear rain on a
tin roof.  So I covered part of my roof with tin, with an eye to that
luxury.  Well, sir, do you think it ever rains on that tin?  No, sir;
skips it every time.  Mind, in this speech I have been trying merely to
do honor to the New England weather--no language could do it justice.
But, after all, there is at least one or two things about that weather
(or, if you please, effects produced by it) which we residents would not
like to part with.  If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should
still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for
all its bullying vagaries--the ice-storm: when a leafless tree is clothed
with ice from the bottom to the top--ice that is as bright and clear as
crystal; when every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen
dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of
Persia's diamond plume.  Then the wind waves the branches and the sun
comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that
glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change
and change again with inconceivable rapidity from blue to red, from red
to green, and green to gold--the tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very
explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax,
the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating,
intolerable magnificence.  One cannot make the words too strong.






THE BABIES

THE BABIES

          DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET, IN CHICAGO, GIVEN BY THE ARMY OF THE
          TENNESSEE TO THEIR FIRST COMMANDER, GENERAL U. S. GRANT,
          NOVEMBER, 1879

          The fifteenth regular toast was "The Babies.--As they comfort
          us in our sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities."

I like that.  We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies.  We have
not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works
down to the babies, we stand on common ground.  It is a shame that for a
thousand years the world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby, as if
he didn't amount to anything.  If you will stop and think a minute--if
you will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life
and recontemplate your first baby--you will remember that he amounted to
a good deal, and even something over.  You soldiers all know that when
that little fellow arrived at family headquarters you had to hand in your
resignation.  He took entire command.  You became his lackey, his mere
body-servant, and you had to stand around too.  He was not a commander
who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything else.  You
had to execute his order whether it was possible or not.  And there was
only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that was the
double-quick.  He treated you with every sort of insolence and
disrespect, and the bravest of you didn't dare to say a word.  You could
face the death-storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for
blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and twisted
your nose, you had to take it.  When the thunders of war were sounding in
your ears you set your faces toward the batteries, and advanced with
steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his war whoop you
advanced in the other direction, and mighty glad of the chance, too.
When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw out any
side-remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a
gentleman?  No.  You got up and got it.  When he ordered his pap bottle
and it was not warm, did you talk back?  Not you.  You went to work and
warmed it.  You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a
suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was right--three
parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a
drop of peppermint to kill those immortal hiccoughs.  I can taste that
stuff yet.  And how many things you learned as you went along!
Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying
that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels are
whispering to him.  Very pretty, but too thin--simply wind on the
stomach, my friends.  If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual
hour, two o'clock in the morning, didn't you rise up promptly and remark,
with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school book much,
that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself?  Oh!
you were under good discipline, and as you went fluttering up and down
the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified
baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing!
--Rock a-by Baby in the Tree-top, for instance.  What a spectacle far an
Army of the Tennessee!  And what an affliction for the neighbors, too;
for it is not everybody within, a mile around that likes military music
at three in the morning.  And, when you had been keeping this sort of
thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet head intimated that
nothing suited him like exercise and noise, what did you do?  You simply
went on until you dropped in the last ditch.  The idea that a baby
doesn't amount to anything!  Why, one baby is just a house and a front
yard full by itself. One baby can, furnish more business than you and
your whole Interior Department can attend to.  He is enterprising,
irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities.  Do what you please, you
can't make him stay on the reservation.  Sufficient unto the day is one
baby.  As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for
twins.  Twins amount to a permanent riot.  And there ain't any real
difference between triplets and an insurrection.

Yes, it was high time for a toast-master to recognize the importance of
the babies.  Think what is in store for the present crop!  Fifty years
from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag, if it still
survive (and let us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic
numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our
increase.  Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political
leviathan--a Great Eastern.  The cradled babies of to-day will be on
deck.  Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big contract
on their hands.  Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in
the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred
things, if we could know which ones they are.  In one of these cradles
the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething think
of it! and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but
perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too.  In another the future
renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a
languid interest poor little chap!--and wondering what has become of that
other one they call the wet-nurse.  In another the future great historian
is lying--and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is
ended.  In another the future President is busying himself with no
profounder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his hair
so early; and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some
60,000 future office-seekers, getting ready to furnish him occasion to
grapple with that same old problem a second, time.  And in still one
more cradle, some where under the flag, the future illustrious
commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his
approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole
strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his
big toe into his mouth--an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the
illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some
fifty-six years ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man,
there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.






OUR CHILDREN AND GREAT DISCOVERIES

          DELIVERED AT THE AUTHORS' CLUB, NEW YORK

Our children--yours--and--mine.  They seem like little things to talk
about--our children, but little things often make up the sum of human
life--that's a good sentence.  I repeat it, little things often produce
great things.  Now, to illustrate, take Sir Isaac Newton--I presume some
of you have heard of Mr. Newton.  Well, once when Sir Isaac Newton
--a mere lad--got over into the man's apple orchard--I don't know
what he was doing there--I didn't come all the way from Hartford to
q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n Mr. Newton's honesty--but when he was there--in the main
orchard--he saw an apple fall and he was a-t-t-racted toward it, and that
led to the discovery--not of Mr. Newton but of the great law of
attraction and gravitation.

And there was once another great discoverer--I've forgotten his name,
and I don't remember what he discovered, but I know it was something very
important, and I hope you will all tell your children about it when you
get home.  Well, when the great discoverer was once loafn' around down in
Virginia, and a-puttin' in his time flirting with Pocahontas--oh!
Captain John Smith, that was the man's name--and while he and Poca were
sitting in Mr. Powhatan's garden, he accidentally put his arm around her
and picked something simple weed, which proved to be tobacco--and now we
find it in every Christian family, shedding its civilizing influence
broadcast throughout the whole religious community.

Now there was another great man, I can't think of his name either, who
used to loaf around and watch the great chandelier in the cathedral at
Pisa., which set him to thinking about the great law of gunpowder, and
eventually led to the discovery of the cotton-gin.

Now, I don't say this as an inducement for our young men to loaf around
like Mr. Newton and Mr. Galileo and Captain Smith, but they were once
little babies two days old, and they show what little things have
sometimes accomplished.






EDUCATING THEATRE-GOERS

          The children of the Educational Alliance gave a performance of
          "The Prince and the Pauper" on the afternoon of April 14, 1907,
          in the theatre of the Alliance Building in East Broadway.  The
          audience was composed of nearly one thousand children of the
          neighborhood.  Mr. Clemens, Mr. Howells, and Mr. Daniel Frohman
          were among the invited guests.

I have not enjoyed a play so much, so heartily, and so thoroughly since I
played Miles Hendon twenty-two years ago.  I used to play in this piece
("The Prince and the Pauper") with my children, who, twenty-two years
ago, were little youngsters.  One of my daughters was the Prince, and a
neighbor's daughter was the Pauper, and the children of other neighbors
played other parts.  But we never gave such a performance as we have seen
here to-day.  It would have been beyond us.

My late wife was the dramatist and stage-manager.  Our coachman was the
stage-manager, second in command.  We used to play it in this simple way,
and the one who used to bring in the crown on a cushion--he was a little
fellow then--is now a clergyman way up high--six or seven feet high--and
growing higher all the time.  We played it well, but not as well as you
see it here, for you see it done by practically trained professionals.

I was especially interested in the scene which we have just had, for
Miles Hendon was my part.  I did it as well as a person could who never
remembered his part.  The children all knew their parts.  They did not
mind if I did not know mine.  I could thread a needle nearly as well as
the player did whom you saw to-day.  The words of my part I could supply
on the spot.  The words of the song that Miles Hendon sang here I did not
catch.  But I was great in that song.

          [Then Mr. Clemens hummed a bit of doggerel that the reporter
          made out as this:

                   "There was a woman in her town,
                    She loved her husband well,
                    But another man just twice as well."

          "How is that?" demanded Mr. Clemens.  Then resuming]

It was so fresh and enjoyable to make up a new set of words each time
that I played the part.

If I had a thousand citizens in front of me, I would like to give them
information, but you children already know all that I have found out
about the Educational Alliance.  It's like a man living within thirty
miles of Vesuvius and never knowing about a volcano.  It's like living
for a lifetime in Buffalo, eighteen miles from Niagara, and never going
to see the Falls.  So I had lived in New York and knew nothing about the
Educational Alliance.

This theatre is a part of the work, and furnishes pure and clean plays.
This theatre is an influence.  Everything in the world is accomplished by
influences which train and educate.  When you get to be seventy-one and a
half, as I am, you may think that your education is over, but it isn't.

If we had forty theatres of this kind in this city of four millions, how
they would educate and elevate!  We should have a body of educated
theatre-goers.

It would make better citizens, honest citizens.  One of the best gifts a
millionaire could make would be a theatre here and a theatre there.  It
would make of you a real Republic, and bring about an educational level.






THE EDUCATIONAL THEATRE

          On November 19, 1907, Mr. Clemens entertained a party of six or
          seven hundred of his friends, inviting them to witness the
          representation of "The Prince and the Pauper," flayed by boys
          and girls of the East Side at the Children's Educational
          Theatre, New York.

Just a word or two to let you know how deeply I appreciate the honor
which the children who are the actors and frequenters of this cozy
playhouse have conferred upon me.  They have asked me to be their
ambassador to invite the hearts and brains of New York to come down here
and see the work they are doing.  I consider it a grand distinction to be
chosen as their intermediary.  Between the children and myself there is
an indissoluble bond of friendship.

I am proud of this theatre and this performance--proud, because I am
naturally vain--vain of myself and proud of the children.

I wish we could reach more children at one time.  I am glad to see that
the children of the East Side have turned their backs on the Bowery
theatres to come to see the pure entertainments presented here.

This Children's Theatre is a great educational institution.  I hope the
time will come when it will be part of every public school in the land.
I may be pardoned in being vain.  I was born vain, I guess.  [At this
point the stage-manager's whistle interrupted Mr. Clemens.]  That settles
it; there's my cue to stop.  I was to talk until the whistle blew, but it
blew before I got started.  It takes me longer to get started than most
people.  I guess I was born at slow speed.  My time is up, and if you'll
keep quiet for two minutes I'll tell you something about Miss Herts, the
woman who conceived this splendid idea.  She is the originator and the
creator of this theatre.  Educationally, this institution coins the gold
of young hearts into external good.


          [On April 23, 1908, he spoke again at the same place]

I will be strictly honest with you; I am only fit to be honorary
president.  It is not to be expected that I should be useful as a real
president.  But when it comes to things ornamental I, of course, have no
objection.  There is, of course, no competition.  I take it as a very
real compliment because there are thousands of children who have had a
part in this request.  It is promotion in truth.

It is a thing worth doing that is done here.  You have seen the children
play.  You saw how little Sally reformed her burglar.  She could reform
any burglar.  She could reform me.  This is the only school in which can
be taught the highest and most difficult lessons--morals.  In other
schools the way of teaching morals is revolting.  Here the children who
come in thousands live through each part.

They are terribly anxious for the villain to get his bullet, and that I
take to be a humane and proper sentiment.  They spend freely the ten
cents that is not saved without a struggle.  It comes out of the candy
money, and the money that goes for chewing-gum and other necessaries of
life.  They make the sacrifice freely.  This is the only school which
they are sorry to leave.






POETS AS POLICEMEN

          Mr. Clemens was one of the speakers at the Lotos Club dinner to
          Governor Odell, March 24, 1900.  The police problem was
          referred to at length.

Let us abolish policemen who carry clubs and revolvers, and put in a
squad of poets armed to the teeth with poems on Spring and Love.  I would
be very glad to serve as commissioner, not because I think I am
especially qualified, but because I am too tired to work and would like
to take a rest.

Howells would go well as my deputy.  He is tired too, and needs a rest
badly.

I would start in at once to elevate, purify, and depopulate the red-light
district.  I would assign the most soulful poets to that district,
all heavily armed with their poems.  Take Chauncey Depew as a sample.
I would station them on the corners after they had rounded up all the
depraved people of the district so they could not escape, and then have
them read from their poems to the poor unfortunates.  The plan would be
very effective in causing an emigration of the depraved element.






PUDD'NHEAD WILSON DRAMATIZED

          When Mr. Clemens arrived from Europe in 1895 one of the first
          things he did was to see the dramatization of Pudd'nhead
          Wilson.  The audience becoming aware of the fact that Mr.
          Clemens was in the house called upon him for a speech.

