something that I had never hoped for, and now that he is dead I never
hope to be able to do it again.
THE NEW YORK PRESS CLUB DINNER
AT THE ANNUAL DINNER, NOVEMBER 13, 1900
Col. William L. Brown, the former editor of the Daily News, as
president of the club, introduced Mr. Clemens as the principal
ornament of American literature.
I must say that I have already begun to regret that I left my gun at
home. I’ve said so many times when a chairman has distressed me with
just such compliments that the next time such a thing occurs I will
certainly use a gun on that chairman. It is my privilege to compliment
him in return. You behold before you a very, very old man. A cursory
glance at him would deceive the most penetrating. His features seem to
reveal a person dead to all honorable instincts–they seem to bear the
traces of all the known crimes, instead of the marks of a life spent for
the most part, and now altogether, in the Sunday-school of a life that
may well stand as an example to all generations that have risen or will
riz–I mean to say, will rise. His private character is altogether
suggestive of virtues which to all appearances he has got. If you
examine his past history you will find it as deceptive as his features,
because it is marked all over with waywardness and misdemeanor–mere
effects of a great spirit upon a weak body–mere accidents of a great
career. In his heart he cherishes every virtue on the list of virtues,
and he practises them all–secretly–always secretly. You all know him
so well that there is no need for him to be introduced here. Gentlemen,
Colonel Brown.
THE ALPHABET AND SIMPLIFIED SPELLING
ADDRESS AT THE DINNER GIVEN TO MR. CARNEGIE AT THE DEDICATION
OF THE NEW YORK ENGINEERS’ CLUB, DECEMBER 9, 1907
Mr. Clemens was introduced by the president of the club, who,
quoting from the Mark Twain autobiography, recalled the day
when the distinguished writer came to New York with $3 in small
change in his pockets and a $10 bill sewed in his clothes.
It seems to me that I was around here in the neighborhood of the Public
Library about fifty or sixty years ago. I don’t deny the circumstance,
although I don’t see how you got it out of my autobiography, which was
not to be printed until I am dead, unless I’m dead now. I had that $3 in
change, and I remember well the $10 which was sewed in my coat. I have
prospered since. Now I have plenty of money and a disposition to
squander it, but I can’t. One of those trust companies is taking care of
it.
Now, as this is probably the last time that I shall be out after
nightfall this winter, I must say that I have come here with a mission,
and I would make my errand of value.
Many compliments have been paid to Mr. Carnegie to-night. I was
expecting them. They are very gratifying to me.
I have been a guest of honor myself, and I know what Mr. Carnegie is
experiencing now. It is embarrassing to get compliments and compliments
and only compliments, particularly when he knows as well as the rest of
us that on the other side of him there are all sorts of things worthy of
our condemnation.
Just look at Mr. Carnegie’s face. It is fairly scintillating with
fictitious innocence. You would think, looking at him, that he had never
committed a crime in his life. But no–look at his pestiferious
simplified spelling. You can’t any of you imagine what a crime that has
been. Torquemada was nothing to Mr. Carnegie. That old fellow shed some
blood in the Inquisition, but Mr. Carnegie has brought destruction to the
entire race. I know he didn’t mean it to be a crime, but it was, just
the same. He’s got us all so we can’t spell anything.
The trouble with him is that he attacked orthography at the wrong end.
He meant well, but he, attacked the symptoms and not the cause of the
disease. He ought to have gone to work on the alphabet. There’s not a