 Section 19 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 19, December 23, 1876. Four Fathers Day, New Englanders are at Dinner. Read by John Greenman. Four Fathers Day, New Englanders at Dinner. The annual festival of the New England Society, speeches by Honourable George William Curtis, Mark Twain, Reverend Edward Everett Hale, Reverend Dr. John Cotton Smith, Reverend Dr. Taylor, and others. Interesting letter from General Sherman. The New England Society's annual dinner at Delmonico's last night was one of the most brilliant celebrations of the kind that has ever been held in this city. The preparations were made with great thoroughness, and the addresses by the respondents to the several toasts were full of earnestness, good feeling, good sense, and good wit. The dining-hall was filled with seven tables. The President's table overlooking six others arranged opposite to it at right angles. Above the head of the President was suspended against the wall the banner of the New England Society, flanked by silken national ensigns, and on the opposite side of the hall before the orchestra balcony was a national shield also draped with United States flags. The tables were elegantly and tastefully decorated with baskets and set pieces of flowers. Before the President was a design in flowers of delicate hues, representing Plymouth Rock, there were many vians in the feast that recalled, to genuine New Englanders, the plain and hearty fare of the land of steady habits. The guests entered the dining-room just before seven o'clock, and at that hour Reverend Dr. John Cotton Smith, at the invitation of President Borden, said Grace. Among those present were Reverend Edward Everett Hale, ex-Governor Edwin D. Morgan, Honourable George William Curtis, Reverend John Cotton Smith, Reverend Richard S. Stores, Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, Mayor Wickham, Joseph H. Chote, Reverend Dr. William M. Taylor, Honourable Elliot C. Cowden, Honourable Salem H. Wales, Commodore J. W. A. Nicholson, G. B. Loring, Honourable Isaac H. Bailey, Dexter A. Hawkins, Professor Bartold, Sculptor of the Colossal Statue of Liberty, District Attorney Benjamin K. Phelps, Professor F. B. Sanborn of Dartmouth College, Representative of St. George's, St. Andrew's, and St. Patrick's Societies, Assistant District Attorney's Bell, Russell and Rollins, Park Goodwin, Clark Bell, Police Commissioners, Wheeler and Air Bart, and Professor W. E. Chandler, the whole company numbering more than two hundred. More than two hours were spent at dinner, when, at nine-thirty o'clock, Reverend Mr. Courtney gave thanks. President Borden then rose, and having called the company to order, he announced that General William T. Sherman had written a letter of regret, saying that in the present condition of affairs at Washington he was unable to leave that city, and William M. Everts was also detained in Washington and was unable to attend, and that letters of regret had been received from Ex Speaker James G. Blaine, Governor Tilden, Governor Chamberlain of South Carolina, Robert C. Winthrop, and General John C. Newton. Honorable George William Curtis was called upon to respond to the toast of Four Fathers Day. He was received with prolonged applause, and by many of the company rising to their feet with waving handkerchiefs and loud cheers. His remarks were frequently interrupted by hardy expressions of approval, and his allusion to Abraham Lincoln as the development of the seeds sown here two centuries ago by the coming of the Mayflower was followed by vehement applause. His suggestions for the conduct of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the settlement of the political difficulties threatening the nation roused his hearers to the highest pitch of excitement, and evoked unanimous and prolonged applause. As Mr. Curtis sat down he was greeted with the heartiest cheers, which subsided only to be renewed with greater vigor. Cheers followed the announcement of the sentiment, the President of the United States. In reply to the City of New York, Mayor Wickham humorously arraigned a large number of city officers for alleged shortcomings, charging them with being New Englanders, and succeeding in finding so many against whom the charges were applicable, and indicated them so plainly as to cause unbounded merriment. Reverend Edward Everett Hale, in responding to the toast, New England culture, made an address in which wit and wisdom were happily blended. Commodore Nicholson responded to the toast, the Army and the Navy. Mark Twain provoked a storm of laughter by his rambling talk about New England weather. Reverend John Cotton Smith commanded the fullest attention of the company by his response to the toast set down for him. Responses were made by Reverend Dr. William M. Taylor, Professor Sanborn, and others. The Proceedings The Proceedings were begun by the President, Mr. William Borden, who said, gentlemen, will you give your Reverend attention for a moment while I call upon Reverend Mr. Courtney to return thanks. Reverend Mr. Courtney, responding to the suggestion of the Chairman, offered prayer as follows. Most merciful God and Father, in whom we live and move and have our being. Thou who can satisfy the desire of every living thing, we render thee our thanks for the satisfaction of our bodily appetites, and pray thee that what we shall now hear may be for the satisfaction of the higher appetite of our intellects and our reason for the sake of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen. Much of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens. The oldest inhabitant, the weather. Who hath lost and doth forget it? Who hath it still, and doth regret it? Interpose betwixt us twain. Merchant of Venice. Gentlemen, I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the Weather Clerk's Factory who experiment and learn how in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it, laughter. There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration and regret. The weather is always doing something there, always attending strictly to business, always getting up new designs, and trying them on the people to see how they will go, laughter. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours, laughter. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvellous collection of weather on exhibition at the centennial that so astounded the foreigners, he was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all the climbs. I said, Don't you do it! You come to New England on a favourable spring day. I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity, laughter. Well, he came and he made his collection in four days. As to variety, why he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, well, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough but weather to spare, weather to hire out, weather to sell, to deposit, weather to invest, weather to give to the poor, laughter. The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some things which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing about beautiful spring, laughter. These are generally casual visitors who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot of course know how the natives feel about spring. And so the first thing they know, the opportunity to inquire how they feel, has permanently gone by, laughter. Old probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly while it deserves it. You take up the papers and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what today's weather is going to be on the Pacific, down south, in the middle states, in the Wisconsin region. See him sail along in joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England, and then see his tail drop. He doesn't know what the weather is going to be like in New England. He can't any more tell than he can tell how many presidents of the United States there's going to be next year. Applauds. While he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something about like this. Probable Norse to Southwest winds, varying to the southern and western and eastern and points between. High and low barometer, swapping around from place to place. Probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeding or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning. Loud laughter and applause. Then he jots down this post-script from his wandering mind to cover accidents. But it is possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime. Loud laughter. Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain about it, you are certain, there is going to be plenty of weather. Laughter. A perfect grand review. But you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first. You fix up for the drought. You leave your umbrella in the house and sally out with your sprinkling pot. And ten to one you get drowned. Applauds. You make up your mind that the earthquake is due. You stand from under and take hold of something to steady yourself. And the first thing you know, you get struck by lightning. Laughter. These are great disappointments. But they can't be helped. Laughter. The lightning there is peculiar. It is so convincing when it strikes a thing. It doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether, well, you'd think it was something valuable and a congressman had been there. Loud laughter and applause. And the thunder. When the thunder commences to merely tune up and scrape and saw and key up the instruments for the performance, strangers say, why, what awful thunder you have here. But when the baton is raised and the real concert begins, you'll find that stranger down in the cellar with his head in the ash-barrel laughter. Now as to the size of the weather in New England, length ways, I mean, it is utterly disproportioned to the size of that little country. Laughter. Half the time when it is packed as full as it can stick, you will see that New England weather sticking out beyond the edges and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the neighbouring states. Laughter. She can't hold a tenth part of her weather. You can see cracks all about where she has strained herself trying to do it. Laughter. I could speak volumes about the inhuman perversity of the New England weather, but I will give but a single specimen. I like to hear rain on a tin roof, so I covered part of my roof with tin, with an eye to that luxury. Well, sir, do you think it ever rains on the tin? No, sir, skips it every time. Laughter. Mind, in this speech I have been trying merely to do honour to the New England weather. No language could do it justice. Laughter. But, after all, there are at least one or two things about that weather, or if you please, effects produced by it, which we residents would not like to part with. Applauds. If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries, the ice storm. When a leafless tree is closed with ice from the bottom to the top, ice that is as bright and clear as crystal, when every bow and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white like the shaw of Persia's diamond plume. Applauds. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and flash with all manner of coloured fires, which change and change again with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold. The tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels, and it stands there, the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong. Long continued applause. Month after month I lay up my hate and grudge against the New England weather, but when the ice-storm comes at last I say, There! I forgive you now. The books are square between us. You don't owe me assent. Go, and sin no more. Your little faults and foibles count for nothing. You are the most enchanting weather in the world. The other toasts. The other toasts of the evening were the clergy of New England, responded to by Reverend John Cotton Smith, Lafayette, who gave us himself and Liberty, and Bartoldi, who gives us Liberty and Lafayette, no response, the agricultural and manufacturing interests of New England, Dr. George B. Loring, and Our Sister Societies, responded to by the Presidents of the Irish, Scotch, and English Societies. The proceedings terminated shortly after midnight. End of Section 19, December 23, 1876, Forefather's Day, New Englanders at Dinner, read by John Greenman. Section 20 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867-1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 20. January 13, 1877. Unsigned Book Review for Tom Sawyer. Shades of the venerable Mr. Day, of the instructive Mrs. Bartold, of the persuasive Miss Edgeworth. Had you the power of sitting today beside the reviewer's desk, and were called upon to pass judgment on the books written and printed for the boys and girls of today, would you not have groaned and moaned over their perusal? If such superlatively good children as Harry and Lucy could have existed, or even such nondescript prigs as Sanford and Merton had abnormal being, this other question presents itself to our mind. How would these precious children have enjoyed Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer? In all books written for the amusement of children there are two distinct phases of appreciation. What the parent thinks of the book is one thing, what the child thinks of it is another. It is fortunate when both parent and child agree in their conclusions. Such double appreciation may in most instances simply be one in regard to the fitness of the book on the part of the parent. A course of reading entirely devoted to juvenile works must be to an adult a tax on time and patience. It is only once in many years that such a charming book as Little Alice in Wonderland is produced, which old and young could read with thorough enjoyment. If thirty years ago Tom Sawyer had been placed in a careful father's hands to read, the probabilities would have been that he would have hesitated before giving the book to his boy. Not that Mr. Clemens' book is exceptional in character, or differs in the least, save in its cleverness, from a host of similar books on like topics which are universally read by children today. It is the judgment of the book givers which has undoubtedly undergone a change, while youthful minds being free from warp, twist, or dogma have remained ever the same. Returning then to these purely intellectual monstrosities, mostly the pen and ink offspring of authors and authorises who never had any real flesh and blood creations of their own, there can be no doubt that had Sanford or Merton ever for a single moment dipped inside of Tom Sawyer's pages, astronomy and physics, with all the musty old Farago of Greek and Latin history, would have been thrown to the dogs. Despite tassled caps, starched collars and all the proprieties, these children would have laughed uproariously over Tom Sawyer's cat and the painkiller, and certain new ideas might have had birth in their brains. Perhaps had these children actually lived in our times, Sanford might have been a western steamboat captain, or Merton, a filibuster. Tom Sawyer is likely to inculcate the idea that there are certain lofty aspirations which Plutarch never ascribed to his more prosaic heroes. Books for children in former bygone periods were mostly constructed in one monotonous key. A child was supposed to be a vessel which was to be constantly filled up. Facts and morals had to be taken like bitter drafts or acrid pills. In order that they should be absorbed like medicines it was perhaps a kindly thinker who disguised these facts and morals. The real education swallowed in those doses by the children we are inclined to think was in small proportion to the quantity administered. Was it not good old Peter Parley, who in this country first broke loose from conventional trammels and made American children truly happy? We have certainly gone far beyond Mr. Goodrich's manner. There has come an amount of ugly realism into children's story books, the advantages of which we are very much in doubt about. Now, it is perfectly true that many boys do not adopt drawing room manners. Perhaps it is better that little paragons, pocket crichetons, are so rare. Still, courage, frankness, truthfulness, and self-reliance are to be inculcated in our lads. Since