Never in my life have I been able to make a speech without preparation,
and I assure you that this position in which I find myself is one totally
unexpected.

I have been hemmed in all day by William Dean Howells and other frivolous
persons, and I have been talking about everything in the world except
that of which speeches are constructed.  Then, too, seven days on the
water is not conducive to speech-making.  I will only say that I
congratulate Mr. Mayhew; he has certainly made a delightful play out of
my rubbish.  His is a charming gift.  Confidentially I have always had
an idea that I was well equipped to write plays, but I have never
encountered a manager who has agreed with me.






DALY THEATRE

          ADDRESS AT A DINNER AFTER THE ONE HUNDREDTH PERFORMANCE OF
          "THE TAMING OF THE SHREW."

          Mr. Clemens made the following speech, which he incorporated
          afterward in Following the Equator.

I am glad to be here.  This is the hardest theatre in New York to get
into, even at the front door.  I never, got in without hard work.  I am
glad we have got so far in at last.  Two or three years ago I had an
appointment to meet Mr. Daly on the stage of this theatre at eight
o'clock in the evening.  Well, I got on a train at Hartford to come to
New York and keep the appointment.  All I had to do was to come to the
back door of the theatre on Sixth Avenue.  I did not believe that; I did
not believe it could be on Sixth Avenue, but that is what Daly's note
said--come to that door, walk right in, and keep the appointment.  It
looked very easy.  It looked easy enough, but I had not much confidence
in the Sixth Avenue door.

Well, I was kind of bored on the train, and I bought some newspapers--New
Haven newspapers--and there was not much news in them, so I read the
advertisements.  There was one advertisement of a bench-show.  I had
heard of bench-shows, and I often wondered what there was about them to
interest people.  I had seen bench-shows--lectured to bench-shows, in
fact--but I didn't want to advertise them or to brag about them.  Well,
I read on a little, and learned that a bench-show was not a bench-show
--but dogs, not benches at all--only dogs.  I began to be interested,
and as there was nothing else to do I read every bit of the
advertisement, and learned that the biggest thing in this show was a St.
Bernard dog that weighed one hundred and forty-five pounds.  Before I got
to New York I was so interested in the bench-shows that I made up my mind
to go to one the first chance I got.  Down on Sixth Avenue, near where
that back door might be, I began to take things leisurely.  I did not
like to be in too much of a hurry.  There was not anything in sight that
looked like a back door.  The nearest approach to it was a cigar store.
So I went in and bought a cigar, not too expensive, but it cost enough to
pay for any information I might get and leave the dealer a fair profit.
Well, I did not like to be too abrupt, to make the man think me crazy, by
asking him if that was the way to Daly's Theatre, so I started gradually
to lead up to the subject, asking him first if that was the way to Castle
Garden.  When I got to the real question, and he said he would show me
the way, I was astonished.  He sent me through a long hallway, and I
found myself in a back yard.  Then I went through a long passageway and
into a little room, and there before my eyes was a big St. Bernard dog
lying on a bench.  There was another door beyond and I went there, and
was met by a big, fierce man with a fur cap on and coat off, who
remarked, "Phwat do yez want?"  I told him I wanted to see Mr. Daly.
"Yez can't see Mr. Daly this time of night," he responded.  I urged that
I had an appointment with Mr. Daly, and gave him my card, which did not
seem to impress him much.  "Yez can't get in and yez can't shmoke here.
Throw away that cigar.  If yez want to see Mr. Daly, yez 'll have to be
after going to the front door and buy a ticket, and then if yez have luck
and he's around that way yez may see him."  I was getting discouraged,
but I had one resource left that had been of good service in similar
emergencies.  Firmly but kindly I told him my name was Mark Twain, and I
awaited results.  There was none.  He was not fazed a bit.  "Phwere's
your order to see Mr. Daly?" he asked.  I handed him the note, and he
examined it intently.  "My friend," I remarked, "you can read that better
if you hold it the other side up."  But he took no notice of the
suggestion, and finally asked: "Where's Mr. Daly's name?"  "There it is,"
I told him, "on the top of the page."  "That's all right," he said,
"that's where he always puts it; but I don't see the 'W' in his name,"
and he eyed me distrustfully.  Finally, he asked, "Phwat do yez want to
see Mr. Daly for?"  "Business."  "Business?"  "Yes."  It was my only
hope.  "Phwat kind--theatres?" that was too much.  "No."  "What kind of
shows, then?"  "Bench-shows."  It was risky, but I was desperate."
Bench--shows, is it--where?"  The big man's face changed, and he began to
look interested.  "New Haven."  "New Haven, it is?  Ah, that's going to
be a fine show.  I'm glad to see you.  Did you see a big dog in the other
room?"  "Yes."  "How much do you think that dog weighs?"  "One hundred
and forty-five pounds."  "Look at that, now!  He's a good judge of dogs,
and no mistake.  He weighs all of one hundred and thirty-eight.  Sit down
and shmoke--go on and shmoke your cigar, I'll tell Mr. Daly you are
here."  In a few minutes I was on the stage shaking hands with Mr. Daly,
and the big man standing around glowing with satisfaction.  "Come around
in front," said Mr. Daly, "and see the performance.  I will put you into
my own box."  And as I moved away I heard my honest friend mutter, "Well,
he desarves it."






THE DRESS OF CIVILIZED WOMAN

A large part of the daughter of civilization is her dress--as it should
be.  Some civilized women would lose half their charm without dress, and
some would lose all of it.  The daughter Of modern civilization dressed
at her utmost best is a marvel of exquisite and beautiful art and
expense.  All the lands, all the climes, and all the arts are laid under
tribute to furnish her forth.  Her linen is from Belfast, her robe is
from Paris, her lace is from Venice, or Spain, or France, her feathers
are from the remote regions of Southern Africa, her furs from the remoter
region of the iceberg and the aurora, her fan from Japan, her diamonds
from Brazil, her bracelets from California, her pearls from Ceylon, her
cameos from Rome.  She has gems and trinkets from buried Pompeii, and
others that graced comely Egyptian forms that have been dust and ashes
now for forty centuries.  Her watch is from Geneva, her card case is from
China, her hair is from--from--I don't know where her hair is from; I
never could find out; that is, her other hair--her public hair, her
Sunday hair; I don't mean the hair she goes to bed with.

And that reminds me of a trifle.  Any time you want to you can glance
around the carpet of a Pullman car, and go and pick up a hair-pin; but
not to save your life can you get any woman in that car to acknowledge
that hair-pin.  Now, isn't that strange?  But it's true.  The woman who
has never swerved from cast-iron veracity and fidelity in her whole life
will, when confronted with this crucial test, deny her hair-pin.  She
will deny that hair-pin before a hundred witnesses.  I have stupidly got
into more trouble and more hot water trying to hunt up the owner of a
hair-pin in a Pullman than by any other indiscretion of my life.






DRESS REFORM AND COPYRIGHT

          When the present copyright law was under discussion, Mr.
          Clemens appeared before the committee.  He had sent Speaker
          Cannon the following letter:

          "DEAR UNCLE JOSEPH,--Please get me the thanks of Congress, not
          next week but right away.  It is very necessary.  Do accomplish
          this for your affectionate old friend right away--by,
          persuasion if you can, by violence if you must, for it is
          imperatively necessary that I get on the floor of the House for
          two or three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in
          behalf of support; encouragement, and protection of one of the
          nation's most valuable assets and industries--its literature.
          I have arguments with me--also a barrel with liquid in it.

          "Give me a chance.  Get me the thanks of Congress.  Don't wait
          for others--there isn't time; furnish them to me yourself and
          let Congress ratify later.  I have stayed away and let Congress
          alone for seventy-one years and am entitled to the thanks.
          Congress knows this perfectly well, and I have long felt hurt
          that this quite proper and earned expression of gratitude has
          been merely felt by the House and never publicly uttered.

          "Send me an order on the sergeant-at-arms quick.  When shall I
          come?
                                   "With love and a benediction,
                                                       "MARK TWAIN."


          While waiting to appear before the committee, My.  Clemens
          talked to the reporters:

Why don't you ask why I am wearing such apparently unseasonable clothes?
I'll tell you.  I have found that when a man reaches the advanced age of
seventy-one years, as I have, the continual sight of dark clothing is
likely to have a depressing effect upon him.  Light-colored clothing is
more pleasing to the eye and enlivens the spirit.  Now, of course, I
cannot compel every one to wear such clothing just for my especial
benefit, so I do the next best thing and wear it myself.

Of course, before a man reaches my years the fear of criticism might
prevent him from indulging his fancy.  I am not afraid of that.  I am
decidedly for pleasing color combinations in dress.  I like to see the
women's clothes, say, at the opera.  What can be more depressing than the
sombre black which custom requires men to wear upon state occasions?
A group of men in evening clothes looks like a flock of crows, and is
just about as inspiring.

After all, what is the purpose of clothing?  Are not clothes intended
primarily to preserve dignity and also to afford comfort to their wearer?
Now I know of nothing more uncomfortable than the present-day clothes of
men.  The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course,
society demands something more than this.

The best-dressed man I have ever seen, however, was a native of the
Sandwich Islands who attracted my attention thirty years ago.  Now, when
that man wanted to don especial dress to honor a public occasion or a
holiday, why, he occasionally put on a pair of spectacles.  Otherwise the
clothing with which God had provided him sufficed.

Of course, I have ideas of dress reform.  For one thing, why not adopt
some of the women's styles?  Goodness knows, they adopt enough of ours.
Take the peek-a-boo waist, for instance.  It has the obvious advantages
of being cool and comfortable, and in addition it is almost always made
up in pleasing colors which cheer and do not depress.

It is true that I dressed the Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court
in a plug-hat, but, let's see, that was twenty-five years ago.  Then no
man was considered fully dressed until he donned a plug-hat.  Nowadays I
think that no man is dressed until he leaves it home.  Why, when I left
home yesterday they trotted out a plug-hat for me to wear.

"You must wear it," they told me; "why, just think of going to Washington
without a plug-hat!"  But I said no; I would wear a derby or nothing.
Why, I believe I could walk along the streets of New York--I never do
--but still I think I could--and I should never see a well-dressed man
wearing a plug-hat.  If I did I should suspect him of something.  I don't
know just what, but I would suspect him.

Why, when I got up on the second story of that Pennsylvania ferry-boat
coming down here yesterday I saw Howells coming along.  He was the only
man on the boat with a plug-hat, and I tell you he felt ashamed of
himself.  He said he had been persuaded to wear it against his better
sense.  But just think of a man nearly seventy years old who has not a
mind of his own on such matters!

"Are you doing any work now?" the youngest and most serious reporter
asked.

Work?  I retired from work on my seventieth birthday.  Since then I have
been putting in merely twenty-six hours a day dictating my autobiography,
which, as John Phoenix said in regard to his autograph, may be relied
upon as authentic, as it is written exclusively by me.  But it is not to
be published in full until I am thoroughly dead.  I have made it as
caustic, fiendish, and devilish as possible.  It will fill many volumes,
and I shall continue writing it until the time comes for me to join the
angels.  It is going to be a terrible autobiography.  It will make the
hair of some folks curl.  But it cannot be published until I am dead, and
the persons mentioned in it and their children and grandchildren are
dead.  It is something awful!

"Can you tell us the names of some of the notables that are here to see
you off?"

I don't know.  I am so shy.  My shyness takes a peculiar phase.  I never
look a person in the face.  The reason is that I am afraid they may know
me and that I may not know them, which makes it very embarrassing for
both of us.  I always wait for the other person to speak.  I know lots of
people, but I don't know who they are.  It is all a matter of ability to
observe things.  I never observe anything now.  I gave up the habit years
ago.  You should keep a habit up if you want to become proficient in it.
For instance, I was a pilot once, but I gave it up, and I do not believe
the captain of the Minneapolis would let me navigate his ship to London.
Still, if I think that he is not on the job I may go up on the bridge and
offer him a few suggestions.






COLLEGE GIRLS

          Five hundred undergraduates, under the auspices of the Woman's
          University Club, New York, welcomed Mr. Clemens as their guest,
          April 3, 1906, and gave him the freedom of the club, which the
          chairman explained was freedom to talk individually to any girl
          present.

I've worked for the public good thirty years, so for the rest of my life
I shall work for my personal contentment.  I am glad Miss Neron has fed
me, for there is no telling what iniquity I might wander into on an empty
stomach--I mean, an empty mind.

I am going to tell you a practical story about how once upon a time I was
blind--a story I should have been using all these months, but I never
thought about telling it until the other night, and now it is too late,
for on the nineteenth of this month I hope to take formal leave of the
platform forever at Carnegie Hall--that is, take leave so far as talking
for money and for people who have paid money to hear me talk.  I shall
continue to infest the platform on these conditions--that there is nobody
in the house who has paid to hear me, that I am not paid to be heard, and
that there will be none but young women students in the audience.  [Here
Mr. Clemens told the story of how he took a girl to the theatre while he
was wearing tight boots, which appears elsewhere in this volume, and
ended by saying:  "And now let this be a lesson to you--I don't know what
kind of a lesson; I'll let you think it out."]






GIRLS

In my capacity of publisher I recently received a manuscript from a
teacher which embodied a number of answers given by her pupils to
questions propounded.  These answers show that the children had nothing
but the sound to go by--the sense was perfectly empty.  Here are some of
their answers to words they were asked to define:  Auriferous--pertaining
to an orifice; ammonia--the food of the gods; equestrian--one who asks
questions; parasite--a kind of umbrella; ipecaca--man who likes a good
dinner.  And here is the definition of an ancient word honored by a great
party: Republican--a sinner mentioned in the Bible.  And here is an
innocent deliverance of a zoological kind: "There are a good many donkeys
in the theological gardens."  Here also is a definition which really
isn't very bad in its way: Demagogue--a vessel containing beer and other
liquids.  Here, too, is a sample of a boy's composition on girls, which,
I must say, I rather like:

"Girls are very stuckup and dignified in their manner and behaveyour.
They think more of dress than anything and like to play with dowls and
rags.  They cry if they see a cow in a far distance and are afraid of
guns.  They stay at home all the time and go to church every Sunday.
They are al-ways sick.  They are al-ways furry and making fun of boys
hands and they say how dirty.  They cant play marbles.  I pity them poor
things.  They make fun of boys and then turn round and love them.
I don't belave they ever kiled a cat or anything.  They look out every
nite and say, 'Oh, a'nt the moon lovely!'--Thir is one thing I have not
told and that is they al-ways now their lessons bettern boys."






THE LADIES

          DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL, 1872, OF THE SCOTTISH
          CORPORATION OF LONDON

          Mr. Clemens replied to the toast "The Ladies."

I am proud, indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to this
especial toast, to "The Ladies," or to women if you please, for that is
the preferable term, perhaps; it is certainly the older, and therefore
the more entitled to reverence.  I have noticed that the Bible, with that
plain, blunt honesty which is such a conspicuous characteristic of the
Scriptures, is always particular to never refer to even the illustrious
mother of all mankind as a "lady," but speaks of her as a woman.  It is
odd, but you will find it is so.  I am peculiarly proud of this honor,
because I think that the toast to women is one which, by right and by
every rule of gallantry, should take precedence of all others--of the
army, of the navy, of even royalty itself--perhaps, though the latter is
not necessary in this day and in this land, for the reason that, tacitly,
you do drink a broad general health to all good women when you drink the
health of the Queen of England and the Princess of Wales.  I have in mind
a poem just now which is familiar to you all, familiar to everybody.  And
what an inspiration that was, and how instantly the present toast recalls
the verses to all our minds when the most noble, the most gracious, the
purest, and sweetest of all poets says:

                         "Woman!  O woman!---er
                         Wom----"

However, you remember the lines; and you remember how feelingly, how
daintily, how almost imperceptibly the verses raise up before you,
feature by feature, the ideal of a true and perfect woman; and how, as
you contemplate the finished marvel, your homage grows into worship of
the intellect that could create so fair a thing out of mere breath, mere
words.  And you call to mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stern
fidelity to the history of all humanity, delivers this beautiful child of
his heart and his brain over to the trials and sorrows that must come to
all, sooner or later, that abide in the earth, and how the pathetic story
culminates in that apostrophe--so wild, so regretful, so full of mournful
retrospection.  The lines run thus:

                        "Alas!--alas!--a--alas!
                         ----Alas!--------alas!"

--and so on.  I do not remember the rest; but, taken together, it seems
to me that poem is the noblest tribute to woman that human genius has
ever brought forth--and I feel that if I were to talk hours I could not
do my great theme completer or more graceful justice than I have now done
in simply quoting that poet's matchless words.  The phases of the womanly
nature are infinite in their variety.  Take any type of woman, and you
shall find in it something to respect, something to admire, something to
love.  And you shall find the whole joining you heart and hand.  Who was
more patriotic than Joan of Arc?  Who was braver?  Who has given us a
grander instance of self-sacrificing devotion?  Ah! you remember, you
remember well, what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief
swept over us all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo.  Who does not sorrow
for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel?  Who among us does
not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences, the humble
piety of Lucretia Borgia?  Who can join in the heartless libel that says
woman is extravagant in dress when he can look back and call to mind our
simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed in her modification of the Highland
costume?  Sir, women have been soldiers, women have been painters, women
have been poets.  As long as language lives the name of Cleopatra will
live.  And not because she conquered George III.--but because she wrote
those divine lines:

                   "Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
                    For God hath made them so."

The story of the world is adorned with the names of illustrious ones of
our own sex--some of, them sons of St. Andrew, too--Scott, Bruce, Burns,
the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis--the gifted Ben Lomond, and the great new
Scotchman, Ben Disraeli.--[Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime
Minister of England, had just been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow
University, and had made a speech which gave rise to a world of
discussion]--Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountain
ranges of sublime women: the Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey
Gamp; the list is endless--but I will not call the mighty roll, the names
rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the
glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the loving worship of the
good and the true of all epochs and all climes.  Suffice it for our pride
and our honor that we in our day have added to it such names as those of
Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale.  Woman is all that she should be
gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous
impulses.  It is her blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for
the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift
the fallen, befriend the friendless--in a word, afford the healing of her
sympathies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted
children that knock at its hospitable door.  And when I say, God bless
her, there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of a
wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart will say,
Amen!






WOMAN'S PRESS CLUB

          On October 27, 1900, the New York Woman's Press Club gave a tea
          in Carnegie Hall.  Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor.

If I were asked an opinion I would call this an ungrammatical nation.
There is no such thing as perfect grammar, and I don't always speak good
grammar myself.  But I have been foregathering for the past few days with
professors of American universities, and I've heard them all say things
like this: "He don't like to do it."  [There was a stir.] Oh, you'll hear
that to-night if you listen, or, "He would have liked to have done it."
You'll catch some educated Americans saying that.  When these men take
pen in hand they write with as good grammar as any.  But the moment they
throw the pen aside they throw grammatical morals aside with it.

To illustrate the desirability and possibility of concentration, I must
tell you a story of my little six-year-old daughter.  The governess had
been teaching her about the reindeer, and, as the custom was, she related
it to the family.  She reduced the history of that reindeer to two or
three sentences when the governess could not have put it into a page.
She said:  "The reindeer is a very swift animal.  A reindeer once drew a
sled four hundred miles in two hours."  She appended the comment:  "This
was regarded as extraordinary."  And concluded:  "When that reindeer was
done drawing that sled four hundred miles in two hours it died."

As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of
concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom
I have known for these many years.  I am filled with the wonder of her
knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction.  If I could
have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something.






VOTES FOR WOMEN

          AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE HEBREW TECHNICAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS,
          HELD IN THE TEMPLE EMMANUEL, JANUARY 20, 1901

          Mr. Clemens was introduced by President Meyer, who said: "In
          one of Mr. Clemens's works he expressed his opinion of men,
          saying he had no choice between Hebrew and Gentile, black men
          or white; to him all men were alike.  But I never could find
          that he expressed his opinion of women; perhaps that opinion
          was so exalted that he could not express it.  We shall now be
          called to hear what he thinks of women."

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--It is a small help that I can afford, but it is
just such help that one can give as coming from the heart through the
mouth.  The report of Mr. Meyer was admirable, and I was as interested in
it as you have been.  Why, I'm twice as old as he, and I've had so much
experience that I would say to him, when he makes his appeal for help:
"Don't make it for to-day or to-morrow, but collect the money on the
spot."

We are all creatures of sudden impulse.  We must be worked up by steam,
as it were.  Get them to write their wills now, or it may be too late by
-and-by.  Fifteen or twenty years ago I had an experience I shall never
forget.  I got into a church which was crowded by a sweltering and
panting multitude.  The city missionary of our town--Hartford--made a
telling appeal for help.  He told of personal experiences among the poor
in cellars and top lofts requiring instances of devotion and help.  The
poor are always good to the poor.  When a person with his millions gives
a hundred thousand dollars it makes a great noise in the world, but he
does not miss it; it's the widow's mite that makes no noise but does the
best work.

I remember on that occasion in the Hartford church the collection was
being taken up.  The appeal had so stirred me that I could hardly wait
for the hat or plate to come my way.  I had four hundred dollars in my
pocket, and I was anxious to drop it in the plate and wanted to borrow
more.  But the plate was so long in coming my way that the fever-heat of
beneficence was going down lower and lower--going down at the rate of a
hundred dollars a minute.  The plate was passed too late.  When it
finally came to me, my enthusiasm had gone down so much that I kept my
four hundred dollars--and stole a dime from the plate.  So, you see, time
sometimes leads to crime.

Oh, many a time have I thought of that and regretted it, and I adjure you
all to give while the fever is on you.

Referring to woman's sphere in life, I'll say that woman is always right.
For twenty-five years I've been a woman's rights man.  I have always
believed, long before my mother died, that, with her gray hairs and
admirable intellect, perhaps she knew as much as I did.  Perhaps she knew
as much about voting as I.

I should like to see the time come when women shall help to make the
laws.  I should like to see that whip-lash, the ballot, in the hands of
women.  As for this city's government, I don't want to say much, except
that it is a shame--a shame; but if I should live twenty-five years
longer--and there is no reason why I shouldn't--I think I'll see women
handle the ballot.  If women had the ballot to-day, the state of things
in this town would not exist.

If all the women in this town had a vote to-day they would elect a mayor
at the next election, and they would rise in their might and change the
awful state of things now existing here.






WOMAN-AN OPINION

          ADDRESS AT AN EARLY BANQUET OF THE WASHINGTON
          CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB

          The twelfth toast was as follows: "Woman--The pride of any
          profession, and the jewel of ours."

MR. PRESIDENT,--I do not know why I should be singled out to receive the
greatest distinction of the evening--for so the office of replying to the
toast of woman has been regarded in every age. I do not know why I have
received his distinction, unless it be that I am a trifle less homely
than the other members of the club.  But be this as it may, Mr.
President, I am proud of the position, and you could not have chosen any
one who would have accepted it more gladly, or labored with a heartier
good-will to do the subject justice than I--because, sir, I love the sex.
I love all the women, irrespective of age or color.

Human intellect cannot estimate what we owe to woman, sir.  She sews on
our buttons; she mends our clothes; she ropes us in at the church fairs;
she confides in us; she tells us whatever she can find out about the
little private affairs of the neighbors; she gives us good advice, and
plenty of it; she soothes our aching brows; she bears our children--ours
as a general thing.  In all relations of life, sir, it is but a just and
graceful tribute to woman to say of her that she is a brick.

Wheresoever you place woman, sir--in whatever position or estate--she is
an ornament to the place she occupies, and a treasure to the world. [Here
Mr. Clemens paused, looked inquiringly at his hearers, and remarked that
the applause should come in at this point. It came in. He resumed his
eulogy.]  Look at Cleopatra! look at Desdemona!--look at Florence
Nightingale!--look at Joan of Arc!--look at Lucretia Borgia!
[Disapprobation expressed.]  Well [said Mr. Clemens, scratching his head,
doubtfully], suppose we let Lucretia slide.  Look at Joyce Heth!--look at
Mother Eve!  You need not look at her unless you want to, but [said Mr.
Clemens, reflectively, after a pause] Eve was ornamental, sir
--particularly before the fashions changed.  I repeat, sir, look at the
illustrious names of history. Look at the Widow Machree!--look at Lucy
Stone!--look at Elizabeth Cady Stanton!--look at George Francis Train!
And, sir, I say it with bowed head and deepest veneration--look at the
mother of Washington!  She raised a boy that could not tell a lie--could
not tell a lie!  But he never had any chance.  It might have been
different if he had belonged to the Washington Newspaper Correspondents'
Club.

