The clergyman decided to make a collection for the survivors, if any.
He did not include me among the leading citizens who took the plates
around for collection. I complained to the governor of his lack of
financial trust in me, and he replied: “I would trust you myself–if you
had a bell-punch.”
You have paid me many compliments, and I like to listen to compliments.
I indorse all your chairman has said to you about the union of England
and America. He also alluded to my name, of which I am rather fond.
A little girl wrote me from New Zealand in a letter I received yesterday,
stating that her father said my proper name was not Mark Twain but Samuel
Clemens, but that she knew better, because Clemens was the name of the
man who sold the patent medicine, and his name was not Mark. She was
sure it was Mark Twain, because Mark is in the Bible and Twain is in the
Bible.
I was very glad to get that expression of confidence in my origin, and as
I now know my name to be a scriptural one, I am not without hopes of
making it worthy.
LITERATURE
ADDRESS AT THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND BANQUET, LONDON, MAY 4, 1900
Anthony Hope introduced Mr. Clemens to make the response to the
toast “Literature.”
MR. HOPE has been able to deal adequately with this toast without
assistance from me. Still, I was born generous. If he had advanced any
theories that needed refutation or correction I would have attended to
them, and if he had made any statements stronger than those which he is
in the habit of making I would have dealt with them.
In fact, I was surprised at the mildness of his statements. I could not
have made such statements if I had preferred to, because to exaggerate is
the only way I can approximate to the truth. You cannot have a theory
without principles. Principles is another name for prejudices. I have
no prejudices in politics, religion, literature, or anything else.
I am now on my way to my own country to run for the presidency because
there are not yet enough candidates in the field, and those who have
entered are too much hampered by their own principles, which are
prejudices.
I propose to go there to purify the political atmosphere. I am in favor
of everything everybody is in favor of. What you should do is to satisfy
the whole nation, not half of it, for then you would only be half a
President.
There could not be a broader platform than mine. I am in favor of
anything and everything–of temperance and intemperance, morality and
qualified immorality, gold standard and free silver.
I have tried all sorts of things, and that is why I want to by the great
position of ruler of a country. I have been in turn reporter, editor,
publisher, author, lawyer, burglar. I have worked my way up, and wish to
continue to do so.
I read to-day in a magazine article that Christendom issued last year
fifty-five thousand new books. Consider what that means! Fifty-five
thousand new books meant fifty-four thousand new authors. We are going
to have them all on our hands to take care of sooner or later.
Therefore, double your, subscriptions to the literary fund!
DISAPPEARANCE OF LITERATURE
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CLUB, AT
SHERRY’S, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 20, 1900
Mr. Clemens spoke to the toast “The Disappearance of
Literature.” Doctor Gould presided, and in introducing
Mr. Clemens said that he (the speaker), when in Germany, had to
do a lot of apologizing for a certain literary man who was
taking what the Germans thought undue liberties with their
language.
It wasn’t necessary for your chairman to apologize for me in Germany.
It wasn’t necessary at all. Instead of that he ought to have impressed
upon those poor benighted Teutons the service I rendered them. Their
language had needed untangling for a good many years. Nobody else seemed
to want to take the job, and so I took it, and I flatter myself that I
made a pretty good job of it. The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting