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