I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an
ornament to society and a treasure to the world.  As a sweetheart, she
has few equals and no superiors; as a cousin, she is convenient; as a
wealthy grandmother with an incurable distemper, she is precious; as a
wetnurse, she has no equal among men.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman?  They would be
scarce, sir, almighty scarce.  Then let us cherish her; let us protect
her; let us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathy,
ourselves--if we get a chance.

But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is lovable, gracious, kind of
heart, beautiful--worthy of all respect, of all esteem, of all deference.
Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially in this
bumper of wine, for each and every one has personally known, and loved,
and honored the very best one of them all--his own mother.






ADVICE TO GIRLS

          In 1907 a young girl whom Mr. Clemens met on the steamer
          Minnehaha called him "grandpa," and he called her his
          granddaughter.  She was attending St. Timothy's School, at
          Catonsville, Maryland, and Mr. Clemens promised her to see her
          graduate.  He accordingly made the journey from New York on
          June 10, 1909, and delivered a short address.

I don't know what to tell you girls to do.  Mr. Martin has told you
everything you ought to do, and now I must give you some don'ts.

There are three things which come to my mind which I consider excellent
advice:

First, girls, don't smoke--that is, don't smoke to excess.  I am
seventy-three and a half years old, and have been smoking seventy-three
of them. But I never smoke to excess--that is, I smoke in moderation,
only one cigar at a time.

Second, don't drink--that is, don't drink to excess.

Third, don't marry--I mean, to excess.

Honesty is the best policy.  That is an old proverb; but you don't want
ever to forget it in your journey through life.






TAXES AND MORALS

ADDRESS DELIVERED IN NEW YORK, JANUARY 22, 1906

          At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Tuskeegee
          Institute by Booker Washington, Mr. Choate presided, and in
          introducing Mr. Clemens made fun of him because he made play
          his work, and that when he worked hardest he did so lying in
          bed.

I came here in the responsible capacity of policeman to watch Mr. Choate.
This is an occasion of grave and serious importance, and it seems
necessary for me to be present, so that if he tried to work off any
statement that required correction, reduction, refutation, or exposure,
there would be a tried friend of the public to protect the house.  He has
not made one statement whose veracity fails to tally exactly with my own
standard.  I have never seen a person improve so.  This makes me thankful
and proud of a country that can produce such men--two such men.  And all
in the same country.  We can't be with you always; we are passing away,
and then--well, everything will have to stop, I reckon.  It is a sad
thought.  But in spirit I shall still be with you.  Choate, too--if he
can.

Every born American among the eighty millions, let his creed or
destitution of creed be what it may, is indisputably a Christian--to this
degree that his moral constitution is Christian.

There are two kinds of Christian morals, one private and the other
public.  These two are so distinct, so unrelated, that they are no more
akin to each other than are archangels and politicians.  During three
hundred and sixty-three days in the year the American citizen is true to
his Christian private morals, and keeps undefiled the nation's character
at its best and highest; then in the other two days of the year he leaves
his Christian private morals at home and carries his Christian public
morals to the tax office and the polls, and does the best he can to
damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work.  Without a
blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party's Moses,
without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land
if he is on the other ticket.  Every year in a number of cities and
States he helps put corrupt men in office, whereas if he would but throw
away his Christian public morals, and carry his Christian private morals
to the polls, he could promptly purify the public service and make the
possession of office a high and honorable distinction.

Once a year he lays aside his Christian private morals and hires a
ferry-boat and piles up his bonds in a warehouse in New Jersey for three
days, and gets out his Christian public morals and goes to the tax office
and holds up his hands and swears he wishes he may never--never if he's
got a cent in the world, so help him.  The next day the list appears in
the papers--a column and a quarter of names, in fine print, and every man
in the list a billionaire and member of a couple of churches.  I know all
those people.  I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the
whole lot of them.  They never miss a sermon when they are so's to be
around, and they never miss swearing-off day, whether they are so's to be
around or not.

I used to be an honest man.  I am crumbling.  No--I have crumbled.  When
they assessed me at $75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and tried to
borrow the money, and couldn't; then when I found they were letting a
whole crop of millionaires live in New York at a third of the price they
were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and said: "This is the last
feather.  I am not going to run this town all by myself."  In that
moment--in that memorable moment--I began to crumble.  In fifteen minutes
the disintegration was complete.  In fifteen minutes I had become just a
mere moral sand-pile; and I lifted up my hand along with those seasoned
and experienced deacons and swore off every rag of personal property I've
got in the world, clear down to cork leg, glass eye, and what is left of
my wig.

Those tax officers were moved; they were profoundly moved.  They had long
been accustomed to seeing hardened old grafters act like that, and they
could endure the spectacle; but they were expecting better things of me,
a chartered, professional moralist, and they were saddened.

I fell visibly in their respect and esteem, and I should have fallen in
my own, except that I had already struck bottom, and there wasn't any
place to fall to.

At Tuskeegee they will jump to misleading conclusions from insufficient
evidence, along with Doctor Parkhurst, and they will deceive the student
with the superstition that no gentleman ever swears.

Look at those good millionaires; aren't they gentlemen?  Well, they
swear.  Only once in a year, maybe, but there's enough bulk to it to make
up for the lost time.  And do they lose anything by it?  No, they don't;
they save enough in three minutes to support the family seven years.
When they swear, do we shudder?  No--unless they say "damn!"  Then we do.
It shrivels us all up.  Yet we ought not to feel so about it, because we
all swear--everybody.  Including the ladies.  Including Doctor Parkhurst,
that strong and brave and excellent citizen, but superficially educated.

For it is not the word that is the sin, it is the spirit back of the
word.  When an irritated lady says "oh!" the spirit back of it is "damn!"
and that is the way it is going to be recorded against her.  It always
makes me so sorry when I hear a lady swear like that.  But if she says
"damn," and says it in an amiable, nice way, it isn't going to be
recorded at all.

The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong; he can swear and
still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and, benevolent and
affectionate way.  The historian, John Fiske, whom I knew well and loved,
was a spotless and most noble and upright Christian gentleman, and yet he
swore once.  Not exactly that, maybe; still, he--but I will tell you
about it.

One day, when he was deeply immersed in his work, his wife came in, much
moved and profoundly distressed, and said: "I am sorry to disturb you,
John, but I must, for this is a serious matter, and needs to be attended
to at once."

Then, lamenting, she brought a grave accusation against their little son.
She said: "He has been saying his Aunt Mary is a fool and his Aunt Martha
is a damned fool."  Mr. Fiske reflected upon the matter a minute, then
said: "Oh, well, it's about the distinction I should make between them
myself."

Mr. Washington, I beg you to convey these teachings to your great and
prosperous and most beneficent educational institution, and add them to
the prodigal mental and moral riches wherewith you equip your fortunate
proteges for the struggle of life.






TAMMANY AND CROKER

          Mr. Clemens made his debut as a campaign orator on October 7,
          1901, advocating the election of Seth Low for Mayor, not as a
          Republican, but as a member of the "Acorns," which he described
          as a "third party having no political affiliation, but was
          concerned only in the selection of the best candidates and the
          best member."

Great Britain had a Tammany and a Croker a good while ago.  This Tammany
was in India, and it began its career with the spread of the English
dominion after the Battle of Plassey.  Its first boss was Clive, a
sufficiently crooked person sometimes, but straight as a yard stick
when compared with the corkscrew crookedness of the second boss, Warren
Hastings.

That old-time Tammany was the East India Company's government, and had
its headquarters at Calcutta.  Ostensibly it consisted of a Great Council
of four persons, of whom one was the Governor-General, Warren Hastings;
really it consisted of one person--Warren Hastings; for by usurpation he
concentrated all authority in himself and governed the country like an
autocrat.

Ostensibly the Court of Directors, sitting in London and representing the
vast interests of the stockholders, was supreme in authority over the
Calcutta Great Council, whose membership it appointed and removed at
pleasure, whose policies it dictated, and to whom it conveyed its will in
the form of sovereign commands; but whenever it suited Hastings, he
ignored even that august body's authority and conducted the mighty
affairs of the British Empire in India to suit his own notions.

At his mercy was the daily bread of every official, every trader, every
clerk, every civil servant, big and little, in the whole huge India
Company's machine, and the man who hazarded his bread by any failure of
subserviency to the boss lost it.

Now then, let the supreme masters of British India, the giant corporation
of the India Company of London, stand for the voters of the city of New
York; let the Great Council of Calcutta stand for Tammany; let the
corrupt and money-grubbing great hive of serfs which served under the
Indian Tammany's rod stand for New York Tammany's serfs; let Warren
Hastings stand for Richard Croker, and it seems to me that the parallel
is exact and complete.  And so let us be properly grateful and thank God
and our good luck that we didn't invent Tammany.

Edmund Burke, regarded by many as the greatest orator of all times,
conducted the case against Warren Hastings in that renowned trial which
lasted years, and which promises to keep its renown for centuries to
come.  I wish to quote some of the things he said.  I wish to imagine him
arraigning Mr. Croker and Tammany before the voters of New York City and
pleading with them for the overthrow of that combined iniquity of the 5th
of November, and will substitute for "My Lords," read "Fellow-Citizens";
for "Kingdom," read "City"; for "Parliamentary Process," read "Political
Campaign"; for "Two Houses," read "Two Parties," and so it reads:

"Fellow--citizens, I must look upon it as an auspicious circumstance to
this cause, in which the honor of the city is involved, that from the
first commencement of our political campaign to this the hour of solemn
trial not the smallest difference of opinion has arisen, between the two
parties.

"You will see, in the progress of this cause, that there is not only a
long, connected, systematic series of misdemeanors, but an equally
connected system of maxims and principles invented to justify them.
Upon both of these you must judge.

"It is not only the interest of the city of New York, now the most
considerable part of the city of the Americans, which is concerned, but
the credit and honor of the nation itself will be decided by this
decision."

          At a later meeting of the Acorn Club, Mr. Clemens said:

Tammany is dead, and there's no use in blackguarding a corpse.

The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying.  He had
only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him,
"Where is the best place to go to?"  He was undecided about it.  So the
minister told him that each place had its advantages--heaven for climate,
and hell for society.






MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION

          ADDRESS AT THE CITY CLUB DINNER, JANUARY 4,1901

          Bishop Potter told how an alleged representative of Tammany
          Hall asked him in effect if he would cease his warfare upon the
          Police Department if a certain captain and inspector were
          dismissed.  He replied that he would never be satisfied until
          the "man at the top" and the "system" which permitted evils in
          the Police Department were crushed.

The Bishop has just spoken of a condition of things which none of us can
deny, and which ought not to exist; that is, the lust of gain--a lust
which does not stop short of the penitentiary or the jail to accomplish
its ends.  But we may be sure of one thing, and that is that this sort of
thing is not universal.  If it were, this country would not be.  You may
put this down as a fact: that out of every fifty men, forty-nine are
clean.  Then why is it, you may ask, that the forty-nine don't have
things the way they want them?  I'll tell you why it is.  A good deal has
been said here to-night about what is to be accomplished by organization.
That's just the thing.  It's because the fiftieth fellow and his pals are
organized and the other forty-nine are not that the dirty one rubs it
into the clean fellows every time.

You may say organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much
organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.  The Bishop
here had an experience of that sort, and told all about it down-town the
other night.  He was painting a barn--it was his own barn--and yet he was
informed that his work must stop; he was a non-union painter, and
couldn't continue at that sort of job.

Now, all these conditions of which you complain should be remedied, and I
am here to tell you just how to do it.  I've been a statesman without
salary for many years, and I have accomplished great and widespread good.
I don't know that it has benefited anybody very much, even if it was
good; but I do know that it hasn't harmed me very much, and is hasn't
made me any richer.

We hold the balance of power.  Put up your best men for office, and we
shall support the better one.  With the election of the best man for
Mayor would follow the selection of the best man for Police Commissioner
and Chief of Police.

My first lesson in the craft of statesmanship was taken at an early age.
Fifty-one years ago I was fourteen years old, and we had a society in the
town I lived in, patterned after the Freemasons, or the Ancient Order of
United Farmers, or some such thing--just what it was patterned after
doesn't matter.  It had an inside guard and an outside guard, and a
past-grand warden, and a lot of such things, so as to give dignity to the
organization and offices to the members.

