shipyard in Philadelphia on March 25, 1895. After the
launching a luncheon was to nave been given, at which Mr.
Clemens was to make a speech. Just before the final word was
given a reporter asked Mr. Clemens for a copy of his speech to
be delivered at the luncheon. To facilitate the work of the
reporter he loaned him a typewritten copy of the speech. It
happened, however, that when the blocks were knocked away the
big ship refused to budge, and no amount of labor could move
her an inch. She had stuck fast upon the ways. As a result,
the launching was postponed for a week or two; but in the mean
time Mr. Clemens had gone to Europe. Years after a reporter
called on Mr. Clemens and submitted the manuscript of the
speech, which was as follows:
Day after to-morrow I sail for England in a ship of this line, the Paris.
It will be my fourteenth crossing in three years and a half. Therefore,
my presence here, as you see, is quite natural, quite commercial. I am
interested in ships. They interest me more now than hotels do. When a
new ship is launched I feel a desire to go and see if she will be good
quarters for me to live in, particularly if she belongs to this line, for
it is by this line that I have done most of my ferrying.
People wonder why I go so much. Well, I go partly for my health, partly
to familiarize myself with the road. I have gone over the same road so
many times now that I know all the whales that belong along the route,
and latterly it is an embarrassment to me to meet them, for they do not
look glad to see me, but annoyed, and they seem to say: “Here is this old
derelict again.”
Earlier in life this would have pained me and made me ashamed, but I am
older now, and when I am behaving myself, and doing right, I do not care
for a whale’s opinion about me. When we are young we generally estimate
an opinion by the size of the person that holds it, but later we find
that that is an uncertain rule, for we realize that there are times when
a hornet’s opinion disturbs us more than an emperor’s.
I do not mean that I care nothing at all for a whale’s opinion, for that
would be going to too great a length. Of course, it is better to have
the good opinion of a whale than his disapproval; but my position is that
if you cannot have a whale’s good opinion, except at some sacrifice of
principle or personal dignity, it is better to try to live without it.
That is my idea about whales.
Yes, I have gone over that same route so often that I know my way without
a compass, just by the waves. I know all the large waves and a good many
of the small ones. Also the sunsets. I know every sunset and where it
belongs just by its color. Necessarily, then, I do not make the passage
now for scenery. That is all gone by.
What I prize most is safety, and in, the second place swift transit and
handiness. These are best furnished, by the American line, whose
watertight compartments have no passage through them; no doors to be left
open, and consequently no way for water to get from one of them to
another in time of collision. If you nullify the peril which collisions
threaten you with, you nullify the only very serious peril which attends
voyages in the great liners of our day, and makes voyaging safer than
staying at home.
When the Paris was half-torn to pieces some years ago, enough of the
Atlantic ebbed and flowed through one end of her, during her long agony,
to sink the fleets of the world if distributed among them; but she
floated in perfect safety, and no life was lost. In time of collision
the rock of Gibraltar is not safer than the Paris and other great ships
of this line. This seems to be the only great line in the world that