Mark Twain A Biography Part 189

"'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught,'

and blamed if he didn't down with another right bower! Emerson claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went under a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws I'll lay down on him and smother him!' All quiet on the Potomac, you bet!

"They were pretty how-come-you-so by now, and they begun to blow.

Emerson says, 'The n.o.blest thing I ever wrote was "Barbara Frietchie."'

Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my "Bigelow Papers."' Says Holmes, 'My "Thanatopsis" lays over 'em both.' They mighty near ended in a fight. Then they wished they had some more company, and Mr. Emerson pointed to me and says:

"'Is yonder squalid peasant all That this proud nursery could breed?'

He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pa.s.s. Well, sir, next they took it into their heads that they would like some music; so they made me stand up and sing, 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home' till I dropped--at thirteen minutes past four this morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke at seven they were leaving, thank goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my only boots on and his'n under his arm. Says I, 'Hold on there, Evangeline, what are you going to do with them?' He says, 'Going to make tracks with 'em, because--

"'Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime; And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.'

"As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours and I'm going to move; I ain't suited to a Littery atmosphere."

I said to the miner, "Why, my dear sir, these were not the gracious singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and homage; these were impostors."

The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said he, "Ah! impostors, were they? Are you?"

I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not traveled on my 'nom de guerre' enough to hurt. Such was the reminiscence I was moved to contribute, Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this.

APPENDIX P

THE ADAM MONUMENT PEt.i.tION

(See Chapter cx.x.xiv)

TO THE HONORABLE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS a.s.sEMBLED.

WHEREAS, A number of citizens of the city of Elmira in the State of New York having covenanted among themselves to erect in that city a monument in memory of Adam, the father of mankind, being moved thereto by a sentiment of love and duty, and these having appointed the undersigned to communicate with your honorable body, we beg leave to lay before you the following facts and append to the same our humble pet.i.tion.

1. As far as is known no monument has ever been raised in any part of the world to commemorate the services rendered to our race by this great man, whilst many men of far less note and wors.h.i.+p have been rendered immortal by means of stately and indestructible memorials.

2. The common father of mankind has been suffered to lie in entire neglect, although even the Father of our Country has now, and has had for many years, a monument in course of construction.

3. No right-feeling human being can desire to see this neglect continued, but all just men, even to the farthest regions of the globe, should and will rejoice to know that he to whom we owe existence is about to have reverent and fitting recognition of his works at the hands of the people of Elmira. His labors were not in behalf of one locality, but for the extension of humanity at large and the blessings which go therewith; hence all races and all colors and all religions are interested in seeing that his name and fame shall be placed beyond the reach of the blight of oblivion by a permanent and suitable monument.

4. It will be to the imperishable credit of the United States if this monument shall be set up within her borders; moreover, it will be a peculiar grace to the beneficiary if this testimonial of affection and grat.i.tude shall be the gift of the youngest of the nations that have sprung from his loins after 6,000 years of unappreciation on the part of its elders.

5. The idea of this sacred enterprise having originated in the city of Elmira, she will be always grateful if the general government shall encourage her in the good work by securing to her a certain advantage through the exercise of its great authority.

Therefore, Your pet.i.tioners beg that your honorable body will be pleased to issue a decree restricting to Elmira the right to build a monument to Adam and inflicting a heavy penalty upon any other community within the United States that shall propose or attempt to erect a monument or other memorial to the said Adam, and to this end we will ever pray.

NAMES: (100 signatures)

APPENDIX Q

GENERAL GRANT'S GRAMMAR

(Written in 1886. Delivered at an Army and Navy Club dinner in New York City)

Lately a great and honored author, Matthew Arnold, has been finding fault with General Grant's English. That would be fair enough, maybe, if the examples of imperfect English averaged more instances to the page in General Grant's book than they do in Arnold's criticism on the book--but they do not. It would be fair enough, maybe, if such instances were commoner in General Grant's book than they are in the works of the average standard author--but they are not. In fact, General Grant's derelictions in the matter of grammar and construction are not more frequent than such derelictions in the works of a majority of the professional authors of our time, and of all previous times--authors as exclusively and painstakingly trained to the literary trade as was General Grant to the trade of war. This is not a random statement: it is a fact, and easily demonstrable. I have a book at home called Modern English Literature: Its Blemishes and Defects, by Henry H. Breen, a countryman of Mr. Arnold. In it I find examples of bad grammar and slovenly English from the pens of Sydney Smith, Sheridan, Hallam, Whately, Carlyle, Disraeli, Allison, Junius, Blair, Macaulay, Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, Southey, Lamb, Landor, Smollett, Walpole, Walker (of the dictionary), Christopher North, Kirk White, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Walter Scott, and Mr. Lindley Murray (who made the grammar).

In Mr. Arnold's criticism on General Grant's book we find two grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English, enough of them to ent.i.tle him to a lofty place in the ill.u.s.trious list of delinquents just named.

The following pa.s.sage all by itself ought to elect him:

"Meade suggested to Grant that he might wish to have immediately under him Sherman, who had been serving with Grant in the West. He begged him not to hesitate if he thought it for the good of the service. Grant a.s.sured him that he had not thought of moving him, and in his memoirs, after relating what had pa.s.sed, he adds, etc."

To read that pa.s.sage a couple of times would make a man dizzy; to read it four times would make him drunk.

Mr. Breen makes this discriminating remark: "To suppose that because a man is a poet or a historian he must be correct in his grammar is to suppose that an architect must be a joiner, or a physician a compounder of medicine."

People may hunt out what microscopic motes they please, but, after all, the fact remains, and cannot be dislodged, that General Grant's book is a great and, in its peculiar department, a unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece. In their line there is no higher literature than those modest, simple memoirs. Their style is at least flawless and no man could improve upon it, and great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter, and not by the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and shadings of their grammar.

There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots, and when we think of General Grant our pulses quicken and his grammar vanishes; we only remember that this is the simple soldier who, all untaught of the silken phrase-makers, linked words together with an art surpa.s.sing the art of the schools and put into them a something which will still bring to American ears, as long as America shall last, the roll of his vanished drums and the tread of his marching hosts. What do we care for grammar when we think of those thunderous phrases, "Unconditional and immediate surrender," "I propose to move immediately upon your works,"

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Mr.

Arnold would doubtless claim that that last phrase is not strictly grammatical, and yet it did certainly wake up this nation as a hundred million tons of A-number-one fourth-proof, hard-boiled, hide-bound grammar from another mouth could not have done. And finally we have that gentler phrase, that one which shows you another true side of the man, shows you that in his soldier heart there was room for other than gory war mottoes and in his tongue the gift to fitly phrase them: "Let us have peace."

APPENDIX R

PARTY ALLEGIANCE.

BEING A PORTION OF A PAPER ON "CONSISTENCY," READ BEFORE THE MONDAY EVENING CLUB IN 1887.

(See Chapter clxiii)

... I have referred to the fact that when a man retires from his political party he is a traitor--that he is so p.r.o.nounced in plain language. That is bold; so bold as to deceive many into the fancy that it is true. Desertion, treason--these are the terms applied. Their military form reveals the thought in the man's mind who uses them: to him a political party is an army. Well, is it? Are the two things identical? Do they even resemble each other? Necessarily a political party is not an army of conscripts, for they are in the ranks by compulsion. Then it must be a regular army or an army of volunteers.

Is it a regular army? No, for these enlist for a specified and well-understood term, and can retire without reproach when the term is up. Is it an army of volunteers who have enlisted for the war, and may righteously be shot if they leave before the war is finished? No, it is not even an army in that sense. Those fine military terms are high-sounding, empty lies, and are no more rationally applicable to a political party than they would be to an oyster-bed. The volunteer soldier comes to the recruiting office and strips himself and proves that he is so many feet high, and has sufficiently good teeth, and no fingers gone, and is sufficiently sound in body generally; he is accepted; but not until he has sworn a deep oath or made other solemn form of promise to march under, that flag until that war is done or his term of enlistment completed. What is the process when a voter joins a party? Must he prove that he is sound in any way, mind or body? Must he prove that he knows anything--is capable of anything--whatever? Does he take an oath or make a promise of any sort?--or doesn't he leave himself entirely free? If he were informed by the political boss that if he join, it must be forever; that he must be that party's chattel and wear its bra.s.s collar the rest of his days--would not that insult him? It goes without saying. He would say some rude, unprintable thing, and turn his back on that preposterous organization. But the political boss puts no conditions upon him at all; and this volunteer makes no promises, enlists for no stated term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; he is in no way restrained of his freedom. Yet he will presently find that his bosses and his newspapers have a.s.sumed just the reverse of that: that they have blandly arrogated to themselves an ironclad military authority over him; and within twelve months, if he is an average man, he will have surrendered his liberty, and will actually be silly enough to believe that he cannot leave that party, for any cause whatever, without being a shameful traitor, a deserter, a legitimately dishonored man.

There you have the just measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic.

Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop twaddling about these priceless independencies and attempt to exercise one of them. If he is a preacher half his congregation will clamor for his expulsion--and will expel him, except they find it will injure real estate in the neighborhood; if he is a doctor his own dead will turn against him.

I repeat that the new party-member who supposed himself independent will presently find that the party have somehow got a mortgage on his soul, and that within a year he will recognize the mortgage, deliver up his liberty, and actually believe he cannot retire from that party from any motive howsoever high and right in his own eyes without shame and dishonor.

Is it possible for human wickedness to invent a doctrine more infernal and poisonous than this? Is there imaginable a baser servitude than it imposes? What slave is so degraded as the slave that is proud that he is a slave? What is the essential difference between a lifelong democrat and any other kind of lifelong slave? Is it less humiliating to dance to the lash of one master than another?

This infamous doctrine of allegiance to party plays directly into the hands of politicians of the baser sort--and doubtless for that it was borrowed--or stolen--from the monarchial system. It enables them to foist upon the country officials whom no self-respecting man would vote for if he could but come to understand that loyalty to himself is his first and highest duty, not loyalty to any party name.