Generally speaking it was a pretty good sort of organization, and some of
the very best boys in the village, including--but I mustn't get personal
on an occasion like this--and the society would have got along pretty
well had it not been for the fact that there were a certain number of the
members who could be bought.  They got to be an infernal nuisance.  Every
time we had an election the candidates had to go around and see the
purchasable members.  The price per vote was paid in doughnuts, and it
depended somewhat on the appetites of the individuals as to the price
of the votes.

This thing ran along until some of us, the really very best boys in the
organization, decided that these corrupt practices must stop, and for the
purpose of stopping them we organized a third party.  We had a name, but
we were never known by that name. Those who didn't like us called us the
Anti-Doughnut party, but we didn't mind that.

We said: "Call us what you please; the name doesn't matter.  We are
organized for a principle."  By-and-by the election came around, and
we made a big mistake.  We were triumphantly beaten.  That taught us a
lesson.  Then and there we decided never again to nominate anybody for
anything.  We decided simply to force the other two parties in the
society to nominate their very best men.  Although we were organized for
a principle, we didn't care much about that.  Principles aren't of much
account anyway, except at election-time.  After that you hang them up to
let them season.

The next time we had an election we told both the other parties that we'd
beat any candidates put up by any one of them of whom we didn't approve.
In that election we did business.  We got the man we wanted.  I suppose
they called us the Anti-Doughnut party because they couldn't buy us with
their doughnuts.  They didn't have enough of them.  Most reformers arrive
at their price sooner or later, and I suppose we would have had our
price; but our opponents weren't offering anything but doughnuts, and
those we spurned.

Now it seems to me that an Anti-Doughnut party is just what is wanted in
the present emergency. I would have the Anti-Doughnuts felt in every city
and hamlet and school district in this State and in the United States.
I was an Anti-Doughnut in my boyhood, and I'm an Anti-Doughnut still.
The modern designation is Mugwump.  There used to be quite a number of us
Mugwumps, but I think I'm the only one left.  I had a vote this fall, and
I began to make some inquiries as to what I had better do with it.

I don't know anything about finance, and I never did, but I know some
pretty shrewd financiers, and they told me that Mr. Bryan wasn't safe on
any financial question.  I said to myself, then, that it wouldn't do for
me to vote for Bryan, and I rather thought--I know now--that McKinley
wasn't just right on this Philippine question, and so I just didn't vote
for anybody.  I've got that vote yet, and I've kept it clean, ready to
deposit at some other election.  It wasn't cast for any wildcat financial
theories, and it wasn't cast to support the man who sends our boys as
volunteers out into the Philippines to get shot down under a polluted
flag.






MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT

ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY, NEW YORK,
DECEMBER 6, 1900

          Doctor Mackay, in his response to the toast "St. Nicholas,"
          referred to Mr. Clemens, saying:--"Mark Twain is as true a
          preacher of true righteousness as any bishop, priest, or
          minister of any church to-day, because he moves men to forget
          their faults by cheerful well-doing instead of making them sour
          and morbid by everlastingly bending their attention to the
          seamy and sober side of life."

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY,--These are,
indeed, prosperous days for me.  Night before last, in a speech, the
Bishop of the Diocese of New York complimented me for my contribution to
theology, and to-night the Reverend Doctor Mackay has elected me to the
ministry.  I thanked Bishop Potter then for his compliment, and I thank
Doctor Mackay now for that promotion.  I think that both have discerned
in me what I long ago discerned, but what I was afraid the world would
never learn to recognize.

In this absence of nine years I find a great improvement in the city of
New York.  I am glad to speak on that as a toast--"The City of New York."
Some say it has improved because I have been away.  Others, and I agree
with them, say it has improved because I have come back.  We must judge
of a city, as of a man, by its external appearances and by its inward
character.  In externals the foreigner coming to these shores is more
impressed at first by our sky-scrapers.  They are new to him.  He has not
done anything of the sort since he built the tower of Babel.  The
foreigner is shocked by them.

In the daylight they are ugly.  They are--well, too chimneyfied and too
snaggy--like a mouth that needs attention from a dentist; like a cemetery
that is all monuments and no gravestones.  But at night, seen from the
river where they are columns towering against the sky, all sparkling with
light, they are fairylike; they are beauty more satisfactory to the soul
and more enchanting than anything that man has dreamed of since the
Arabian nights.  We can't always have the beautiful aspect of things.
Let us make the most of our sights that are beautiful and let the others
go.  When your foreigner makes disagreeable comments on New York by
daylight, float him down the river at night.

What has made these sky-scrapers possible is the elevator.  The cigar-box
which the European calls a "lift" needs but to be compared with our
elevators to be appreciated.  The lift stops to reflect between floors.
That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators.  The American
elevator acts like the man's patent purge--it worked.  As the inventor
said, "This purge doesn't waste any time fooling around; it attends
strictly to business."

That New-Yorkers have the cleanest, quickest, and most admirable system
of street railways in the world has been forced upon you by the abnormal
appreciation you have of your hackman.  We ought always to be grateful to
him for that service.  Nobody else would have brought such a system into
existence for us.  We ought to build him a monument.  We owe him one as
much as we owe one to anybody.  Let it be a tall one.  Nothing permanent,
of course; build it of plaster, say.  Then gaze at it and realize how
grateful we are--for the time being--and then pull it down and throw it
on the ash-heap.  That's the way to honor your public heroes.

As to our streets, I find them cleaner than they used to be.  I miss
those dear old landmarks, the symmetrical mountain ranges of dust and
dirt that used to be piled up along the streets for the wind and rain to
tear down at their pleasure.  Yes, New York is cleaner than Bombay.
I realize that I have been in Bombay, that I now am in New York; that it
is not my duty to flatter Bombay, but rather to flatter New York.

Compared with the wretched attempts of London to light that city, New
York may fairly be said to be a well-lighted city.  Why, London's attempt
at good lighting is almost as bad as London's attempt at rapid transit.
There is just one good system of rapid transit in London--the "Tube," and
that, of course, had been put in by Americans.  Perhaps, after a while,
those Americans will come back and give New York also a good underground
system.  Perhaps they have already begun.  I have been so busy since I
came back that I haven't had time as yet to go down cellar.

But it is by the laws of the city, it is by the manners of the city, it
is by the ideals of the city, it is by the customs of the city and by the
municipal government which all these elements correct, support, and
foster, by which the foreigner judges the city.  It is by these that he
realizes that New York may, indeed, hold her head high among the cities
of the world.  It is by these standards that he knows whether to class
the city higher or lower than the other municipalities of the world.

Gentlemen, you have the best municipal government in the world--the
purest and the most fragrant.  The very angels envy you, and wish
they could establish a government like it in heaven.  You got it by a
noble fidelity to civic duty.  You got it by stern and ever-watchful
exertion of the great powers with which you are charged by the rights
which were handed down to you by your forefathers, by your manly refusal
to let base men invade the high places of your government, and by instant
retaliation when any public officer has insulted you in the city's name
by swerving in the slightest from the upright and full performance of his
duty.  It is you who have made this city the envy of the cities of the
world.  God will bless you for it--God will bless you for it.  Why, when
you approach the final resting-place the angels of heaven will gather at
the gates and cry out:

"Here they come!  Show them to the archangel's box, and turn the
lime-light on them!"





CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES

          AT A DINNER GIVEN IN THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, DECEMBER, 1900

          Winston Spencer Churchill was introduced by Mr. Clemens.

For years I've been a self-appointed missionary to bring about the union
of America and the motherland.  They ought to be united.  Behold America,
the refuge of the oppressed from everywhere (who can pay fifty dollars'
admission)--any one except a Chinaman--standing up for human rights
everywhere, even helping China let people in free when she wants to
collect fifty dollars upon them.  And how unselfishly England has wrought
for the open door for all!  And how piously America has wrought for that
open door in all cases where it was not her own!

Yes, as a missionary I've sung my songs of praise.  And yet I think that
England sinned when she got herself into a war in South Africa which she
could have avoided, just as we sinned in getting into a similar war in
the Philippines.  Mr. Churchill, by his father, is an Englishman; by his
mother he is an American--no doubt a blend that makes the perfect man.
England and America; yes, we are kin.  And now that we are also kin in
sin, there is nothing more to be desired.  The harmony is complete, the
blend is perfect.






THEORETICAL MORALS

          The New Vagabonds Club of London, made up of the leading
          younger literary men of the day, gave a dinner in honor of Mr.
          and Mrs. Clemens, July 8, 1899.

It has always been difficult--leave that word difficult--not exceedingly
difficult, but just difficult, nothing more than that, not the slightest
shade to add to that--just difficult--to respond properly, in the right
phraseology, when compliments are paid to me; but it is more than
difficult when the compliments are paid to a better than I--my wife.

And while I am not here to testify against myself--I can't be expected to
do so, a prisoner in your own country is not admitted to do so--as to
which member of the family wrote my books, I could say in general that
really I wrote the books myself.  My wife puts the facts in, and they
make it respectable.  My modesty won't suffer while compliments are being
paid to literature, and through literature to my family.  I can't get
enough of them.

I am curiously situated to-night.  It so rarely happens that I am
introduced by a humorist; I am generally introduced by a person of grave
walk and carriage.  That makes the proper background of gravity for
brightness.  I am going to alter to suit, and haply I may say some
humorous things.

When you start with a blaze of sunshine and upburst of humor, when you
begin with that, the proper office of humor is to reflect, to put you
into that pensive mood of deep thought, to make you think of your sins,
if you wish half an hour to fly.  Humor makes me reflect now to-night, it
sets the thinking machinery in motion.  Always, when I am thinking, there
come suggestions of what I am, and what we all are, and what we are
coming to.  A sermon comes from my lips always when I listen to a
humorous speech.

I seize the opportunity to throw away frivolities, to say something to
plant the seed, and make all better than when I came.  In Mr. Grossmith's
remarks there was a subtle something suggesting my favorite theory of the
difference between theoretical morals and practical morals.  I try to
instil practical morals in the place of theatrical--I mean theoretical;
but as an addendum--an annex--something added to theoretical morals.

When your chairman said it was the first time he had ever taken the
chair, he did not mean that he had not taken lots of other things; he
attended my first lecture and took notes.  This indicated the man's
disposition.  There was nothing else flying round, so he took notes; he
would have taken anything he could get.

I can bring a moral to bear here which shows the difference between
theoretical morals and practical morals.  Theoretical morals are the sort
you get on your mother's knee, in good books, and from the pulpit.  You
gather them in your head, and not in your heart; they are theory without
practice.  Without the assistance of practice to perfect them, it is
difficult to teach a child to "be honest, don't steal."

I will teach you how it should be done, lead you into temptation, teach
you how to steal, so that you may recognize when you have stolen and feel
the proper pangs.  It is no good going round and bragging you have never
taken the chair.

As by the fires of experience, so by commission of crime, you learn real
morals.  Commit all the crimes, familiarize yourself with all sins, take
them in rotation (there are only two or three thousand of them), stick to
it, commit two or three every day, and by-and-by you will be proof
against them.  When you are through you will be proof against all sins
and morally perfect.  You will be vaccinated against every possible
commission of them.  This is the only way.

I will read you a written statement upon the subject that I wrote three
years ago to read to the Sabbath-schools.  [Here the lecturer turned his
pockets out, but without success.] No!  I have left it at home.  Still,
it was a mere statement of fact, illustrating the value of practical
morals produced by the commission of crime.

It was in my boyhood just a statement of fact, reading is only more
formal, merely facts, merely pathetic facts, which I can state so as to
be understood.  It relates to the first time I ever stole a watermelon;
that is, I think it was the first time; anyway, it was right along there
somewhere.

I stole it out of a farmer's wagon while he was waiting on another
customer.  "Stole" is a harsh term.  I withdrew--I retired that
watermelon.  I carried it to a secluded corner of a lumber-yard.  I broke
it open.  It was green--the greenest watermelon raised in the valley that
year.

The minute I saw it was green I was sorry, and began to reflect
--reflection is the beginning of reform.  If you don't reflect when you
commit a crime then that crime is of no use; it might just as well have
been committed by some one else: You must reflect or the value is lost;
you are not vaccinated against committing it again.

I began to reflect.  I said to myself: "What ought a boy to do who has
stolen a green watermelon?  What would George Washington do, the father
of his country, the only American who could not tell a lie?  What would
he do?  There is only one right, high, noble thing for any boy to do who
has stolen a watermelon of that class he must make restitution; he must
restore that stolen property to its rightful owner."  I said I would do
it when I made that good resolution.  I felt it to be a noble, uplifting
obligation.  I rose up spiritually stronger and refreshed.  I carried
that watermelon back--what was left of it--and restored it to the farmer,
and made him give me a ripe one in its place.