association is everything, it is not desirable that in real life we should familiarize our children with those of their age who are lawless or daredevils. Granting that the natural is the true, and the true is the best, and that we may describe things as they are for adult readers, it is proper that we should discriminate a great deal more as to the choice of subjects and books intended for children. Today a majority of the heroes in such books have longings to be pirates, want to run away with vessels, and millions of our American boys read and delight in such stories. In olden times the pirate's own book, with its death's head and crossbones on the back, had no concealment about it. It is true, addition after addition was sold. There it was. You saw it palpably. There was no disguise about it. If a father or mother objected to their child's reading the pirate's own book, a pair of tongs and a convenient fireplace ended the whole matter. Today the trouble is that there is a decidedly sanguinary tendency in juvenile books. No matter how innocent, quiet, or tame may be the title of a child's book, there is no guarantee that the volume your curly-headed little boy may be devouring, may not contain a series of adventures recalling Captain Kidd's horrors. In the short preface of Tom Sawyer Mr. Clemens writes, �Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account.� We have before expressed the idea that a truly clever child's book is one in which both the man and the boy can find pleasure. No child's book can be perfectly acceptable otherwise. Is Tom Sawyer amusing? It is incomparably so. It is the story of a Western boy born and bred on the banks of one of the big rivers, and there is exactly that wild village life which has schooled many a man to self-reliance and energy. Mr. Clemens has a remarkable memory for those peculiarities of American boy talk which the grown man may have forgotten, but which returned to him not unpleasantly when once the proper key is sounded. There is one scene of a quarrel with a dialogue between Tom and a city boy which is perfect of its kind. One chapters in Tom's life, where his love for the schoolgirls is told, make us believe that for an urchin who had just lost his milk-teeth, the affections out west have an awakening even earlier than in Oriental Climes. In fact, Tom is a preternaturally precocious urchin. One admirable character in the book, and touched with the hand of a master, is that of Huckleberry Finn. There is a reality about this boy which is striking. An honest old aunt who adores her escape-grace nephew is a homely picture worked with exceeding grace. Mr. Clemens must have had just such a lovable old aunt. An ugly murder in the book, over minutely described and too fully illustrated, which Tom and Huck C., of course, in a graveyard, leads, somehow or other, to the discovery of a cave in which treasures are concealed, and to which Tom and Huck fall heirs. There is no can't about Mr. Clemens. A description of a Sunday school in Tom Sawyer is true to the letter. Matters are not told as they are fancy to be, but as they actually are. If Mr. Clemens has been wanting incontinuity in his longer sketches, and that sustained inventive power necessary in dovetailing incidents, Tom, as a story, though slightly disjointed, has this defect less apparent. As a humorist, Mr. Clemens has a great deal of fun in him, of the true American kind, which crops out all over the book. Mr. Clemens has an audience both here and in England, and doubtless his friends across the water will re-echo, the hearty laughs which the reading of Tom Sawyer will cause on this side of the world. We are rather inclined to treat books intended for boys and girls, written by men of accredited talent and reputation, in a serious manner. Early impressions are the lasting ones. It is exactly such a clever book as Tom Sawyer, which is sure to leave its stamp on younger minds. We like, then, the true boyish fun of Tom and Huck, and have a foible for the mischief these children engage in. We have not the least objection that rough boys be the heroes of a storybook. Restless spirits of energy only require judicious training in order to bring them into proper use. In the books to be placed into children's hands for purposes of recreation, we have a preference for those of a milder type than Tom Sawyer. Excitements derived from reading should be administered with a certain degree of circumspection. A sprinkling of salt in mental food is both natural and wholesome. Any cravings for the contents of the casters, the cayenne and the mustard by children, should not be gratified, with less, then, of Injun Joe and revenge and slitting women's ears, and the shadow of the gallows, which throws an unnecessarily sinister tinge over the story, if the book really is intended for boys and girls. We should have liked Tom Sawyer better. End of Section 20, January 13, 1877, Unsigned Book Review for Tom Sawyer, read by John Greenman. Section 21 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 21, June 17, 1877. Mark Twain, how he got his name. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain, how he got his name. The San Francisco Alta says that this is how Samuel L. Clemens obtained the name, which he has made famous, the explanation being given in a letter to Mr. John A. McPherson of that city. Dear sir, Mark Twain was the norm de plume of one Captain Isaiah Sellers, who used to write river news over it for the New Orleans Picayune. He died in 1863, and as he could no longer need that signature, I laid violent hands upon it without asking permission of the proprietors' remains. That is the history of the norm de plume I bear. Yours truly, Samuel L. Clemens. May 29. End of Section 21. June 17, 1877. Mark Twain, how he got his name. Read by John Greenman. Section 22 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 22. Amusements, Fifth Avenue Theatre. Read by John Greenman. Amusements, Fifth Avenue Theatre. The representation of the play called Ah Sin at the Fifth Avenue Theatre yesterday evening afforded frequent gratification to a very large audience, the fact that a good many spectators grew perceptibly weary as the performance approached an end, and the still more significant fact that the audience left the house without making the slightest demonstration of pleasure when the curtain fell upon the last scene may imply that the piece, as a whole, is scarcely likely to secure a really strong hold upon the favour of the public. But it is certain that there was much laughter and applause heard as Ah Sin progressed, and the causes of the merriment and plaudits appeared sufficiently numerous to give some vitality to the composition of which they are the principal element. It need hardly be said that Mr. Bret Hart and Mark Twain's play is by no means a very dramatic or symmetrical work. Humorists, romance writers, and poets are never born, and seldom become dramatists, and both authors of Ah Sin are now trying their printish hand in seeking fame and fortune through the medium of the stage. Ah Sin, however, is not so bad a piece as might have been anticipated. It has a plot, well worn and transparent, though it is at once discovered to be, and hence there is a reason for almost everything said or done during the disentanglement of the narrative. Its weakness lies in a pausity of striking events, in an almost invariable disregard of the absolute necessity of providing a strong tableau at the close of each act, and in a superabundance of dialogue, mainly coarse, and often inexcusably so, because it has not the excuse of being characteristic. Its merit is to be sought, firstly, in the somewhat novel personage, who bestows his name upon the drama, secondly, as mentioned above, in its rather unexpected coherence, and lastly, in the strange atmosphere into which it transports the listener. Most of the characters do not indeed differ in any essential traits from the everyday heroes and heroines of melodrama, but their language, their attire, and their surroundings breathe an air of freshness over the picture. Mr. Dennery might turn them into Frenchmen, Mr. Boussicolt into