October. Shall we, then, be grateful for the 13th January, with its
freight of death for you and me and all that breathe? Yes, my friends,
for it gave us also that which had never come but for it, and it alone–
the blessed 25th December.”
It may be well enough to explain. The man of the 13th January is Adam;
the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the sorrowful
spectacle of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the grisly
deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel; the act of the 3d September
was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of
October, the last mountaintops disappeared under the flood. When you go
to church in France, you want to take your almanac with you–annotated.
STATISTICS
EXTRACT FROM “THE HISTORY OF THE SAVAGE CLUB”
During that period of gloom when domestic bereavement had
forced Mr. Clemens and his dear ones to secure the privacy they
craved until their wounds should heal, his address was known to
only a very few of his closest friends. One old friend in New
York, after vain efforts to get his address, wrote him a letter
addressed as follows
MARK TWAIN,
God Knows Where,
Try London.
The letter found him, and Mr. Clemens replied to the letter
expressing himself surprised and complimented that the person
who was credited with knowing his whereabouts should take so
much interest in him, adding: “Had the letter been addressed to
the care of the ‘other party,’ I would naturally have expected
to receive it without delay.”
His correspondent tried again, and addressed the second letter:
MARK TWAIN,
The Devil Knows Where,
Try London.
This found him also no less promptly.
On June 9, 1899, he consented to visit the Savage Club, London,
on condition that there was to be no publicity and no speech
was to be expected from him. The toastmaster, in proposing the
health of their guest, said that as a Scotchman, and therefore
as a born expert, he thought Mark Twain had little or no claim
to the title of humorist. Mr. Clemens had tried to be funny
but had failed, and his true role in life was statistics; that
he was a master of statistics, and loved them for their own
sake, and it would be the easiest task he ever undertook if he
would try to count all the real jokes he had ever made. While
the toastmaster was speaking, the members saw Mr. Clemens’s
eyes begin to sparkle and his cheeks to flush. He jumped up,
and made a characteristic speech.
Perhaps I am not a humorist, but I am a first-class fool–a simpleton;
for up to this moment I have believed Chairman MacAlister to be a decent
person whom I could allow to mix up with my friends and relatives. The
exhibition he has just made of himself reveals him to be a scoundrel and
a knave of the deepest dye. I have been cruelly deceived, and it serves
me right for trusting a Scotchman. Yes, I do understand figures, and I
can count. I have counted the words in MacAlister’s drivel (I certainly
cannot call it a speech), and there were exactly three thousand four
hundred and thirty-nine. I also carefully counted the lies–there were
exactly three thousand four hundred and thirty-nine. Therefore, I leave
MacAlister to his fate.
I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors,
because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is
dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I am not feeling very well
myself.
GALVESTON ORPHAN BAZAAR
ADDRESS AT A FAIR HELD AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA, NEW YORK, IN
OCTOBER, 1900, IN AID OF THE ORPHANS AT GALVESTON
I expected that the Governor of Texas would occupy this place first and
would speak to you, and in the course of his remarks would drop a text
for me to talk from; but with the proverbial obstinacy that is proverbial
with governors, they go back on their duties, and he has not come here,
and has not furnished me with a text, and I am here without a text. I