Now you see that this constant impact of crime upon crime protects you
against further commission of crime.  It builds you up.  A man can't
become morally perfect by stealing one or a thousand green watermelons,
but every little helps.

I was at a great school yesterday (St. Paul's), where for four hundred
years they have been busy with brains, and building up England by
producing Pepys, Miltons, and Marlboroughs.  Six hundred boys left to
nothing in the world but theoretical morality.  I wanted to become the
professor of practical morality, but the high master was away, so I
suppose I shall have to go on making my living the same old way--by
adding practical to theoretical morality.

What are the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome, compared
to the glory and grandeur and majesty of a perfected morality such as you
see before you?

The New Vagabonds are old vagabonds (undergoing the old sort of reform).
You drank my health; I hope I have not been unuseful.  Take this system
of morality to your hearts.  Take it home to your neighbors and your
graves, and I hope that it will be a long time before you arrive there.






LAYMAN'S SERMON

          The Young Men's Christian Association asked Mr. Clemens to
          deliver a lay sermon at the Majestic Theatre, New York, March
          4, 1906.  More than five thousand young men tried to get into
          the theatre, and in a short time traffic was practically
          stopped in the adjacent streets.  The police reserves had to be
          called out to thin the crowd.  Doctor Fagnani had said
          something before about the police episode, and Mr. Clemens took
          it up.

I have been listening to what was said here, and there is in it a lesson
of citizenship.  You created the police, and you are responsible for
them.  One must pause, therefore, before criticising them too harshly.
They are citizens, just as we are.  A little of citizenship ought to be
taught at the mother's knee and in the nursery.  Citizenship is what
makes a republic; monarchies can get along without it.  What keeps a
republic on its legs is good citizenship.

Organization is necessary in all things.  It is even necessary in reform.
I was an organization myself once--for twelve hours.  I was in Chicago a
few years ago about to depart for New York.  There were with me Mr.
Osgood, a publisher, and a stenographer.  I picked out a state-room on a
train, the principal feature of which was that it contained the privilege
of smoking.  The train had started but a short time when the conductor
came in and said that there had been a mistake made, and asked that we
vacate the apartment.  I refused, but when I went out on the platform
Osgood and the stenographer agreed to accept a section.  They were too
modest.

Now, I am not modest.  I was born modest, but it didn't last.  I asserted
myself; insisted upon my rights, and finally the Pullman Conductor and
the train conductor capitulated, and I was left in possession.

I went into the dining--car the next morning for breakfast.  Ordinarily
I only care for coffee and rolls, but this particular morning I espied an
important-looking man on the other side of the car eating broiled
chicken.  I asked for broiled chicken, and I was told by the waiter and
later by the dining-car conductor that there was no broiled chicken.
There must have been an argument, for the Pullman conductor came in and
remarked: "If he wants broiled chicken, give it to him.  If you haven't
got it on the train, stop somewhere.  It will be better for all
concerned!"  I got the chicken.

It is from experiences such as these that you get your education of life,
and you string them into jewels or into tinware, as you may choose.
I have received recently several letters asking my counsel or advice.
The principal request is for some incident that may prove helpful to the
young.  There were a lot of incidents in my career to help me along
--sometimes they helped me along faster than I wanted to go.

Here is such a request.  It is a telegram from Joplin, Missouri, and it
reads:  "In what one of your works can we find the definition of a
gentleman?"

I have not answered that telegram, either; I couldn't.  It seems to me
that if  any man has just merciful and kindly instincts he would be a
gentleman, for he would need nothing else in the world.

I received the other day a letter from my old friend, William Dean
Howells--Howells, the head of American literature.  No one is able to
stand with him.  He is an old, old friend of mine, and he writes me,
"To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine years old."  Why, I am surprised at
Howells writing that!  I have known him longer than that.  I'm sorry to
see a man trying to appear so young.  Let's see.  Howells says now,
"I see you have been burying Patrick.  I suppose he was old, too."

No, he was never old--Patrick.  He came to us thirty-six years ago.  He
was my coachman on the morning that I drove my young bride to our new
home.  He was a young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest, truthful,
and he never changed in all his life.  He really was with us but
twenty-five years, for he did not go with us to Europe, but he never
regarded that as separation.  As the children grew up he was their guide.
He was all honor, honesty, and affection.  He was with us in New
Hampshire, with us last summer, and his hair was just as black, his eyes
were just as blue, his form just as straight, and his heart just as good
as on the day we first met.  In all the long years Patrick never made a
mistake.  He never needed an order, he never received a command.  He
knew.  I have been asked for my idea of an ideal gentleman, and I give it
to you Patrick McAleer.






UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT SOCIETY

          After the serious addresses were made, Seth Low introduced Mr.
          Clemens at the Settlement House, February 2, 1901.

The older we grow the greater becomes our, wonder at how much ignorance
one can contain without bursting one's clothes.  Ten days ago I did not
know anything about the University Settlement except what I'd read in the
pamphlets sent me.  Now, after being here and hearing Mrs. Hewitt and
Mrs. Thomas, it seems to me I know of nothing like it at all.  It's a
charity that carries no humiliation with it.  Marvellous it is, to think
of schools where you don't have to drive the children in but drive them
out.  It was not so in my day.

Down-stairs just now I saw a dancing lesson going on.  You must pay a
cent for a lesson.  You can't get it for nothing.  That's the reason I
never learned to dance.

But it was the pawnbroker's shop you have here that interested me
mightily.  I've known something about pawnbrokers' shops in my time,
but here you have a wonderful plan.  The ordinary pawnbroker charges
thirty-six per cent. a year for a loan, and I've paid more myself, but
here a man or woman in distress can obtain a loan for one per cent.
a month! It's wonderful!

I've been interested in all I've heard to-day, especially in the romances
recounted by Mrs. Thomas, which reminds me that I have a romance of my
own in my autobiography, which I am building for the instruction of the
world.

In San Francisco, many years ago, when I was a newspaper reporter
(perhaps I should say I had been and was willing to be), a pawnbroker was
taking care of what property I had.  There was a friend of mine, a poet,
out of a job, and he was having a hard time of it, too.  There was
passage in it, but I guess I've got to keep that for the autobiography.

Well, my friend the poet thought his life was a failure, and I told him I
thought it was, and then he said he thought he ought to commit suicide,
and I said "all right," which was disinterested advice to a friend in
trouble; but, like all such advice, there was just a little bit of
self-interest back of it, for if I could get a "scoop" on the other
newspapers I could get a job.

The poet could be spared, and so, largely for his own good and partly for
mine, I kept the thing in his mind, which was necessary, as would-be
suicides are very changeable aid hard to hold to their purpose.  He had a
preference for a pistol, which was an extravagance, for we hadn't enough
between us to hire a pistol.  A fork would have been easier.

And so he concluded to drown himself, and I said it was an excellent
idea--the only trouble being that he was so good a swimmer.  So we went
down to the beach.  I went along to see that the thing was done right.
Then something most romantic happened.  There came in on the sea
something that had been on its way for three years.  It rolled in across
the broad Pacific with a message that was full of meaning to that poor
poet and cast itself at his feet.  It was a life-preserver!  This was a
complication.  And then I had an idea--he never had any, especially when
he was going to write poetry; I suggested that we pawn the life-preserver
and get a revolver.

The pawnbroker gave us an old derringer with a bullet as big as a hickory
nut.  When he heard that it was only a poet that was going to kill
himself he did not quibble.  Well, we succeeded in sending a bullet right
through his head.  It was a terrible moment when he placed that pistol
against his forehead and stood for an instant.  I said, "Oh, pull the
trigger!" and he did, and cleaned out all the gray matter in his brains.
It carried the poetic faculty away, and now he's a useful member of
society.

Now, therefore, I realize that there's no more beneficent institution
than this penny fund of yours, and I want all the poets to know this.
I did think about writing you a check, but now I think I'll send you a
few copies of what one of your little members called 'Strawberry Finn'.






PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

          ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE BERKELEY LYCEUM, NEW YORK,
          NOVEMBER 23, 1900

I don't suppose that I am called here as an expert on education, for that
would show a lack of foresight on your part and a deliberate intention to
remind me of my shortcomings.

As I sat here looking around for an idea it struck me that I was called
for two reasons.  One was to do good to me, a poor unfortunate traveller
on the world's wide ocean, by giving me a knowledge of the nature and
scope of your society and letting me know that others beside myself have
been of some use in the world.  The other reason that I can see is that
you have called me to show by way of contrast what education can
accomplish if administered in the right sort of doses.

Your worthy president said that the school pictures, which have received
the admiration of the world at the Paris Exposition, have been sent to
Russia, and this was a compliment from that Government--which is very
surprising to me.  Why, it is only an hour since I read a cablegram in
the newspapers beginning "Russia Proposes to Retrench."  I was not
expecting such a thunderbolt, and I thought what a happy thing it will be
for Russians when the retrenchment will bring home the thirty thousand
Russian troops now in Manchuria, to live in peaceful pursuits.  I thought
this was what Germany should do also without delay, and that France and
all the other nations in China should follow suit.

Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only making
trouble on her soil?  If they would only all go home, what a pleasant
place China would be for the Chinese!  We do not allow Chinamen to come
here, and I say in all seriousness that it would be a graceful thing to
let China decide who shall go there.

China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted Chinamen,
and on this question I am with the Boxers every time.  The Boxer is a
patriot.  He loves his country better than he does the countries of other
people.  I wish him success.  The Boxer believes in driving us out of his
country.  I am a Boxer too, for I believe in driving him out of our
country.

When I read the Russian despatch further my dream of world peace
vanished.  It said that the vast expense of maintaining the army had made
it necessary to retrench, and so the Government had decided that to
support the army it would be necessary to withdraw the appropriation from
the public schools.  This is a monstrous idea to us.

We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.

It is curious to reflect how history repeats itself the world over.  Why,
I remember the same thing was done when I was a boy on the Mississippi
River.  There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public
schools because they were too expensive.  An old farmer spoke up and said
if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every
time a school was closed a jail had to be built.

It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.  He'll never get fat.  I believe
it is better to support schools than jails.

The work of your association is better and shows more wisdom than the
Czar of Russia and all his people.  This is not much of a compliment, but
it's the best I've got in stock.






EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP

          On the evening of May 14, 1908, the alumni of the College of
          the City of New York celebrated the opening of the new college
          buildings at a banquet in the Waldorf Astoria.  Mr. Clemens
          followed Mayor McClellan.

I agreed when the Mayor said that there was not a man within hearing who
did not agree that citizenship should be placed above everything else,
even learning.

Have you ever thought about this?  Is there a college in the whole
country where there is a chair of good citizenship?  There is a kind of
bad citizenship which is taught in the schools, but no real good
citizenship taught.  There are some which teach insane citizenship,
bastard citizenship, but that is all.  Patriotism!  Yes; but patriotism
is usually the refuge of the scoundrel.  He is the man who talks the
loudest.

You can begin that chair of citizenship in the College of the City of New
York.  You can place it above mathematics and literature, and that is
where it belongs.

We used to trust in God.  I think it was in 1863 that some genius
suggested that it be put upon the gold and silver coins which circulated
among the rich.  They didn't put it on the nickels and coppers because
they didn't think the poor folks had any trust in God.

Good citizenship would teach accuracy of thinking and accuracy of
statement.  Now, that motto on the coin is an overstatement.  Those
Congressmen had no right to commit this whole country to a theological
doctrine.  But since they did, Congress ought to state what our creed
should be.

There was never a nation in the world that put its whole trust in God.
It is a statement made on insufficient evidence.  Leaving out the
gamblers, the burglars, and the plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in
God after a fashion.  But, after all, it is an overstatement.

If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the
bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but the rest would
put their trust in the Health Board of the City of New York.

I read in the papers within the last day or two of a poor young girl who
they said was a leper.  Did the people in that populous section of the
country where she was--did they put their trust in God?  The girl was
afflicted with the leprosy, a disease which cannot be communicated from
one person to another.

Yet, instead of putting their trust in God, they harried that poor
creature, shelterless and friendless, from place to place, exactly as
they did in the Middle Ages, when they made lepers wear bells, so that
people could be warned of their approach and avoid them.  Perhaps those
people in the Middle Ages thought they were putting their trust in God.

The President ordered the removal of that motto from the coin, and I
thought that it was well.  I thought that overstatement should not stay
there.  But I think it would better read, "Within certain judicious
limitations we trust in God," and if there isn't enough room on the coin
for this, why, enlarge the coin.

Now I want to tell a story about jumping at conclusions.  It was told to
me by Bram Stoker, and it concerns a christening.  There was a little
clergyman who was prone to jump at conclusions sometimes.  One day he was
invited to officiate at a christening.  He went.  There sat the
relatives--intelligent-looking relatives they were.  The little
clergyman's instinct came to him to make a great speech.  He was given to
flights of oratory that way--a very dangerous thing, for often the wings
which take one into clouds of oratorical enthusiasm are wax and melt up
there, and down you come.

But the little clergyman couldn't resist.  He took the child in his arms,
and, holding it, looked at it a moment.  It wasn't much of a child.  It
was little, like a sweet-potato.  Then the little clergyman waited
impressively, and then: "I see in your countenances," he said,
"disappointment of him.  I see you are disappointed with this baby.  Why?
Because he is so little.  My friends, if you had but the power of looking
into the future you might see that great things may come of little
things.  There is the great ocean, holding the navies of the world, which
comes from little drops of water no larger than a woman's tears.  There
are the great constellations in the sky, made up of little bits of stars.
Oh, if you could consider his future you might see that he might become
the greatest poet of the universe, the greatest warrior the world has
ever known, greater than Caesar, than Hannibal, than--er--er" (turning to
the father)--"what's his name?"

The father hesitated, then whispered back: "His name?  Well, his name is
Mary Ann."






COURAGE

          At a beefsteak dinner, given by artists, caricaturists, and
          humorists of New York City, April 18, 1908, Mr. Clemens, Mr. H.
          H. Rogers, and Mr. Patrick McCarren were the guests of honor.
          Each wore a white apron, and each made a short speech.

In the matter of courage we all have our limits.

There never was a hero who did not have his bounds.  I suppose it may be
said of Nelson and all the others whose courage has been advertised that
there came times in their lives when their bravery knew it had come to
its limit.

I have found mine a good many times.  Sometimes this was expected--often
it was unexpected.  I know a man who is not afraid to sleep with a
rattlesnake, but you could not get him to sleep with a safety-razor.

I never had the courage to talk across a long, narrow room I should be at
the end of the room facing all the audience.  If I attempt to talk across
a room I find myself turning this way and that, and thus at alternate
periods I have part of the audience behind me.  You ought never to have
any part of the audience behind you; you never can tell what they are
going to do.

I'll sit down.






THE DINNER TO MR. CHOATE

          AT A DINNER GIVEN IN HONOR OF AMBASSADOR JOSEPH H. CHOATE AT
          THE LOTOS CLUB, NOVEMBER 24, 7902

          The speakers, among others, were: Senator Depew, William Henry
          White, Speaker Thomas Reed, and Mr. Choate.  Mr. Clemens spoke,
          in part, as follows:

The greatness of this country rests on two anecdotes.  The first one is
that of Washington and his hatchet, representing the foundation of true
speaking, which is the characteristic of our people.  The second one is
an old one, and I've been waiting to hear it to-night; but as nobody has
told it yet, I will tell it.

You've heard it before, and you'll hear it many, many times more.  It is
an anecdote of our guest, of the time when he was engaged as a young man
with a gentle Hebrew, in the process of skinning the client.  The main
part in that business is the collection of the bill for services in
skinning the man.  "Services" is the term used in that craft for the
operation of that kind-diplomatic in its nature.

Choate's--co-respondent--made out a bill for $500 for his services, so
called.  But Choate told him he had better leave the matter to him, and
the next day he collected the bill for the services and handed the Hebrew
$5000, saying, "That's your half of the loot," and inducing that
memorable response: "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."

The deep-thinkers didn't merely laugh when that happened.  They stopped
to think, and said "There's a rising man.  He must be rescued from the
law and consecrated to diplomacy.  The commercial advantages of a great
nation lie there in that man's keeping.  We no longer require a man to
take care of our moral character before the world.  Washington and his
anecdote have done that.  We require a man to take care of our commercial
prosperity."

Mr. Choate has carried that trait with him, and, as Mr. Carnegie has
said, he has worked like a mole underground.

We see the result when American railroad iron is sold so cheap in England
that the poorest family can have it.  He has so beguiled that Cabinet of
England.

He has been spreading the commerce of this nation, and has depressed
English commerce in the same ratio.  This was the principle underlying
that anecdote, and the wise men saw it; the principle of give and take
--give one and take ten--the principle of diplomacy.






ON STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE

          Mr. Clemens was entertained at dinner by the Whitefriars' Club,
          London, at the Mitre Tavern, on the evening of August 6, 1872.
          In reply to the toast in his honor he said:

GENTLEMEN,--I thank you very heartily indeed for this expression of
kindness toward me.  What I have done for England and civilization in the
arduous affairs which I have engaged in (that is good: that is so smooth
that I will say it again and again)--what I have done for England and
civilization in the arduous part I have performed I have done with a
single-hearted devotion and with no hope of reward.  I am proud, I am
very proud, that it was reserved for me to find Doctor Livingstone and
for Mr. Stanley to get all the credit.  I hunted for that man in Africa
all over seventy-five or one hundred parishes, thousands and thousands of
miles in the wilds and deserts all over the place, sometimes riding
negroes and sometimes travelling by rail.  I didn't mind the rail or
anything else, so that I didn't come in for the tar and feathers.  I
found that man at Ujiji--a place you may remember if you have ever been
there--and it was a very great satisfaction that I found him just in the
nick of time.  I found that poor old man deserted by his niggers and by
his geographers, deserted by all of his kind except the gorillas
--dejected, miserable, famishing, absolutely famishing--but he was
eloquent.  Just as I found him he had eaten his last elephant, and he
said to me: "God knows where I shall get another."  He had nothing to
wear except his venerable and honorable naval suit, and nothing to eat
but his diary.

But I said to him: "It is all right; I have discovered you, and Stanley
will be here by the four-o'clock train and will discover you officially,
and then we will turn to and have a reg'lar good time."  I said: "Cheer
up, for Stanley has got corn, ammunition, glass beads, hymn-books,
whiskey, and everything which the human heart can desire; he has got all
kinds of valuables, including telegraph-poles and a few cart-loads of
money.  By this time communication has been made with the land of Bibles
and civilization, and property will advance."  And then we surveyed all
that country, from Ujiji, through Unanogo and other places, to
Unyanyembe.  I mention these names simply for your edification, nothing
more--do not expect it--particularly as intelligence to the Royal
Geographical Society.  And then, having filled up the old man, we were
all too full for utterance and departed.  We have since then feasted on
honors.

Stanley has received a snuff-box and I have received considerable snuff;
he has got to write a book and gather in the rest of the credit, and I am
going to levy on the copyright and to collect the money.  Nothing comes
amiss to me--cash or credit; but, seriously, I do feel that Stanley is
the chief man and an illustrious one, and I do applaud him with all my
heart.  Whether he is an American or a Welshman by birth, or one, or
both, matters not to me.  So far as I am personally concerned, I am
simply here to stay a few months, and to see English people and to learn
English manners and customs, and to enjoy myself; so the simplest thing I
can do is to thank you for the toast you have honored me with and for the
remarks you have made, and to wish health and prosperity to the
Whitefriars' Club, and to sink down to my accustomed level.






HENRY M.  STANLEY

          ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1886

          Mr. Clemens introduced Mr. Stanley.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, if any should ask, Why is it that you are here as
introducer of the lecturer?  I should answer that I happened to be around
and was asked to perform this function.  I was quite willing to do so,
and, as there was no sort of need of an introduction, anyway, it could be
necessary only that some person come forward for a moment and do an
unnecessary thing, and this is quite in my line.  Now, to introduce so
illustrious a name as Henry M. Stanley by any detail of what the man has
done is clear aside from my purpose; that would be stretching the
unnecessary to an unconscionable degree.  When I contrast what I have
achieved in my measurably brief life with what he has achieved in his
possibly briefer one, the effect is to sweep utterly away the ten-story
edifice of my own self-appreciation and leave nothing behind but the
cellar.  When you compare these achievements of his with the achievements
of really great men who exist in history, the comparison, I believe, is
in his favor.  I am not here to disparage Columbus.

No, I won't do that; but when you come to regard the achievements of
these two men, Columbus and Stanley, from the standpoint of the
difficulties they encountered, the advantage is with Stanley and against
Columbus.  Now, Columbus started out to discover America.  Well, he
didn't need to do anything at all but sit in the cabin of his ship and
hold his grip and sail straight on, and America would discover itself.
Here it was, barring his passage the whole length and breadth of the
South American continent, and he couldn't get by it.  He'd got to
discover it.  But Stanley started out to find Doctor Livingstone, who was
scattered abroad, as you may say, over the length and breadth of a vast
slab of Africa as big as the United States.

It was a blind kind of search.  He was the worst scattered of men.  But I
will throw the weight of this introduction upon one very peculiar feature
of Mr. Stanley's character, and that is his indestructible Americanism
--an Americanism which he is proud of.  And in this day and time, when it
is the custom to ape and imitate English methods and fashion, it is like
a breath of fresh air to stand in the presence of this untainted American
citizen who has been caressed and complimented by half of the crowned
heads of Europe who could clothe his body from his head to his heels with
the orders and decorations lavished upon him.  And yet, when the untitled
myriads of his own country put out their hands in welcome to him and
greet him, "Well done," through the Congress of the United States, that
is the crown that is worth all the rest to him.  He is a product of
institutions which exist in no other country on earth-institutions that
bring out all that is best and most heroic in a man.  I introduce Henry
M. Stanley.






DINNER TO MR. JEROME

          A dinner to express their confidence in the integrity and good
          judgment of District-Attorney Jerome was given at Delmonico's
          by over three hundred of his admirers on the evening of May 7,
          1909.

Indeed, that is very sudden.  I was not informed that the verdict was
going to depend upon my judgment, but that makes not the least difference
in the world when you already know all about it.  It is not any matter
when you are called upon to express it; you can get up and do it, and my
verdict has already been recorded in my heart and in my head as regards
Mr. Jerome and his administration of the criminal affairs of this county.

I agree with everything Mr. Choate has said in his letter regarding Mr.
Jerome; I agree with everything Mr. Shepard has said; and I agree with
everything Mr. Jerome has said in his own commendation.  And I thought
Mr. Jerome was modest in that.  If he had been talking about another
officer of this county, he could have painted the joys and sorrows of
office and his victories in even stronger language than he did.

I voted for Mr. Jerome in those old days, and I should like to vote for
him again if he runs for any office.  I moved out of New York, and that
is the reason, I suppose, I cannot vote for him again.  There may be some
way, but I have not found it out.  But now I am a farmer--a farmer up in
Connecticut, and winning laurels.  Those people already speak with such
high favor, admiration, of my farming, and they say that I am the only
man that has ever come to that region who could make two blades of grass
grow where only three grew before.

Well, I cannot vote for him.  You see that.  As it stands now, I cannot.
I am crippled in that way and to that extent, for I would ever so much
like to do it.  I am not a Congress, and I cannot distribute pensions,
and I don't know any other legitimate way to buy a vote.  But if I should
think of any legitimate way, I shall make use of it, and then I shall
vote for Mr. Jerome.






HENRY IRVING

          The Dramatic and Literary Society of London gave a welcome-home
          dinner to Sir Henry Irving at the Savoy Hotel, London, June 9,
          1900.  In proposing the toast of "The Drama" Mr. Clemens said:

I find my task a very easy one.  I have been a dramatist for thirty
years.  I have had an ambition in all that time to overdo the work of the
Spaniard who said he left behind him four hundred dramas when he died.
I leave behind me four hundred and fifteen, and am not yet dead.

The greatest of all the arts is to write a drama.  It is a most difficult
thing.  It requires the highest talent possible and the rarest gifts.
No, there is another talent that ranks with it--for anybody can write a
drama--I had four hundred of them--but to get one accepted requires real
ability.  And I have never had that felicity yet.

But human nature is so constructed, we are so persistent, that when we
know that we are born to a thing we do not care what the world thinks
about it.  We go on exploiting that talent year after year, as I have
done.  I shall go on writing dramas, and some day the impossible may
happen, but I am not looking for it.