Irishmen, and Mr. Daly into Massachusetts saints and sinners, but the charm of local color is of great weight in dealing with Mr's heart and Twain's joint production, and the character of our sin has unquestionably originality and newness. The typical Chinaman, who acts, too, as a sort of deus ex machina, presents a variety of phases of Chinese humor, cleverness, and amusing rascality. His comical naivete, his propensity to beg and steal, his far-seeing policy, thanks to which a happy denouement of this particular story is brought about, are happily illustrated. Naturally enough our sin finally becomes a little monotonous. There is, however, so much idle gavel in the drama that his appearance is usually welcome. Of the serious business entrusted to the other personages, there is, as we have said, more than a sufficiency. We shall therefore not waste much space upon the story of our sin. It turns upon the rascality of one Broderick who all but murders Bill Plunkett, the champion liar of Calaveras, and then accuses York a gentleman minor of the crime. Just as a committee of lynchers are about to act upon a verdict of guilty, our sin fastens the guilt of the deed upon Broderick by the exhibition of the murderer's coat, which Broderick thought he had long since done away with, and Plunkett being subsequently brought into court safe and sound, the peace terminates happily. If Misser's heart and Twain had handled all their material as deftly as in the first act, our sin would have been a very praiseworthy effort. Although the longest of the four divisions of the play, the first awakens interest and closes with an ingenious surprise. The second act, concluding with an attempt to arrest our sin on a charge of murder, and with the flight of the vigilantes, who are routed by our sin, expectorating water upon them, as though he were dampening linen in a Chinese fashion, is tedious, and the third drags, sadly. The vicissitudes of a trial before a border jury enliven the fourth act, which would round off the peace very neatly if something besides a scene of extravagant joy were the burlesque preface the fall of the curtain. Our sin was capitally acted last night, and admirably placed upon the stage. Mr. Parsler's Chinaman could scarcely be excelled in truthfulness to nature and freedom from caricature. Mr. P. A. Anderson pictured with marked force and freedom from conventionality Bill Plunkett. Mr. Davitch, as the chief of the vigilantes, distinguished himself especially in the trial scene, and the remaining male roles found suitable interpreters in Messers Crisp, Collier, Weaver, Vary and Vining Bowers. Among the softer sex Mrs. Gilbert bore off the honours in a new rival of Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. Plunkett by name. Much of the language put into Mrs. Plunkett's mouth is far from refined, but some of it is funny, though the character and her peculiarities are become well-kny threadbare. A still more offensive type of femininity, Caroline Anastasia Plunkett, was represented by Miss Edith Bland, with becoming masculinity. Miss Dora Goldthwaite endowed Shirley Tempest with appropriate personal charms, and finally Miss Mary Wells did all that could be done with Mrs. Tempest. After the third act Mr. Clemens stepped before the footlights and delivered an address in his familiar vein, but with less than his wanted felicity of style and more than his wanted drawl. Our sin is to be repeated at the Fifth Avenue Theatre every evening until further notice. End of Section 22. August 1, 1877. Amusements. Fifth Avenue Theatre. Read by John Greenman. Section 23 of Mark Twain in the New York Times. Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times. Part 1. Section 23. September 20, 1877. Mark Twain's Tramp of the Sea. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain's Tramp of the Sea. The ship Jonas Smith. A strange craft and her colored captain. Begging for bread on the high seas. From Bermuda to no one knows where. Third Connecticut, September 19. Mr. Clemens, Mark Twain, in a letter to the Hartford Courant, solves the mystery of the bark Jonas Smith. Reported, spoken near Cape Fear recently. He was on a voyage from Bermuda, May 25, 1877, on the steamship Bermuda. The bark Jonas Smith was spoken with a signal of distress flying. She was ten days out from Bermuda, having left there for New York with five days provisions for a crew of about fifteen colored men. A boat with three men came to the steamer and got a supply of beef, potatoes, and sea biscuit. The facts about the vessel's history and crew, as told by Mr. Clemens, are as follows. One of the three men who came to us in the boat was the captain and owner of the vessel. We questioned him freely, and all that he said was confirmed afterward by three of our passengers who knew all about the matter. The poor old tub had been condemned officially in Bermuda and sold at auction, and, clearly enough, not as a whole, but by piecemeal, as one may say. For instance, one man bought the top masts and all the sails, I think. Another bought an anchor. Such odds and ends as skylights and such things. And this colored man bought what was left. These the empty hulk and the stumps of the four and main masts. He paid forty-two pounds for his bargain. Then he bought three old rags and made one due duty as a Spencer on the main mast, another as a jib, and a third as a sort of flying jib or jib stasel, whichever you please to call it. These had become rags indeed when we saw them, and practically appropriate to the wandering food soliciting ocean tramp, which the poor old outcast had been all these months that have since dragged by. One of our passengers said that the new owner of this solemn property was offered a sufficiency of ballast for his purposes for twenty-five dollars, but he was not able to afford it, and so went to sea in all his perilous emptiness. His idea was to take the craft to New York and sell her at a profit either as a coaster or to be broken up. We did not hear of any white man being on board, but of course there may have been one. I don't mean that Portuguese. But there were fifteen-colored men at first, if I remember rightly. I asked Captain Angrove how he could account for that extraordinary crew when five men would have been more than enough. He said it was easily explained. It was a great thing for those colored islanders to go abroad and see the world, that without doubt their only pay was their pleasure excursion. So this four months horror is a pleasure excursion. Imagine that. I said I should think that unless the winds were very favorable these rags would not enable the Hulk to overcome ocean currents, that when she struck the Gulf Stream she might be carried south, that the provisions would soon run out again, and so taking all things into consideration that the crew might be looked on as doomed, perhaps. But Captain Angrove said that their main trouble would be their danger of getting out of the track of vessels. If they could manage to keep in, that they could borrow food and water and extend their excursion indefinitely. Mr. Clemens gives an extract from his diary of May 25th with full details of meeting the ship, leaving no doubt that his Tramp of the Sea has now been four months out from Bermuda, and is now further from her destination than when she started. End of Section 23, September 20th, 1877, Mark Twain's Tramp of the Sea. Read by John Greenman. Section 24 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1. 1867-1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 24, October 7th, 1877. Mark Twain's War Experiences. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain's War Experiences. His graphic recital of them at the dinner to the Boston Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. Mr. Samuel L. Clemens was a guest at the dinner given the Boston Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Hartford by the Putnam phalanx of that city, and in responding to a toast said, I wouldn't have missed being here for a good deal. The last time I had the privilege of breaking bread with soldiers was some years ago with the oldest military organization in England, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of London, somewhere about its six hundredth anniversary. And now I have enjoyed this privilege with its eldest child, the oldest military organization in America, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. On this their two hundred and fortieth anniversary. I did not assemble at the Hotel Parlers to be received by a committee as a mere civilian guest. No, I assembled at the headquarters of the Putnam phalanx, and insisted upon my right to be escorted to this place as one of the military guests. For I did not assemble at the Hotel Parlers to be received by a committee as a mere civilian guest. No, I assembled at the headquarters of military guests. For I too am a soldier. I am enured to war. I have a military history. I have been through a stirring campaign, and there is not even a mention of it in any history of the United States or of the Southern Confederacy. To such lengths can the envy and the malignity of the historian go. I will un- bosom myself here, where I cannot but find sympathy. I will tell you about it, and appeal through you to justice. In the earliest summer days of the war I slipped out of Hannibal, Missouri by night with a friend, and joined a detachment of the rebel general Tom Harris's. I find myself in a great minority here. Army, up a large, behind an old barn in Rawls County. Colonel Rawls of Mexican War Celebrity swore us in. He made us swear to uphold the flag and the Constitution of the United States, and to destroy every other military organization that we caught doing the same thing, which, being interpreted, means that we were to repel invasion. Well, you see, this mixed us. We couldn't really tell which side we were on, but we went into camp and left it to the god of battles. For that was the term then. I was made second lieutenant and chief mogul of a company of eleven men who knew nothing about war, nor anything, for we had no captain. My friend, who was nineteen years old, six feet high, three feet wide, and some distance through, and just about of the infant school, was made orderly sergeant. His name was Ben Tupper. He had a hard time. When he was mounted and on the march he used to go to sleep, and his horse would reach around and bite him on the leg, and then he would wake up, and cry, and curse, and want to go home. The other men pestered him a good deal, too. When they were dismounted, they said they couldn't march in double file with him because his feet took up so much room. One night, when we were around the camp fire, some fellow on the outside in the cold said, Ben Tupper, put down that newspaper. It throws the whole place into twilight, and casts a shadow like a blanket. Ben said, I ain't got any newspaper. Then the other fellow said, Oh, I see, it was your ear. We all slept in a corn crib on the corn, and the rats were very thick. Ben Tupper had been carefully and rightly reared, and when he was ready for bed he would start to pray, and a rat would bite him on the heel, and then he would sit up and swear all night and keep everybody awake. He was town-bred and did not seem to have any correct idea of military discipline. If I commanded him to shut up, he would say, Who was your nigger last year? One evening I ordered him to ride out about three miles on picket duty to the beginning of a prairie. Said he, What, in the night? And then blamed Union soldiers likely to be prowling around there any time? So he wouldn't go. And the next morning I ordered him again. Said he, In the rain? I think I see myself. He didn't go. Next day I ordered him on picket duty once more. This time he looked hurt. Said he, What, on Sunday? You must be a blank fool! Well, picketing might have been a very good thing, but I saw it was impracticable, so I dropped it from my military system. We had a good enough time there at the barn, barring the rats and the mosquitoes and the rain. We levied on both parties impartially, and both parties hated us impartially. But one day we heard that the invader was approaching, so we had to pack up and move, of course, and within twenty-four hours he was coming again. So we moved again. Next day he was after us once more. Well, we didn't like that much, but we moved, rather than make trouble. This went on for a week or ten days more, and we saw a considerable scenery. Then Ben Tupper's patience was lost. Said he, War is not what it's cracked up to be. I'm going home, if I can't ever get a chance to sit down a minute. Why do these people keep us humping round so? Blame their skins, do they think this is an excursion? Some of the other town boys got to grumbling. They complained that there was an insufficiency of umbrellas. So I sent around to the farmers and borrowed what I could. Then they complained that the Worcestershire sauce was out. There was mutiny and dissatisfaction all around, and of course here came the enemy pestering us again, as much as two hours before breakfast, too, when nobody wanted to turn out, of course. This was a little too much. The whole command felt insulted. I detached one of my aides and sent him to the Brigadier, and asked him to assign us a district where there wasn't so much bother going on. The history of our campaign was laid before him, but instead of being touched by it, what did he do? He sent back an indignant message and said, You have had a dozen chances inside of two weeks to capture the enemy, and he is still at large. Well, we knew that. Stay where you are this time, or I will court-martial and hang the whole lot of you. Well, I submitted this brutal message to my battalion and asked their advice, said the orderly sergeant. If Tom Harris wants the enemy, let him come and get him. I ain't got any use for my share. And who's Tom Harris anyway I'd like to know that's putting on so many frills? Why, I knew him when he wasn't nothing but a darn telegraph operator. Gentlemen, you can do as you choose. As for me, I've got enough of this sashaying around so as to you can't get a chance to pray, because the time's all required for cussing, so off goes my war-paint. You hear me? The whole regiment said with one voice, That's the talk for me. So there and then, on the spot, my brigade disbanded itself and tramped off home with me at the tail of it. I hung up my own sword and returned to the arts of peace, and there were people who said I hadn't been absent from them yet. We were the first men that went into the service in Missouri. We were the first that went out of it anywhere. This gentleman is the history of the part which my division took in the great rebellion, and such is the military record of its commander in chief. And this is the first time that the deeds of those warriors have been brought officially to the notice of mankind. Treasure these things in your hearts, and so shall the detected and truculent historians of this land be brought to shame and confusion. I ask you to fill your glasses and drink with me to the reverent memory of the orderly sergeant and those other neglected and forgotten heroes, my foot sore and travel-stained paladins, who were first in war, first in peace, and were not idle during the interval that lay between. End of Section 24, October 7, 1877, Mark Twain's War Experiences, read by John Greenman. Section 25 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 25, December 20, 1877. Twain at the Whittier Dinner, read by John Greenman. Twain at the Whittier Dinner. His first and only attempt to travel on his Norm de Plume. The extraordinary guests, an old minor had. The Boston Advertiser gives the following report of the remarks of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens at the banquet given in honour of Mr. John G. Whittier in that city on Monday evening. Mr. Chairman, this is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk. Therefore I will drop lightly into history myself. Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic, and contemplating certain of its biggest literary billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me fifteen years ago when I had just succeeded in stirring up a little Navadian literary ocean puddle whose spoon flakes were beginning to blow thinly California word. I started an inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my Norm de Plume. I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a minor's lonely log cabin in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing at the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, bare-footed, opened to me. When he heard my Norm de Plume he looked more dejected than before. He let me in, pretty reluctantly I thought, and after the customary bacon and beans, black coffee and a hot whiskey, I took a pipe. This sorrowful man had not said three words up to this time. Now he spoke up and said, in the voice of one who is secretly suffering, You're the fourth. I'm going to move. The fourth what, said I? The fourth literary man that's been here in twenty-four hours. I'm going to move. You don't tell me, said I. Who were the others? Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Dad fetched the lot. You can easily believe I was interested. I supplicated. Three hot whiskeys did the rest. And finally the melancholy minor began. Said he. They came here just at dark yesterday. And I let them in, of course. Said they were going to Yo Semity. They were a rough lot. But that's nothing. Everybody looks rough that travels a foot. Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap. Red-headed. Mr. Holmes was as fat as a balloon. He weighed as much as three hundred. And had double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a prize fighter. His head was cropped and bristly. Like as if he had a wig made of hairbrushes. His nose lay straight down his face. Like a finger with the end-joint tilted up. They had been drinking. I could see that. And what a queer talk they used. Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin. Then he took me by the buttonhole and says he, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings build the more stately mansions o' my soul. Says I, I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes. And moreover I don't want to. Plained if I liked it pretty well either coming from a stranger that way. However I started to get out my bacon and beans when Mr. Emerson came and looked on a while. And then he takes me aside by the buttonhole and says give me aggots for my meat. Give me cantherides to eat. From air and ocean bring me foods from all zones and altitudes. Says I, Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me this ain't no hotel. You see it sort of riled me. I wasn't used to the ways of literary swells. But I went on a sweatin' over my work. And next comes Mr. Longfellow and buttonholes me and interrupts me. Says he, Honour be to much a kiwis. You shall hear how pal puk kiwis. But I broke in and says I beg in your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll be so kind as to hold your yacht for about five minutes and let me get this grub ready you'll do me proud. Well, sir, after they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then fires up all of a sudden and yells, Flush out a stream of blood red wine, for I would drink to other days. By George I was gettin' kinda worked up and I don't deny it. I was gettin' kinda worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes as I, looky hear, my fat friend, I'm a running this shanty. And if the court knows herself, you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry. Them's the very words I said to him. Now I didn't want to sass such famous literary people, but you see they kinda forced me. There ain't nothin' unreasonable about me. I don't mind a pass of the guests treadin' on my tail three or four times, but when it comes to standing on it it's different. And if the court knows herself you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry. Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin and strike attitudes and spout, says Mr. Long fellow. This is the forest primeval, says Mr. Emerson. Here once the embattled farmer stood and fired the shot heard round the world. Says I, oh, black guard the premises as much as you want to, they don't cost you a cent. Well, they went on drinking and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck and went to playing cutthroat yooker a ten cents a corner on trust. I began to notice some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson dealt, looked at his hand, shook his head, says I am the doubter and the doubt. And calmly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new layout. Says he, they reckon ill who leave me out they know not well the subtle ways I keep, I pass and deal again. Hanged if he didn't go ahead and do it too. Oh, he was a cool one. Well, in about a minute things were running pretty tight. But of a sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye that he judged he had him. He had already corralled two tricks and each of the others one. So now he kind of lifts a little in his chair and says, I tire of globes and aces. Too long the game is played. And down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Long fellow smiles as sweet as pie and says, Thanks, thanks to thee my worthy friend, for the lesson thou hast taught. And out my cats if he didn't down with another right bower. Well, sir, up jumps Holmes, a war whooping as usual and says, God help them if the tempest swings the pie in against the palm. And I wish I may go to grass if he didn't swoop down with another right bower. Emerson claps his hand on his bowie. Long fellow claps his on his revolver. And I went under a bunk. There was gong to be trouble. But that monstrous Holmes rose up wobbling his double shins 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 betcha. They were pretty, how come you so now? And they began to blow. Emerson says, The bulliest thing I ever wrote was Barbara Fritchie says, Long fellow, I don't begin with my big low papers. Says Holmes, my Thanotopsis lays over them both. They might near ended in a fight. Then they wished they had some more company. And Mr. Emerson pointed at me and says, Is yonder squalid peasant all that this proud nursery could breed? He was a wet in his bowie on his foot. So I let it pass. 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. That thirteen minutes passed for this morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke at seven, they were leaving, thank goodness. And Mr. Long fellow had my only boots on and his own under his arm. Says I, Hold on there, Evangeline. What are you going to do with them? He says, I'm going to make tracks with them because lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime and departing leave behind us footprints in 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 literary atmosphere. I said to the minor, Why, my dear sir, these were not the gracious singers to whom we and the world pay homage. These were imposters. The minor investigated me with a calm eye for a while. Then said he, Ah, imposters were they. Are you? I did not pursue the subject. And since then I haven't traveled on my non-deplume 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 the perpendicular fact on an occasion like this. End of Section 25, December 20, 1877, Twain at the Whittier Dinner, read by John Greenman. Section 26 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 26, April 12, 1878. The Start for Germany, read by John Greenman. The Start for Germany, Bayard Taylor, Off for Berlin. The Halsatia carries away the new minister, accompanied by Mark Twain in his family, and the wife and children of Mr. Murat Halstead. The first name on the passenger list of the Halsatia that sailed yesterday was Honorable Bayard Taylor, the United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Then followed Mrs. Bayard Taylor and Mrs. Lillian Taylor, Mrs. Murat Halstead, Mrs. Jenny Halstead, Master Robert Halstead, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens and family. Mr. Bayard Taylor, Envoy E. and Minister P. was on board bright and early, being an old enough traveler to go early and avoid the crowd. Although the rain trickled through the muddy looking skies in a light drizzle, he carried one of the crimson plush chairs from