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Knowing the Twins intimately, I feel that I am peculiarly well +qualified for the task I have taken upon myself.</p> + +<p>The Siamese Twins are naturally tender and affectionate in disposition, +and have clung to each other with singular fidelity throughout a long and +eventful life. Even as children they were inseparable companions; and it +was noticed that they always seemed to prefer each other's society to +that of any other persons. They nearly always played together; and, so +accustomed was their mother to this peculiarity, that, whenever both of +them chanced to be lost, she usually only hunted for one of +them—satisfied that when she found that one she would find his brother +somewhere in the immediate neighborhood. And yet these creatures were +ignorant and unlettered—barbarians themselves and the offspring of +barbarians, who knew not the light of philosophy and science. What a +withering rebuke is this to our boasted civilization, with its +quarrelings, its wranglings, and its separations of brothers!</p> + +<p>As men, the Twins have not always lived in perfect accord; but still +there has always been a bond between them which made them unwilling to go +away from each other and dwell apart. They have even occupied the same +house, as a general thing, and it is believed that they have never failed +to even sleep together on any night since they were born. How surely do +the habits of a lifetime become second nature to us! The Twins always go +to bed at the same time; but Chang usually gets up about an hour before +his brother. By an understanding between themselves, Chang does all the +indoor work and Eng runs all the errands. This is because Eng likes to +go out; Chang's habits are sedentary. However, Chang always goes along. +Eng is a Baptist, but Chang is a Roman Catholic; still, to please his +brother, Chang consented to be baptized at the same time that Eng was, on +condition that it should not "count." During the war they were strong +partisans, and both fought gallantly all through the great struggle—Eng +on the Union side and Chang on the Confederate. They took each other +prisoners at Seven Oaks, but the proofs of capture were so evenly +balanced in favor of each, that a general army court had to be assembled +to determine which one was properly the captor and which the captive. +The jury was unable to agree for a long time; but the vexed question was +finally decided by agreeing to consider them both prisoners, and then +exchanging them. At one time Chang was convicted of disobedience of +orders, and sentenced to ten days in the guard-house, but Eng, in spite +of all arguments, felt obliged to share his imprisonment, notwithstanding +he himself was entirely innocent; and so, to save the blameless brother +from suffering, they had to discharge both from custody—the just reward +of faithfulness.</p> + +<p>Upon one occasion the brothers fell out about something, and Chang +knocked Eng down, and then tripped and fell on him, whereupon both +clinched and began to beat and gouge each other without mercy. The +bystanders interfered, and tried to separate them, but they could not do +it, and so allowed them to fight it out. In the end both were disabled, +and were carried to the hospital on one and the same shutter.</p> + +<p>Their ancient habit of going always together had its drawbacks when they +reached man's estate, and entered upon the luxury of courting. Both fell +in love with the same girl. Each tried to steal clandestine interviews +with her, but at the critical moment the other would always turn up. +By and by Eng saw, with distraction, that Chang had won the girl's +affections; and, from that day forth, he had to bear with the agony of +being a witness to all their dainty billing and cooing. But with a +magnanimity that did him infinite credit, he succumbed to his fate, and +gave countenance and encouragement to a state of things that bade fair to +sunder his generous heart-strings. He sat from seven every evening until +two in the morning, listening to the fond foolishness of the two lovers, +and to the concussion of hundreds of squandered kisses—for the privilege +of sharing only one of which he would have given his right hand. But he +sat patiently, and waited, and gaped, and yawned, and stretched, and +longed for two o'clock to come. And he took long walks with the lovers +on moonlight evenings—sometimes traversing ten miles, notwithstanding he +was usually suffering from rheumatism. He is an inveterate smoker; but +he could not smoke on these occasions, because the young lady was +painfully sensitive to the smell of tobacco. Eng cordially wanted them +married, and done with it; but although Chang often asked the momentous +question, the young lady could not gather sufficient courage to answer it +while Eng was by. However, on one occasion, after having walked some +sixteen miles, and sat up till nearly daylight, Eng dropped asleep, from +sheer exhaustion, and then the question was asked and answered. The +lovers were married. All acquainted with the circumstance applauded the +noble brother-in-law. His unwavering faithfulness was the theme of every +tongue. He had stayed by them all through their long and arduous +courtship; and when at last they were married, he lifted his hands above +their heads, and said with impressive unction, "Bless ye, my children, I +will never desert ye!" and he kept his word. Fidelity like this is all +too rare in this cold world.</p> + +<p>By and by Eng fell in love with his sister-in-law's sister, and married +her, and since that day they have all lived together, night and day, in +an exceeding sociability which is touching and beautiful to behold, and +is a scathing rebuke to our boasted civilization.</p> + +<p>The sympathy existing between these two brothers is so close and so +refined that the feelings, the impulses, the emotions of the one are +instantly experienced by the other. When one is sick, the other is sick; +when one feels pain, the other feels it; when one is angered, the other's +temper takes fire. We have already seen with what happy facility they +both fell in love with the same girl. Now Chang is bitterly opposed to +all forms of intemperance, on principle; but Eng is the reverse—for, +while these men's feelings and emotions are so closely wedded, their +reasoning faculties are unfettered; their thoughts are free. Chang +belongs to the Good Templars, and is a hard-working, enthusiastic +supporter of all temperance reforms. But, to his bitter distress, every +now and then Eng gets drunk, and, of course, that makes Chang drunk too. +This unfortunate thing has been a great sorrow to Chang, for it almost +destroys his usefulness in his favorite field of effort. As sure as he +is to head a great temperance procession Eng ranges up alongside of him, +prompt to the minute, and drunk as a lord; but yet no more dismally and +hopelessly drunk than his brother, who has not tasted a drop. And so the +two begin to hoot and yell, and throw mud and bricks at the Good +Templars; and, of course, they break up the procession. It would be +manifestly wrong to punish Chang for what Eng does, and, therefore, the +Good Templars accept the untoward situation, and suffer in silence and +sorrow. They have officially and deliberately examined into the matter, +and find Chang blameless. They have taken the two brothers and filled +Chang full of warm water and sugar and Eng full of whisky, and in +twenty-five minutes it was not possible to tell which was the drunkest. Both +were as drunk as loons—and on hot whisky punches, by the smell of their +breath. Yet all the while Chang's moral principles were unsullied, his +conscience clear; and so all just men were forced to confess that he was +not morally, but only physically, drunk. By every right and by every +moral evidence the man was strictly sober; and, therefore, it caused his +friends all the more anguish to see him shake hands with the pump and try +to wind his watch with his night-key.</p> + +<p>There is a moral in these solemn warnings—or, at least, a warning in +these solemn morals; one or the other. No matter, it is somehow. Let us +heed it; let us profit by it.</p> + +<p>I could say more of an instructive nature about these interesting beings, +but let what I have written suffice.</p> + +<p>Having forgotten to mention it sooner, I will remark in conclusion that +the ages of the Siamese Twins are respectively fifty-one and fifty-three +years.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p212.jpg (13K)" src="images/p212.jpg" height="321" width="291"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="scottish"></a>SPEECH AT THE SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDON +</h2></center> +<center><h3>[Written about 1872.] +</h3></center> +<br> + +<p>At the anniversary festival of the Scottish Corporation of London on +Monday evening, in response to the toast of "The Ladies," MARK TWAIN +replied. The following is his speech as reported in the London Observer:</p> + +<p>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 [Laughter.] 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 herself as a 'lady,' but +speaks of her as a woman. [Laughter.] 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. [Loud cheers.] 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:</p> + +<p> "Woman! O woman!—er— + Wom—"</p> + +<p>[Laughter.] 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:</p> + +<p> "Alas!—alas!—a—alas! + ——Alas!————alas!"</p> + +<p>—and so on. [Laughter.] 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—[laughter]—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. [Renewed laughter.] 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 swept over +us all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. [Much laughter.] Who does not +sorrow for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel? [Laughter.] +Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening +influences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia? [Laughter.] Who can +join in the heartless libel that says woman is extravagant in dress when +he can look back and call to mind our simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed +in her modification of the Highland costume. [Roars of laughter.] +Sir, women have been soldiers, women have been painters, women have been +poets. As long as language lives the name of Cleopatra will live.</p> + +<p>And, not because she conquered George III.—[laughter]—but because she +wrote those divine lines:</p> + +<p> "Let dogs delight to bark and bite, + For God hath made them so."</p> + +<p>[More laughter.] The story of the world is adorned with the names of +illustrious ones of our own sex—some of them sons of St. Andrew, +too—Scott, Bruce, Burns, the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis—[laughter]—the +gifted Ben Lomond, and the great new Scotchman, Ben Disraeli.* [Great +laughter.] Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountain +ranges of sublime women—the Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey +Gamp; the list is endless—[laughter]—but I will not call the mighty +roll, the names rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, +luminous with the glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the loving +worship of the good and the true of all epochs and all climes. [Cheers.] +Suffice it for our pride and our honor that we in our day have added to +it such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. +[Cheers.] Woman is all that she should be—gentle, patient, long +suffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous impulses. It is her +blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for the erring, encourage +the faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift the fallen, befriend +the friendless—in a word, afford the healing of her sympathies and a home +in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted children of misfortune +that knock at its hospitable door. [Cheers.] And when I say, God bless +her, there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of a +wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother, but in his heart will say, +Amen! [Loud and prolonged cheering.]</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>—[* Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime Minister of England, had +just been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University, and had made a +speech which gave rise to a world of discussion.]</p> +</blockquote> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ghost"></a>A GHOST STORY +</h2></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p215.jpg (117K)" src="images/p215.jpg" height="881" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper +stories had been wholly unoccupied for years until I came. The place had +long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. +I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, +that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my +life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of +the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and +clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom.</p> + +<p>I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mold and the +darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before +it with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, +thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning +half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to +voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs +that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadder and +sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the +angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil +patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the +hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in the +distance and left no sound behind.</p> + +<p>The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose +and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I +had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it +would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the +rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they +lulled me to sleep.</p> + +<p>I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I found +myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. +All but my own heart—I could hear it beat. Presently the bedclothes +began to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were +pulling them! I could not stir; I could not speak. Still the blankets +slipped deliberately away, till my breast was uncovered. Then with a +great effort I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, +listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I lay +torpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast was naked again. At +last I roused my energies and snatched the covers back to their place and +held them with a strong grip. I waited. By and by I felt a faint tug, +and took a fresh grip. The tug strengthened to a steady strain—it grew +stronger and stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time the +blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot of +the bed! Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more dead +than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room—the step of +an elephant, it seemed to me—it was not like anything human. But it was +moving from me—there was relief in that. I heard it approach the +door—pass out without moving bolt or lock—and wander away among the dismal +corridors, straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as it +passed—and then silence reigned once more.</p> + +<p>When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, "This is a dream—simply +a hideous dream." And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced myself +that it was a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I +was happy again. I got up and struck a light; and when I found that the +locks and bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing laugh +welled in my heart and rippled from my lips. I took my pipe and lit it, +and was just sitting down before the fire, when—down went the pipe out of +my nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid +breathing was cut short with a gasp! In the ashes on the hearth, side by +side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison +mine was but an infant's! Then I had had a visitor, and the elephant +tread was explained.</p> + +<p>I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long +time, peering into the darkness, and listening.—Then I heard a grating +noise overhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; then +the throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my windows in response +to the concussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the muffled +slamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping in +and out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Sometimes these +noises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the +clanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the +clanking grew nearer—while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking +each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle +upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heard +muttered sentences; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; +and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I +became conscious that my chamber was invaded—that I was not alone. +I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whisperings. +Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling +directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then +dropped—two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They spattered, +liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they had turned to gouts of +blood as they fell—I needed no light to satisfy myself of that. Then I +saw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating +bodiless in the air—floating a moment and then disappearing. +The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, and a solemn +stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must have +light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a +sitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand! +All strength went from me apparently, and I fell back like a stricken +invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment—it seemed to pass to the +door and go out.</p> + +<p>When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, +and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a +hundred years. The light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat +down and fell into a dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in the +ashes. By and by its outlines began to waver and grow dim. I glanced up +and the broad gas-flame was slowly wilting away. In the same moment I +heard that elephantine tread again. I noted its approach, nearer and +nearer, along the musty halls, and dimmer and dimmer the light waned. +The tread reached my very door and paused—the light had dwindled to a +sickly blue, and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight. The +door did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek, and +presently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watched +it with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole over the Thing; gradually its +cloudy folds took shape—an arm appeared, then legs, then a body, and +last a great sad face looked out of the vapor. Stripped of its filmy +housings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant loomed +above me!</p> + +<p>All my misery vanished—for a child might know that no harm could come +with that benignant countenance. My cheerful spirits returned at once, +and in sympathy with them the gas flamed up brightly again. Never a +lonely outcast was so glad to welcome company as I was to greet the +friendly giant. I said:</p> + +<p>"Why, is it nobody but you? Do you know, I have been scared to death for +the last two or three hours? I am most honestly glad to see you. I wish +I had a chair—Here, here, don't try to sit down in that thing—"</p> + +<p>But it was too late. He was in it before I could stop him and down he +went—I never saw a chair shivered so in my life.</p> + +<p>"Stop, stop, you'll ruin ev—"</p> + +<p>Too late again. There was another crash, and another chair was resolved +into its original elements.</p> + +<p>"Confound it, haven't you got any judgment at all? Do you want to ruin +all the furniture on the place? Here, here, you petrified fool—"</p> + +<p>But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat down on the bed, +and it was a melancholy ruin.</p> + +<p>"Now what sort of a way is that to do? First you come lumbering about +the place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worry +me to death, and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which +would not be tolerated anywhere by cultivated people except in a +respectable theater, and not even there if the nudity were of your sex, +you repay me by wrecking all the furniture you can find to sit down on. +And why will you? You damage yourself as much as you do me. You have +broken off the end of your spinal column, and littered up the floor with +chips of your hams till the place looks like a marble yard. You ought to +be ashamed of yourself—you are big enough to know better."</p> + +<p>"Well, I will not break any more furniture. But what am I to do? I have +not had a chance to sit down for a century." And the tears came into his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," I said, "I should not have been so harsh with you. And you +are an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit down on the floor here—nothing +else can stand your weight—and besides, we cannot be sociable with you +away up there above me; I want you down where I can perch on this high +counting-house stool and gossip with you face to face."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p219.jpg (32K)" src="images/p219.jpg" height="435" width="345"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>So he sat down +on the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw one of my red +blankets over his shoulders, inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmet +fashion, and made himself picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossed +his ankles, while I renewed the fire, and exposed the flat, honeycombed +bottoms of his prodigious feet to the grateful warmth.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with the bottom of your feet and the back of your +legs, that they are gouged up so?"</p> + +<p>"Infernal chilblains—I caught them clear up to the back of my head, +roosting out there under Newell's farm. But I love the place; I love it +as one loves his old home. There is no peace for me like the peace I +feel when I am there."</p> + +<p>We talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed that he looked +tired, and spoke of it.</p> + +<p>"Tired?" he said. "Well, I should think so. And now I will tell you all +about it, since you have treated me so well. I am the spirit of the +Petrified Man that lies across the street there in the museum. I am the +ghost of the Cardiff Giant. I can have no rest, no peace, till they have +given that poor body burial again. Now what was the most natural thing +for me to do, to make men satisfy this wish? Terrify them into it!— +haunt the place where the body lay! So I haunted the museum night after +night. I even got other spirits to help me. But it did no good, for +nobody ever came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred to me to +come over the way and haunt this place a little. I felt that if I ever +got a hearing I must succeed, for I had the most efficient company that +perdition could furnish. Night after night we have shivered around +through these mildewed halls, dragging chains, groaning, whispering, +tramping up and down stairs, till, to tell you the truth, I am almost +worn out. But when I saw a light in your room to-night I roused my +energies again and went at it with a deal of the old freshness. But I am +tired out—entirely fagged out. Give me, I beseech you, give me some +hope!"</p> +<p> +I lit off my perch in a burst of excitement, and exclaimed:</p> +</p> +<p>"This transcends everything! everything that ever did occur! Why you +poor blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for +nothing—you have been haunting a plaster cast of yourself—the real Cardiff Giant +is in Albany!—[A fact. The original fraud was ingeniously and +fraudfully duplicated, and exhibited in New York as the "only genuine" +Cardiff Giant (to the unspeakable disgust of the owners of the real +colossus) at the very same time that the latter was drawing crowds at a +museum in Albany,]—Confound it, don't you know your own remains?"</p> + +<p>I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of pitiable humiliation, +overspread a countenance before.</p> + +<p>The Petrified Man rose slowly to his feet, and said:</p> + +<p>"Honestly, is that true?"</p> + +<p>"As true as I am sitting here."</p> + +<p>He took the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the mantel, then stood +irresolute a moment (unconsciously, from old habit, thrusting his hands +where his pantaloons pockets should have been, and meditatively dropping +his chin on his breast) and finally said:</p> + +<p>"Well—I never felt so absurd before. The Petrified Man has sold +everybody else, and now the mean fraud has ended by selling its own +ghost! My son, if there is any charity left in your heart for a poor +friendless phantom like me, don't let this get out. Think how you would +feel if you had made such an ass of yourself."</p> + +<p>I heard his stately tramp die away, step by step down the stairs and out +into the deserted street, and felt sorry that he was gone, poor +fellow—and sorrier still that he had carried off my red blanket and my bath-tub.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="venus"></a>THE CAPITOLINE VENUS +</h2></center> + +<br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER I. +</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p222.jpg (121K)" src="images/p222.jpg" height="887" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>[Scene-An Artist's Studio in Rome.]</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, I do love you!"</p> + +<p>"Bless your dear heart, Mary, I know that—why is your father so +obdurate?"</p> + +<p>"George, he means well, but art is folly to him—he only understands +groceries. He thinks you would starve me."</p> + +<p>"Confound his wisdom—it savors of inspiration. Why am I not a +money-making bowelless grocer, instead of a divinely gifted sculptor with +nothing to eat?"</p> + +<p>"Do not despond, Georgy, dear—all his prejudices will fade away as soon +as you shall have acquired fifty thousand dol—"</p> + +<p>"Fifty thousand demons! Child, I am in arrears for my board!"</p> + + +<br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>[Scene-A Dwelling in Rome.]</p> + +<p>"My dear sir, it is useless to talk. I haven't anything against you, but +I can't let my daughter marry a hash of love, art, and starvation—I +believe you have nothing else to offer."</p> + +<p>"Sir, I am poor, I grant you. But is fame nothing? The Hon. Bellamy +Foodle of Arkansas says that my new statue of America is a clever piece +of sculpture, and he is satisfied that my name will one day be famous."</p> + +<p>"Bosh! What does that Arkansas ass know about it? Fame's nothing—the +market price of your marble scarecrow is the thing to look at. It took +you six months to chisel it, and you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. +No, sir! Show me fifty thousand dollars and you can have my +daughter—otherwise she marries young Simper. You have just six months to raise +the money in. Good morning, sir."</p> + +<p>"Alas! Woe is me!"</p> + +<br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>[ Scene-The Studio.]</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, friend of my boyhood, I am the unhappiest of men."</p> + +<p>"You're a simpleton!"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing left to love but my poor statue of America—and see, even +she has no sympathy for me in her cold marble countenance—so beautiful +and so heartless!"</p> + +<p>"You're a dummy!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, John!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, fudge! Didn't you say you had six months to raise the money in?"</p> + +<p>"Don't deride my agony, John. If I had six centuries what good would it +do? How could it help a poor wretch without name, capital, or friends?"</p> + +<p>"Idiot! Coward! Baby! Six months to raise the money in—and five will +do!"</p> + +<p>"Are you insane?"</p> + +<p>"Six months—an abundance. Leave it to me. I'll raise it."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, John? How on earth can you raise such a monstrous sum +for me?"</p> + +<p>"Will you let that be my business, and not meddle? Will you leave the +thing in my hands? Will you swear to submit to whatever I do? Will you +pledge me to find no fault with my actions?"</p> + +<p>"I am dizzy—bewildered—but I swear."</p> + +<p>John took up a hammer and deliberately smashed the nose of America! He +made another pass and two of her fingers fell to the floor—another, and +part of an ear came away—another, and a row of toes was mangled and +dismembered—another, and the left leg, from the knee down, lay a +fragmentary ruin!</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p224.jpg (40K)" src="images/p224.jpg" height="445" width="495"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>John put on his hat and departed.</p> + +<p>George gazed speechless upon the battered and grotesque nightmare before +him for the space of thirty seconds, and then wilted to the floor and +went into convulsions.</p> + +<p>John returned presently with a carriage, got the broken-hearted artist +and the broken-legged statue aboard, and drove off, whistling low and +tranquilly.</p> + +<p>He left the artist at his lodgings, and drove off and disappeared down +the Via Quirinalis with the statue.</p> + +<br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>[Scene—The Studio.]</p> + +<p>"The six months will be up at two o'clock to-day! Oh, agony! My life is +blighted. I would that I were dead. I had no supper yesterday. I have +had no breakfast to-day. I dare not enter an eating-house. And +hungry? —don't mention it! My bootmaker duns me to death—my tailor +duns me—my landlord haunts me. I am miserable. I haven't seen John since that +awful day. She smiles on me tenderly when we meet in the great +thoroughfares, but her old flint of a father makes her look in the other +direction in short order. Now who is knocking at that door? Who is come +to persecute me? That malignant villain the bootmaker, I'll warrant. +Come in!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, happiness attend your highness—Heaven be propitious to your grace! +I have brought my lord's new boots—ah, say nothing about the pay, there +is no hurry, none in the world. Shall be proud if my noble lord will +continue to honor me with his custom—ah, adieu!"</p> + +<p>"Brought the boots himself! Don't want his pay! Takes his leave with a +bow and a scrape fit to honor majesty withal! Desires a continuance of +my custom! Is the world coming to an end? Of all the—come in!"</p> + +<p>"Pardon, signore, but I have brought your new suit of clothes for—"</p> + +<p>"Come in!"</p> + +<p>"A thousand pardons for this intrusion, your worship. But I have +prepared the beautiful suite of rooms below for you—this wretched den is +but ill suited to—"</p> + +<p>"Come in!"</p> + +<p>"I have called to say that your credit at our bank, some time since +unfortunately interrupted, is entirely and most satisfactorily restored, +and we shall be most happy if you will draw upon us for any—"</p> + +<p>"COME IN!"</p> + +<p>"My noble boy, she is yours! She'll be here in a moment! Take +her—marry her—love her—be happy!—God bless you both! Hip, hip, hur—"</p> + +<p>"COME IN!!!!!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, my own darling, we are saved!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mary, my own darling, we are saved—but I'll swear I don't know why +nor how!"</p> + +<br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER V.</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>[Scene-A Roman Cafe.]</p> + +<p>One of a group of American gentlemen reads and translates from the weekly +edition of 'Il Slangwhanger di Roma' as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br>WONDERFUL DISCOVERY—Some six months ago Signor John Smitthe, an American +gentleman now some years a resident of Rome, purchased for a trifle a +small piece of ground in the Campagna, just beyond the tomb of the Scipio +family, from the owner, a bankrupt relative of the Princess Borghese. +Mr. Smitthe afterward went to the Minister of the Public Records and had +the piece of ground transferred to a poor American artist named George +Arnold, explaining that he did it as payment and satisfaction for +pecuniary damage accidentally done by him long since upon property +belonging to Signor Arnold, and further observed that he would make +additional satisfaction by improving the ground for Signor A., at his own +charge and cost. Four weeks ago, while making some necessary excavations +upon the property, Signor Smitthe unearthed the most remarkable ancient +statue that has ever been added to the opulent art treasures of Rome. +It was an exquisite figure of a woman, and though sadly stained by the +soil and the mold of ages, no eye can look unmoved upon its ravishing +beauty. The nose, the left leg from the knee down, an ear, and also the +toes of the right foot and two fingers of one of the hands were gone, +but otherwise the noble figure was in a remarkable state of preservation. +The government at once took military possession of the statue, and +appointed a commission of art-critics, antiquaries, and cardinal princes +of the church to assess its value and determine the remuneration that +must go to the owner of the ground in which it was found. The whole +affair was kept a profound secret until last night. In the mean time the +commission sat with closed doors and deliberated. Last night they +decided unanimously that the statue is a Venus, and the work of some +unknown but sublimely gifted artist of the third century before Christ. +They consider it the most faultless work of art the world has any +knowledge of. + +<br><br>At midnight they held a final conference and decided that the Venus was +worth the enormous sum of ten million francs! In accordance with Roman +law and Roman usage, the government being half-owner in all works of art +found in the Campagna, the State has naught to do but pay five million +francs to Mr. Arnold and take permanent possession of the beautiful +statue. This morning the Venus will be removed to the Capitol, there to +remain, and at noon the commission will wait upon Signor Arnold with His +Holiness the Pope's order upon the Treasury for the princely sum of five +million francs in gold! +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Chorus of Voices.—"Luck! It's no name for it!"</p> + +<p>Another Voice.—"Gentlemen, I propose that we immediately form an +American joint-stock company for the purchase of lands and excavations of +statues here, with proper connections in Wall Street to bull and bear the +stock."</p> + +<p>All.—"Agreed."</p> + +<br><br> +<center><h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> +</center> +<br> + +<p>[Scene—The Roman Capitol Ten Years Later.]</p> + +<p>"Dearest Mary, this is the most celebrated statue in the world. This is +the renowned 'Capitoline Venus' you've heard so much about. Here she is +with her little blemishes 'restored' (that is, patched) by the most noted +Roman artists—and the mere fact that they did the humble patching of so +noble a creation will make their names illustrious while the world +stands. How strange it seems—this place! The day before I last stood +here, ten happy years ago, I wasn't a rich man bless your soul, I hadn't +a cent. And yet I had a good deal to do with making Rome mistress of +this grandest work of ancient art the world contains."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p227.jpg (72K)" src="images/p227.jpg" height="482" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"The worshiped, the illustrious Capitoline Venus—and what a sum she is +valued at! Ten millions of francs!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—now she is."</p> + +<p>"And oh, Georgy, how divinely beautiful she is!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes but nothing to what she was before that blessed John Smith broke +her leg and battered her nose. Ingenious Smith!—gifted Smith!—noble +Smith! Author of all our bliss! Hark! Do you know what that wheeze +means? Mary, that cub has got the whooping-cough. Will you never learn +to take care of the children!"</p> + +<p>THE END</p> +<br> +<p> +The Capitoline Venus is still in the Capitol at Rome, and is still the +most charming and most illustrious work of ancient art the world can +boast of. But if ever it shall be your fortune to stand before it and go +into the customary ecstasies over it, don't permit this true and secret +history of its origin to mar your bliss—and when you read about a +gigantic Petrified man being dug up near Syracuse, in the State of New +York, or near any other place, keep your own counsel—and if the Barnum +that buried him there offers to sell to you at an enormous sum, don't you +buy. Send him to the Pope!</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> +[NOTE.—The above sketch was written at the time the famous swindle of the +"Petrified Giant" was the sensation of the day in the United States]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="insurance"></a>SPEECH ON ACCIDENT INSURANCE +</h2></center> +<center><h3>DELIVERED IN HARTFORD, AT A DINNER TO CORNELIUS WALFORD, OF LONDON +</h3></center> +<br> + +<p>GENTLEMEN: I am glad, indeed, to assist in welcoming the distinguished +guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance center has +extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band of +brothers working sweetly hand in hand—the Colt's Arms Company making the +destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizens +paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating +their memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comrades +taking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming our +guest—first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt of +hospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because he +is in sympathy with insurance and has been the means of making many other +men cast their sympathies in the same direction.</p> + +<p>Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insurance +line of business—especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been +a director in an accident-insurance company I have felt that I am a +better man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a +kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half their +horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest—as an +advertisement. I do not seem to care for poetry any more. I do not care +for politics—even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now there +is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an +entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon +of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in +their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience +of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a +freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with his +remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seen +nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer's +face when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg.</p> + +<p>I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity +which we have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY—[The +speaker is a director of the company named.]—is an institution which is +peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it +his custom.</p> + +<p>No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the year +is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so +often with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite +left him, he ceased to smile—life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago +I got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit +in this land—has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages +every day, and travels around on a shutter.</p> + +<p>I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is +none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I +can say the same for the rest of the speakers.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="chinaman"></a>JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK +</h2></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p231.jpg (145K)" src="images/p231.jpg" height="895" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>As I passed along by one of those monster American tea stores in New +York, I found a Chinaman sitting before it acting in the capacity of a +sign. Everybody that passed by gave him a steady stare as long as their +heads would twist over their shoulders without dislocating their necks, +and a group had stopped to stare deliberately.</p> + +<p>Is it not a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization and +humanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office as +this? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing to +see in such a being matter for frivolous curiosity instead of regret and +grave reflection? Here was a poor creature whom hard fortune had exiled +from his natural home beyond the seas, and whose troubles ought to have +touched these idle strangers that thronged about him; but did it? +Apparently not. Men calling themselves the superior race, the race of +culture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint Chinese hat, with peaked +roof and ball on top, and his long queue dangling down his back; his +short silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like the rest of +his raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on); his blue cotton, +tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles; and his clumsy +blunt-toed shoes with thick cork soles; and having so scanned him from head to +foot, cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire or his +melancholy face, and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friendless +Mongol. I wondered what was passing behind his sad face, and what +distant scene his vacant eye was dreaming of. Were his thoughts with his +heart, ten thousand miles away, beyond the billowy wastes of the Pacific? +among the ricefields and the plumy palms of China? under the shadows of +remembered mountain peaks, or in groves of bloomy shrubs and strange +forest trees unknown to climes like ours? And now and then, rippling +among his visions and his dreams, did he hear familiar laughter and +half-forgotten voices, and did he catch fitful glimpses of the friendly faces +of a bygone time? A cruel fate it is, I said, that is befallen this +bronzed wanderer. In order that the group of idlers might be touched at +least by the words of the poor fellow, since the appeal of his pauper +dress and his dreary exile was lost upon them, I touched him on the +shoulder and said:</p> + +<p>"Cheer up—don't be downhearted. It is not America that treats you in +this way, it is merely one citizen, whose greed of gain has eaten the +humanity out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality for the +exiled and oppressed. America and Americans are always ready to help the +unfortunate. Money shall be raised—you shall go back to China—you shall +see your friends again. What wages do they pay you here?"</p> + +<p>"Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself; but it's aisy, +barrin' the troublesome furrin clothes that's so expinsive."</p> + +<p>The exile remains at his post. The New York tea merchants who need +picturesque signs are not likely to run out of Chinamen.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="agricultural"></a>HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER +</h2></center> +<center><h3>[Written about 1870.] +</h3></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p233.jpg (115K)" src="images/p233.jpg" height="637" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper without +misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship without +misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object. +The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday, and I +accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.</p> + +<p>The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all the +week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day with +some solicitude to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. +As I left the office, toward sundown, a group of men and boys at the foot +of the stairs dispersed with one impulse, and gave me passageway, and I +heard one or two of them say: "That's him!" I was naturally pleased by +this incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot of +the stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here and +there in the street and over the way, watching me with interest. The +group separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, +"Look at his eye!" I pretended not to observe the notice I was +attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing to +write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of stairs, +and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near the door, +which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young rural-looking men, +whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw me, and then they both +plunged through the window with a great crash. I was surprised.</p> + +<p>In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a fine +but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. He +seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it on +the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our +paper.</p> + +<p>He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles with +his handkerchief he said, "Are you the new editor?"</p> + +<p>I said I was.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said; "this is my first attempt."</p> + +<p>"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?"</p> + +<p>"No; I believe I have not."</p> + +<p>"Some instinct told me so," said the old gentleman, putting on his +spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded +his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must have +made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if +it was you that wrote it:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + "'Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much + better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.' +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>"Now, what do you think of that?—for I really suppose you wrote it?"</p> + +<p>"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no +doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are +spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, +when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree—"</p> + +<p>"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The language was +intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows +anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine."</p> + +<p>Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, and +stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did +not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door after +him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeased +about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not be +any help to him.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky locks +hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from the +hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted, +motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening +attitude. No sound was heard.</p> + +<p>Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and +came elaborately tiptoeing toward me till he was within long reaching +distance of me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense +interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and +said:</p> + +<p>"There, you wrote that. Read it to me—quick! Relieve me. I suffer."</p> + +<p>I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the +relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out +of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful +moonlight over a desolate landscape:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. + It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. + In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch + out its young. + + <p> It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. + Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his + corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of + August. + + Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives + of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for + the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference + over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully + as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange + family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or + two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the + front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is + now generally conceded that, the pumpkin as a shade tree is a + failure. + + <p>Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to + spawn— +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p> +The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said:</p> + +<p>"There, there—that will do. I know I am all right now, because you have +read it just as I did, word, for word. But, stranger, when I first read +it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, +notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I +believe I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might have +heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody—because, you know, +I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so I might as well +begin. I read one of them paragraphs over again, so as to be certain, +and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled several +people, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want +him.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p236.jpg (73K)" src="images/p236.jpg" height="889" width="371"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make the +thing perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell you it is +lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, +as I went back. Good-by, sir, good-by; you have taken a great load off +my mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural +articles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-by, sir."</p> + +<p>I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person +had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotely +accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished, for the +regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, Now if you had gone to +Egypt as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my hand +in; but you wouldn't do it, and here you are. I sort of expected you.]</p> + +<p>The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.</p> + +<p>He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and those two young farmers +had made, and then said "This is a sad business—a very sad business. +There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and a +spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the worst. The +reputation of the paper is injured—and permanently, I fear. True, there +never was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold such a +large edition or soared to such celebrity;—but does one want to be famous +for lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind? My friend, as +I am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others are +roosting on the fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they +think you are crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. +They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that +you could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first +rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being +the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you +recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulness +and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if +music be played to them was superfluous—entirely superfluous. Nothing +disturbs clams. Clams always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever +about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if you had made the +acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have +graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw anything +like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as an article of +commerce is steadily gaining in favor is simply calculated to destroy +this journal. I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no +more holiday—I could not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with you +in my chair. I would always stand in dread of what you might be going to +recommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your +discussing oyster-beds under the head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want +you to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another holiday. +Oh! why didn't you tell me you didn't know anything about agriculture?"</p> + +<p>"Tell you, you corn-stalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? It's +the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling remark. I tell you I have +been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is the +first time I ever heard of a man's having to know anything in order to +edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for the +second-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice +apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about good +farming and no more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. +Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest +opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticize the Indian +campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who +never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of +the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire +with. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing +bowl? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in +the grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you—yam? Men, as a +general thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, +sensation, drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back on +agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tell +me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it +from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger +the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows +if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of +diffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfish +world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you have +treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. I +have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I +could make your paper of interest to all classes—and I have. I said I +could run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had had +two more weeks I'd have done it. And I'd have given you the best class +of readers that ever an agricultural paper had—not a farmer in it, nor a +solitary individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to +save his life. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant. +Adios."</p> + +<p>I then left.</p> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="petrified"></a>THE PETRIFIED MAN +</h2></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p239.jpg (125K)" src="images/p239.jpg" height="865" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Now, to show how really hard it is to foist a moral or a truth upon an +unsuspecting public through a burlesque without entirely and absurdly +missing one's mark, I will here set down two experiences of my own in +this thing. In the fall of 1862, in Nevada and California, the people +got to running wild about extraordinary petrifactions and other natural +marvels. One could scarcely pick up a paper without finding in it one or +two glorified discoveries of this kind. The mania was becoming a little +ridiculous. I was a brand-new local editor in Virginia City, and I felt +called upon to destroy this growing evil; we all have our benignant, +fatherly moods at one time or another, I suppose. I chose to kill the +petrifaction mania with a delicate, a very delicate satire. But maybe it +was altogether too delicate, for nobody ever perceived the satire part of +it at all. I put my scheme in the shape of the discovery of a remarkably +petrified man.</p> + +<p>I had had a temporary falling out with Mr.——, the new coroner and +justice of the peace of Humboldt, and thought I might as well touch him +up a little at the same time and make him ridiculous, and thus combine +pleasure with business. So I told, in patient, belief-compelling detail, +all about the finding of a petrified-man at Gravelly Ford (exactly a +hundred and twenty miles, over a breakneck mountain trail from +where —— lived); how all the savants of the immediate neighborhood had been to +examine it (it was notorious that there was not a living creature within +fifty miles of there, except a few starving Indians, some crippled +grasshoppers, and four or five buzzards out of meat and too feeble to get +away); how those savants all pronounced the petrified man to have been in +a state of complete petrifaction for over ten generations; and then, with +a seriousness that I ought to have been ashamed to assume, I stated that +as soon as Mr.——heard the news he summoned a jury, mounted his mule, +and posted off, with noble reverence for official duty, on that awful +five days' journey, through alkali, sage brush, peril of body, and +imminent starvation, to hold an inquest on this man that had been dead +and turned to everlasting stone for more than three hundred years!</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p240.jpg (28K)" src="images/p240.jpg" height="441" width="347"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And then, my hand being "in," so to speak, I went on, with the same +unflinching gravity, to state that the jury returned a verdict that +deceased came to his death from protracted exposure. This only moved me +to higher flights of imagination, and I said that the jury, with that +charity so characteristic of pioneers, then dug a grave, and were about +to give the petrified man Christian burial, when they found that for ages +a limestone sediment had been trickling down the face of the stone +against which he was sitting, and this stuff had run under him and +cemented him fast to the "bed-rock"; that the jury (they were all +silver-miners) canvassed the difficulty a moment, and then got out their powder +and fuse, and proceeded to drill a hole under him, in order to blast him +from his position, when Mr.——, "with that delicacy so characteristic of +him, forbade them, observing that it would be little less than sacrilege +to do such a thing."</p> + +<p>From beginning to end the "Petrified Man" squib was a string of roaring +absurdities, albeit they were told with an unfair pretense of truth that +even imposed upon me to some extent, and I was in some danger of +believing in my own fraud. But I really had no desire to deceive +anybody, and no expectation of doing it. I depended on the way the +petrified man was sitting to explain to the public that he was a swindle. +Yet I purposely mixed that up with other things, hoping to make it +obscure—and I did. I would describe the position of one foot, and then +say his right thumb was against the side of his nose; then talk about his +other foot, and presently come back and say the fingers of his right hand +were spread apart; then talk about the back of his head a little, and +return and say the left thumb was hooked into the right little finger; +then ramble off about something else, and by and by drift back again and +remark that the fingers of the left hand were spread like those of the +right. But I was too ingenious. I mixed it up rather too much; and so +all that description of the attitude, as a key to the humbuggery of the +article, was entirely lost, for nobody but me ever discovered and +comprehended the peculiar and suggestive position of the petrified man's +hands.</p> + +<p>As a satire on the petrifaction mania, or anything else, my Petrified Man +was a disheartening failure; for everybody received him in innocent good +faith, and I was stunned to see the creature I had begotten to pull down +the wonder-business with, and bring derision upon it, calmly exalted to +the grand chief place in the list of the genuine marvels our Nevada had +produced. I was so disappointed at the curious miscarriage of my scheme, +that at first I was angry, and did not like to think about it; but by and +by, when the exchanges began to come in with the Petrified Man copied and +guilelessly glorified, I began to feel a soothing secret satisfaction; +and as my gentleman's field of travels broadened, and by the exchanges I +saw that he steadily and implacably penetrated territory after territory, +state after state, and land after land, till he swept the great globe and +culminated in sublime and unimpeached legitimacy in the august London +Lancet, my cup was full, and I said I was glad I had done it. I think +that for about eleven months, as nearly as I can remember, Mr.——'s +daily mail-bag continued to be swollen by the addition of half a bushel +of newspapers hailing from many climes with the Petrified Man in them, +marked around with a prominent belt of ink. I sent them to him. I did +it for spite, not for fun.</p> + +<p>He used to shovel them into his back yard and curse. And every day +during all those months the miners, his constituents (for miners never +quit joking a person when they get started), would call on him and ask if +he could tell them where they could get hold of a paper with the +Petrified Man in it. He could have accommodated a continent with them. +I hated——-in those days, and these things pacified me and pleased me. +I could not have gotten more real comfort out of him without killing him.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p242.jpg (30K)" src="images/p242.jpg" height="431" width="341"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="massacre"></a>MY BLOODY MASSACRE +</h2></center> +<br> + +<center><img alt="p243.jpg (123K)" src="images/p243.jpg" height="886" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The other burlesque I have referred to was my fine satire upon the +financial expedients of "cooking dividends," a thing which became +shamefully frequent on the Pacific coast for a while. Once more, in my +self-complacent simplicity I felt that the time had arrived for me to +rise up and be a reformer. I put this reformatory satire in the shape +of a fearful "Massacre at Empire City." The San Francisco papers were +making a great outcry about the iniquity of the Daney Silver-Mining +Company, whose directors had declared a "cooked" or false dividend, for +the purpose of increasing the value of their stock, so that they could +sell out at a comfortable figure, and then scramble from under the +tumbling concern. And while abusing the Daney, those papers did not +forget to urge the public to get rid of all their silver stocks and +invest in sound and safe San Francisco stocks, such as the Spring Valley +Water Company, etc. But right at this unfortunate juncture, behold the +Spring Valley cooked a dividend too! And so, under the insidious mask of +an invented "bloody massacre," I stole upon the public unawares with my +scathing satire upon the dividend-cooking system. In about half a column +of imaginary human carnage I told how a citizen had murdered his wife +and nine children, and then committed suicide. And I said slyly, at the +bottom, that the sudden madness of which this melancholy massacre was the +result had been brought about by his having allowed himself to be +persuaded by the California papers to sell his sound and lucrative Nevada +silver stocks, and buy into Spring Valley just in time to get cooked +along with that company's fancy dividend, and sink every cent he had in +the world.</p> + +<p>Ah, it was a deep, deep satire, and most ingeniously contrived. But I +made the horrible details so carefully and conscientiously interesting +that the public devoured them greedily, and wholly overlooked the +following distinctly stated facts, to wit: The murderer was perfectly +well known to every creature in the land as a bachelor, and consequently +he could not murder his wife and nine children; he murdered them "in his +splendid dressed-stone mansion just in the edge of the great pine forest +between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," when even the very pickled oysters +that came on our tables knew that there was not a "dressed-stone mansion" +in all Nevada Territory; also that, so far from there being a "great pine +forest between Empire City and Dutch Nick's," there wasn't a solitary +tree within fifteen miles of either place; and, finally, it was patent +and notorious that Empire City and Dutch Nick's were one and the same +place, and contained only six houses anyhow, and consequently there could +be no forest between them; and on top of all these absurdities I stated +that this diabolical murderer, after inflicting a wound upon himself that +the reader ought to have seen would kill an elephant in the twinkling of +an eye, jumped on his horse and rode four miles, waving his wife's +reeking scalp in the air, and thus performing entered Carson City with +tremendous éclat, and dropped dead in front of the chief saloon, the envy +and admiration of all beholders.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p245.jpg (27K)" src="images/p245.jpg" height="435" width="345"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Well, in all my life I never saw anything like the sensation that little +satire created. It was the talk of the town, it was the talk of the +territory. Most of the citizens dropped gently into it at breakfast, and +they never finished their meal. There was something about those minutely +faithful details that was a sufficing substitute for food. Few people +that were able to read took food that morning. Dan and I (Dan was my +reportorial associate) took our seats on either side of our customary +table in the "Eagle Restaurant," and, as I unfolded the shred they used +to call a napkin in that establishment, I saw at the next table two +stalwart innocents with that sort of vegetable dandruff sprinkled about +their clothing which was the sign and evidence that they were in from the +Truckee with a load of hay. The one facing me had the morning paper +folded to a long, narrow strip, and I knew, without any telling, that +that strip represented the column that contained my pleasant financial +satire. From the way he was excitedly mumbling, I saw that the heedless +son of a hay-mow was skipping with all his might, in order to get to the +bloody details as quickly as possible; and so he was missing the +guide-boards I had set up to warn him that the whole thing was a fraud. +Presently his eyes spread wide open, just as his jaws swung asunder to +take in a potato approaching it on a fork; the potato halted, the face +lit up redly, and the whole man was on fire with excitement. Then he +broke into a disjointed checking off of the particulars—his potato +cooling in mid-air meantime, and his mouth making a reach for it +occasionally, but always bringing up suddenly against a new and still +more direful performance of my hero. At last he looked his stunned and +rigid comrade impressively in the face, and said, with an expression of +concentrated awe:</p> + +<p>"Jim, he b'iled his baby, and he took the old 'oman's skelp. Cuss'd if I +want any breakfast!"</p> + +<p>And he laid his lingering potato reverently down, and he and his friend +departed from the restaurant empty but satisfied.</p> + +<p>He never got down to where the satire part of it began. Nobody ever did. +They found the thrilling particulars sufficient. To drop in with a poor +little moral at the fag-end of such a gorgeous massacre was like +following the expiring sun with a candle and hope to attract the world's +attention to it.</p> + +<p>The idea that anybody could ever take my massacre for a genuine +occurrence never once suggested itself to me, hedged about as it was by +all those telltale absurdities and impossibilities concerning the "great +pine forest," the "dressed-stone mansion," etc. But I found out then, +and never have forgotten since, that we never read the dull explanatory +surroundings of marvelously exciting things when we have no occasion to +suppose that some irresponsible scribbler is trying to defraud us; we +skip all that, and hasten to revel in the blood-curdling particulars and +be happy.</p> + + +<br><br> + +<center> +<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3> +<tr><td> + <a href="p4.htm">Previous Part</a> +</td><td> + <a href="3189-h.htm">Main Index</a> +</td><td> + <a href="p6.htm">Next Part</a> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +</body> +</html> + + + |