In writing plays the chief thing is novelty.  The world grows tired of
solid forms in all the arts.  I struck a new idea myself years ago.
I was not surprised at it.  I was always expecting it would happen.
A person who has suffered disappointment for many years loses confidence,
and I thought I had better make inquiries before I exploited my new idea
of doing a drama in the form of a dream, so I wrote to a great authority
on knowledge of all kinds, and asked him whether it was new.

I could depend upon him.  He lived in my dear home in America--that dear
home, dearer to me through taxes.  He sent me a list of plays in which
that old device had been used, and he said that there was also a modern
lot.  He travelled back to China and to a play dated two thousand six
hundred years before the Christian era.  He said he would follow it up
with a list of the previous plays of the kind, and in his innocence would
have carried them back to the Flood.

That is the most discouraging thing that has ever happened to me in my
dramatic career.  I have done a world of good in a silent and private
way, and have furnished Sir Henry Irving with plays and plays and plays.
What has he achieved through that influence.  See where he stands now
--on the summit of his art in two worlds and it was I who put him there
--that partly put him there.

I need not enlarge upon the influence the drama has exerted upon
civilization.  It has made good morals entertaining.  I am to be followed
by Mr. Pinero.  I conceive that we stand at the head of the profession.
He has not written as many plays as I have, but he has lead that
God-given talent, which I lack, of working hem off on the manager.
I couple his name with this toast, and add the hope that his influence
will be supported in exercising his masterly handicraft in that great
gift, and that he will long live to continue his fine work.






DINNER TO HAMILTON W. MABIE

          ADDRESS DELIVERED APRIL 29, 1901

          In introducing Mr. Clemens, Doctor Van Dyke said:

          "The longer the speaking goes on to-night the more I wonder how
          I got this job, and the only explanation I can give for it is
          that it is the same kind of compensation for the number of
          articles I have sent to The Outlook, to be rejected by Hamilton
          W. Mabie.  There is one man here to-night that has a job cut
          out for him that none of you would have had--a man whose humor
          has put a girdle of light around the globe, and whose sense of
          humor has been an example for all five continents.  He is going
          to speak to you.  Gentlemen, you know him best as Mark Twain."

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN,--This man knows now how it feels to be the
chief guest, and if he has enjoyed it he is the first man I have ever
seen in that position that did enjoy it.  And I know, by side-remarks
which he made to me before his ordeal came upon him, that he was feeling
as some of the rest of us have felt under the same circumstances.  He was
afraid that he would not do himself justice; but he did--to my surprise.
It is a most serious thing to be a chief guest on an occasion like this,
and it is admirable, it is fine.  It is a great compliment to a man that
he shall come out of it so gloriously as Mr. Mabie came out of it
tonight--to my surprise.  He did it well.

He appears to be editor of The Outlook, and notwithstanding that, I have
every admiration, because when everything is said concerning The Outlook,
after all one must admit that it is frank in its delinquencies, that it
is outspoken in its departures from fact, that it is vigorous in its
mistaken criticisms of men like me.  I have lived in this world a long,
long time, and I know you must not judge a man by the editorials that he
puts in his paper.  A man is always better than his printed opinions.
A man always reserves to himself on the inside a purity and an honesty
and a justice that are a credit to him, whereas the things that he prints
are just the reverse.

Oh yes, you must not judge a man by what he writes in his paper.  Even in
an ordinary secular paper a man must observe some care about it; he must
be better than the principles which he puts in print.  And that is the
case with Mr. Mabie.  Why, to see what he writes about me and the
missionaries you would think he did not have any principles.  But that is
Mr. Mabie in his public capacity.  Mr. Mabie in his private capacity is
just as clean a man as I am.

In this very room, a month or two ago, some people admired that portrait;
some admired this, but the great majority fastened on that, and said,
"There is a portrait that is a beautiful piece of art."  When that
portrait is a hundred years old it will suggest what were the manners and
customs in our time.  Just as they talk about Mr. Mabie to-night, in that
enthusiastic way, pointing out the various virtues of the man and the
grace of his spirit, and all that, so was that portrait talked about.
They were enthusiastic, just as we men have been over the character and
the work of Mr. Mabie.  And when they were through they said that
portrait, fine as it is, that work, beautiful as it is, that piece of
humanity on that canvas, gracious and fine as it is, does not rise to
those perfections that exist in the man himself.  Come up, Mr. Alexander.
[The reference was to James W. Alexander, who happened to be sitting
--beneath the portrait of himself on the wall.]  Now, I should come up
and show myself.  But he cannot do it, he cannot do it.  He was born that
way, he was reared in that way.  Let his modesty be an example, and I
wish some of you had it, too.  But that is just what I have been saying
--that portrait, fine as it is, is not as fine as the man it represents,
and all the things that have been said about Mr. Mabie, and certainly
they have been very nobly worded and beautiful, still fall short of the
real Mabie.






INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY

          James Whitcomb Riley and Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye) were to
          give readings in Tremont Temple, Boston, November, 1888.  Mr.
          Clemens was induced to introduce Messrs. Riley and Nye.  His
          appearance on the platform was a surprise to the audience, and
          when they recognized him there was a tremendous demonstration.

I am very glad indeed to introduce these young people to you, and at the
same time get acquainted with them myself.  I have seen them more than
once for a moment, but have not had the privilege of knowing them
personally as intimately as I wanted to.  I saw them first, a great many
years ago, when Mr. Barnum had them, and they were just fresh from Siam.
The ligature was their best hold then, the literature became their best
hold later, when one of them committed an indiscretion, and they had to
cut the old bond to accommodate the sheriff.

In that old former time this one was Chang, that one was Eng.  The
sympathy existing between the two was most extraordinary; it was so fine,
so strong, so subtle, that what the one ate the other digested; when one
slept, the other snored; if one sold a thing, the other scooped the
usufruct.  This independent and yet dependent action was observable in
all the details of their daily life--I mean this quaint and arbitrary
distribution of originating cause and resulting effect between the two
--between, I may say, this dynamo and the other always motor, or, in
other words, that the one was always the creating force, the other always
the utilizing force; no, no, for while it is true that within certain
well-defined zones of activity the one was always dynamo and the other
always motor, within certain other well-defined zones these positions
became exactly reversed.

For instance, in moral matters Mr. Chang Riley was always dynamo, Mr. Eng
Nye was always motor; for while Mr. Chang Riley had a high--in fact, an
abnormally high and fine moral sense, he had no machinery to work it
with; whereas, Mr. Eng Nye, who hadn't any moral sense at all, and hasn't
yet, was equipped with all the necessary plant for putting a noble deed
through, if he could only get the inspiration on reasonable terms
outside.

In intellectual matters, on the other hand, Mr. Eng Nye was always
dynamo, Mr. Chang Riley was always motor; Mr. Eng Nye had a stately
intellect, but couldn't make it go; Mr. Chang Riley hadn't, but could.
That is to say, that while Mr. Chang Riley couldn't think things himself,
he had a marvellous natural grace in setting them down and weaving them
together when his pal furnished the raw material.

Thus, working together, they made a strong team; laboring together, they
could do miracles; but break the circuit, and both were impotent.  It has
remained so to this day: they must travel together, hoe, and plant, and
plough, and reap, and sell their public together, or there's no result.

I have made this explanation, this analysis, this vivisection, so to
speak, in order that you may enjoy these delightful adventurers
understandingly.  When Mr. Eng Nye's deep and broad and limpid
philosophies flow by in front of you, refreshing all the regions round
about with their gracious floods, you will remember that it isn't his
water; it's the other man's, and he is only working the pump.  And when
Mr. Chang Riley enchants your ear, and soothes your spirit, and touches
your heart with the sweet and genuine music of his poetry--as sweet and
as genuine as any that his friends, the birds and the bees, make about
his other friends, the woods and the flowers--you will remember, while
placing justice where justice is due, that it isn't his music, but the
other man's--he is only turning the crank.

I beseech for these visitors a fair field, a singleminded, one-eyed
umpire, and a score bulletin barren of goose-eggs if they earn it--and I
judge they will and hope they will.  Mr. James Whitcomb Chang Riley will
now go to the bat.






DINNER TO WHITELAW REID

          ADDRESS AT THE DINNER IN HONOR OF AMBASSADOR REID, GIVEN BY THE
          PILGRIMS' CLUB OF NEW YORK ON FEBRUARY 19, 1908

I am very proud to respond to this toast, as it recalls the proudest day
of my life.  The delightful hospitality shown me at the time of my visit
to Oxford I shall cherish until I die.  In that long and distinguished
career of mine I value that degree above all other honors.  When the ship
landed even the stevedores gathered on the shore and gave an English
cheer.  Nothing could surpass in my life the pleasure of those four
weeks.  No one could pass by me without taking my hand, even the
policemen.  I've been in all the principal capitals of Christendom in my
life, and have always been an object of interest to policemen.  Sometimes
there was suspicion in their eyes, but not always.  With their puissant
hand they would hold up the commerce of the world to let me pass.

I noticed in the papers this afternoon a despatch from Washington, saying
that Congress would immediately pass a bill restoring to our gold coinage
the motto "In God We Trust."  I'm glad of that; I'm glad of that.  I was
troubled when that motto was removed.  Sure enough, the prosperities of
the whole nation went down in a heap when we ceased to trust in God in
that conspicuously advertised way.  I knew there would be trouble.  And
if Pierpont Morgan hadn't stepped in--Bishop Lawrence may now add to his
message to the old country that we are now trusting in God again.  So we
can discharge Mr. Morgan from his office with honor.

Mr. Reid said an hour or so ago something about my ruining my activities
last summer.  They are not ruined, they are renewed.  I am stronger now
--much stronger.  I suppose that the spiritual uplift I received
increased my physical power more than anything I ever had before.  I was
dancing last night at 1.30 o'clock.

Mr. Choate has mentioned Mr. Reid's predecessors.  Mr. Choate's head is
full of history, and some of it is true, too.  I enjoyed hearing him tell
about the list of the men who had the place before he did.  He mentioned
a long list of those predecessors, people I never heard of before, and
elected five of them to the Presidency by his own vote.  I'm glad and
proud to find Mr. Reid in that high position, because he didn't look it
when I knew him forty years ago.  I was talking to Reid the other day,
and he showed me my autograph on an old paper twenty years old.  I didn't
know I had an autograph twenty years ago.  Nobody ever asked me for it.

I remember a dinner I had long ago with Whitelaw Reid and John Hay at
Reid's expense.  I had another last summer when I was in London at the
embassy that Choate blackguards so.  I'd like to live there.

Some people say they couldn't live on the salary, but I could live on the
salary and the nation together.  Some of us don't appreciate what this
country can do.  There's John Hay, Reid, Choate, and me.  This is the
only country in the world where youth, talent, and energy can reach such
heights.  It shows what we could do without means, and what people can do
with talent and energy when they find it in people like us.

When I first came to New York they were all struggling young men, and I
am glad to see that they have got on in the world.  I knew John Hay when
I had no white hairs in my head and more hair than Reid has now.  Those
were days of joy and hope.  Reid and Hay were on the staff of the
Tribune.  I went there once in that old building, and I looked all around
and I finally found a door ajar and looked in.  It wasn't Reid or Hay
there, but it was Horace Greeley.  Those were in the days when Horace
Greeley was a king.  That was the first time I ever saw him and the last.

I was admiring him when he stopped and seemed to realize that there was a
fine presence there somewhere.  He tried to smile, but he was out of
smiles.  He looked at me a moment, and said:

"What in H---do you want?"

He began with that word "H." That's a long word and a profane word.
I don't remember what the word was now, but I recognized the power of it.
I had never used that language myself, but at that moment I was
converted.  It has been a great refuge for me in time of trouble.  If a
man doesn't know that language he can't express himself on strenuous
occasions.  When you have that word at your command let trouble come.

But later Hay rose, and you know what summit Whitelaw Reid has reached,
and you see me.  Those two men have regulated troubles of nations and
conferred peace upon mankind.  And in my humble way, of which I am quite
vain, I was the principal moral force in all those great international
movements.  These great men illustrated what I say.  Look at us great
people--we all come from the dregs of society.  That's what can be done
in this country.  That's what this country does for you.

Choate here--he hasn't got anything to say, but he says it just the same,
and he can do it so felicitously, too.  I said long ago he was the
handsomest man America ever produced.  May the progress of civilization
always rest on such distinguished men as it has in the past!