the upper salon to the after-deck where, thickly surrounded by his colored servant Gorge, he kept a watchful eye upon eight lead-colored trunks that lay upon the wharf. These trunks were not pieces of high art, but they fully made up in bulk and number for anything else they may have lacked. It was painfully evident that the new minister had made a raid upon his friend's trunks. Some of them were marked LT and others HBW, while all bore the words, in large black letters, Bayard Taylor, U.S. Legation Berlin. Two were also marked Wanted on the Volga. Gorge kept up a constant line of communication between his master and the trunks, perhaps to assure him that they were still safe, or perhaps again, to show that the opera glass he carried, swung from each shoulder was not too much for his strength. Several cords of steamer chairs, bearing the same ministerial marks, were piled upon the trunks. The new minister was smoking another of those large cigars, one eye upon the trunks, with the other watching the wreaths of smoke that puffed to Leward, when a peculiar-looking caravan drove down the pier. It might once have been a coach, but it had transformed into a sort of pyramid on wheels. As it stopped, and a door opened in its side, a gentleman and two ladies alighted, drawing after them a nurse and a large number of children whom they carefully counted. The lifting of a few dozen trunks from the top of the pyramid disclosed the gilsey house coach, shining with guilt. It had brought to the steamer Mr. and Mrs. Samuel L. Clemens, a lady friend of Mrs. Clemens, several children, and a nurse. Mark Twain, the innocent, who was soon to be abroad again, wore a small black silk cap, which, as one of the bystanders said, made him look like a breakman. Having checked off his family into the saloon, he came out upon the deck to shake hands with the new minister. "'Where's Halstead?' said the innocent. "'I don't know,' replied the minister. "'I haven't seen him to-day. I left him about one o'clock this morning.' "'One o'clock?' echoed Mark Twain. "'Why, you ought to have been in bed by that time.' "'I know it,' replied the minister. And I begged Reed not to keep it up the last night, but he insisted. When they were all so jolly, I couldn't get away. I've had a hard time of it the last two weeks.' "'I've had just as hard a time,' said Mark. "'I've been rail-roading for two weeks and taking mixed drinks. I suppose you stick to one thing all the time straight.' "'Well, I don't know,' said Bayard Taylor. "'What do you call straight drinks?' "'Coffee,' said Mark, or whiskey, if you drink it all the time.' A heavy increase in the shower here rudely broke up what promised to be an important state communication. Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, while in one of the fits of sober interest that strike him occasionally, said that he was going to Germany, partly for the health of his family, and partly to give him an opportunity to write, which he finds he cannot do well at home. "'I am going to the most out-of-the-way place in Germany. I can find,' said he, fifty miles away from any railroad where I can sleep more than half the time. We have not rented our house in Hartford, so if we get tired soon there is nothing to prevent us from coming back at any time. But if we like it we may stay for two or three years.' On being asked whether he had more innocence abroad in mind, he replied, "'I am going to do some writing. I have been contemplating it for a long time, and now I am in for it. But it will not be any more innocence abroad. That is done up and done for.' "'You would better travel this time as the Sage of Hartford,' suggested Minister Taylor. "'I will,' said Mark, or the time, or any other herb.' Mark Twain was accompanied to the steamer by the historical character Dan, with whom every reader of the innocence abroad is well acquainted. Dan is Mr. Daniel Slote, a wholesale stationer of William Street and the manufacturer of the Mark Twain scrapbooks. Dan engaged Mark's staterooms several weeks ago, anonymously, and, as he confessed, was warned by Sam that he must be careful when he said to those newspaper-fellows. Dan insisted upon saying that Sam is one of the best fellows in the world and the funniest, and the latter statement was so evidently true that it carried the other through without question. "'I know him from top to bottom,' said Dan. When we were out on the Quaker City expedition, he was the hardest working man I ever sell. Why, out in Egypt, where the fleas were so thick you couldn't breathe without swallowing a thousand, that man used to sit up and write right half the night. I used to have to get my clothes off in a second and hustle into bed before any of the fleas had a chance to get between the sheets. And I was vainly trying to get to sleep. I'd say to Clemens, Sam, how the deuce can you stand it to write out there among the fleas?' "'Oh, I'm all right,' Sam would say. They've got a railroad track eaten out around both ankles, and they keep in that pretty well, so I don't bother with them.' Mr. Taylor went below an hour before the sailing time to avoid the rain that, at one o'clock, came down in torrents. Mark Twain, however, having soothed the youngest baby into a quiet state, went down to the pier to have a last chat with Dan, who, by the way, is the image of his picture in The Innocence Abroad. They were at once surrounded by an army of press representatives, one of whom went so far as to ask Twain, "'Are you going to Europe?' A thing that, in the most matter-of-fact newspaper, might safely have been taken for granted under the circumstances. Somebody spoke of the quantities of flowers the passengers had taken into the saloon. "'Yes,' said Mark. "'It's all nonsense. They run it into the ground. I was talking with some of my relations about it the other day and told them what I thought about it, particularly at funerals. They said they had intended to give me a good send-off when I died. But if I didn't like flowers they wouldn't send any. I told them that was all right. I'd rather have ice anyhow.' Our new minister appeared upon the deck again. He walked to the stem and looked anxiously up the street. There was nobody in sight, but an old lady selling beaded pin-cushions, and a peanut-man. It was not either of these that the new minister wished to see. He kept up his anxious look while Mark Twain, still standing upon the wharf, told how all the ocean steamers feed their passengers well, except one line that he named, which he said still gives its passengers the same fare it did thirty years ago, invariably giving them boiled rice and stewed prunes every Thursday for the benefit of their health. The steamer had been waiting for the mail wagon, and at last the wagon drove up. The ship would sail in a quarter of an hour. The minister kept up his anxious look over the stern post. At last a coop, drawn by a lame horse, came in sight. The minister knew the limp of that lame horse, and a look of joy overspread his face. He rushed to the gang-plank. The lame horse pranced furiously up on three legs. A gentleman alighted. He sprang up the gangway. He grasped the new minister. By Jove! panted White-Law Reed. I was afraid I'd be too late. Well, don't break my umbrella, said minister Taylor. There's time enough for a last embrace. There is, my noble friend, there is," responded the alleged editor. But the morning waxeth, damper, let us within and get a blank. The voice was lost in the stairway. The last word was probably blanket. When they reappeared, one of the Halsatia's gold-laced captains was on the gang-plank, driving everybody ashore who was not going to cross the ocean. Come, young feller," said he to the editor, in singularly pure German, you'd better be gettin' offin' here! Sir," retorted the latter, do you know who I blank? No," said the officer, still in German. But you've got to skip. I don't care some German word who you are. We must part," said the editor, suddenly to Bayard Taylor. That's so," said Mr. Taylor. Adjah, adjah! Goodbye, old boy! Don't be soft if you were out late! Goodbye!" The whistle blew. The steerage passengers began to leak about the eyes. They were off. Goodbye, new minister at Berlin! Goodbye, Mark Twain. End of Section 26, April 12, 1878, The Start for Germany. Red by John Greenman. Section 27 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 1, Section 27, April 11, 1879. Too late for Roger McPherson. Mark Twain apologizes for not making a speech. Red by John Greenman. Too late for Roger McPherson. Mark Twain apologizes for not making a speech. Mark Twain was recently at a dinner of the Stanley Club in Paris, and being called upon for a speech is thus reported by the Continental Gazette. Mr. Ryan said to me, just now, that I'd got to make a speech. I said to Mr. Ryan, the news came too late to save Roger McPherson. It is sad to know that some things always come too late, and when I look around upon this brilliant assembly I feel disappointed to think what a nice speech I might have made, what fine topics I might have found in Paris to speak about among these historic monuments, the architecture of Paris, the towers of Notre-Dame, the caves, and other ancient things. Then I might have said something about the objects of which Paris folks are fond, literature, art, medicine, then taking a card from his vest pocket as if to take a glance at his notes, and adultery. But the news came too late to save Roger McPherson. Perhaps you are not as well acquainted with McPherson as I am. Well, I'll explain who McPherson was. When we sailed from New York there came on board a man all haggard, a mere skeleton. He wasn't much of a man, he wasn't, and on the voyage we often heard him say to himself, the news came too late to save Roger McPherson. I got interested, and I wanted to know about the man, so I asked him who was McPherson, and he said, I'm McPherson, but the news came too late to save Roger McPherson. How too late, I asked. About three weeks too late, he replied, and I'll tell you how it happened. A friend of mine died, and they told me I must take his body on the cars to his parents in Illinois. I said I'd do it, and they gave me a card with the address, and told me to go down to the depot, and put it on a box I'd find there, have the box put on the baggage car, and go right along with it to Illinois. I found the box all right, and nailed the card on it, and put it on the cars. Then I went in the depot and got a sandwich. I was walking around eating my sandwich, and I passed by the baggage room, and there was my box with a young man walking around looking at it, and he had a card in his hand. I felt like going up to that young man and saying, Stranger, that's my corpse. But I didn't. I walked on ate my sandwich, and when I looked in again the young man was gone, but there was that card nailed right on that box. I went and looked on that card, it was directed to Colonel Jenkins, Cleveland, Ohio. So I looked in the car, and there was my box all right. Just before the train started a man came into the baggage car and laid a lot of Limburger cheese down on my box. He didn't know what was in my box, you know, and I didn't know what was in his paper. But I found out later it was an awful cold night, and after we started the baggage master came in. He was a nice fellow, Johnson was, and he said, a man would freeze to death out there. I'll make it all right. So he shut all the doors and all the windows, built a roaring coal fire in the stove, then he took turns fixing the car and poking the fire till I began to smell something and feel uncomfortable. So I moved as far away from my corpse as I could, and Johnson says to me, a friend of yours? Did he die lately? This year, I mean? Says I. I'll fix it. So I opened a window and we took turns breathing the fresh air. After a while Johnson said, let's smoke. I think that'll fix it. So we lit our cigars and puffed a bit, but we got so sick that we let him go out again. It didn't do any good. We tried the air again. Says Johnson. He's in no trance, is he? There's doubt about some people being dead, but there's no doubt about him, is there? What did he die of? We stopped at a station and when we started off again Johnson came in with a bottle of disinfector and says, I've got something now that'll fix it. So he sprinkled it all around over the box, a Limburger, and over everything, but it wouldn't do. The smell didn't mix well. Johnson said, just think of it. We've all got to die. All got to come to this. Then we thought we'd move the box to one end of the car, so we stooped over it. I took one end and he took the other, but we couldn't get it far. Johnson says, we'll freeze to death if we stay out on the platform. We'll die if we stay in here. So we took hold of it again, but Johnson, he couldn't stand it. He fell right over. I dragged him out on the platform and the cold air soon brought him to, and we went in the car to get warm. What are we going to do? asked Johnson, and he looked ill. We are sure to have typhoid fever and a half a dozen other fevers. We're poisoned, we are. At last we thought it was better to go out on the platform. In an hour and a half I was taken off that platform stiff, nearly frozen to death. They put me to bed and I had all them fevers that Johnson spoke about. You see, the thing worked on my mind. It didn't do me no good to learn, three weeks later, that there had been a mistake. That corpse had gone to Colonel Jenkins, Cleveland, and that I'd taken his box of rifles for decent burial to Illinois. The news came too late to save Roger McPherson, about three weeks too late. Amid roars of applause Mr. Twain closed by saying, When I'm not prepared to speak I always apologize, and that's the reason I've told you so much about Roger McPherson. End of Section 27, April 11, 1879, too late for Roger McPherson. Read by John Greenman. Section 28 of Mark Twain in the New York Times Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times Part 1, Section 28, September 3, 1879. Mark Twain Home Again. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain Home Again. What he says about the new book he has written. A work something like Innocence Abroad. Longing for a ride on the Elevated Road. An audience that waited in vain for a stupendous joke. Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, who is much better known to Americans as Mark Twain, the pilgrim who was moved to tears while leaning upon the tomb of Adam and the nearest surviving kin of the jumping frog of Calaveras, reached this city in the steamship Gallia yesterday, after an absence of a year and a half in Europe. Mr. Twain was accompanied by his wife, twelve trunks and twenty-two freight packages, and the entire party, after a smooth voyage, arrived in good health and spirits and were met and welcomed down at quarantine by a number of friends. During his absence he has visited London, Paris, Heidelberg, Munich, Venice, and a number of other cities, spending most of his time on the continent, and making prolonged stays in Paris, Heidelberg, and Munich. When Mark Twain went away it was generally believed that his attention was to familiarize himself with German, but he might prepare one or two scientific works that are still lacking in that language. He not only did not deny these reports, but rather encouraged them, and his taking passage in a German steamer added greater probability to them. It is now certain, however, that such was not his object. He did have some designs upon the German language, but not with the intention of producing a scientific work. A very celebrated professor in Munich, who has since died, wrote him a long German letter, inquiring about the point of one of the jokes in Innocence Abroad, and Mr. Twain desired to learn enough of the language to explain away the difficulty. After more than a year of study he says he can read German well enough, but that, when it comes to talking, English is good enough for him. Yes, said he in response to questions asked by a group of reporters who surrounded him on all sides, except that occupied by the saloon table so thickly that he could not fill out his custom house declaration, I have been writing a new book, and have it nearly finished, all but the last two or three chapters. The first half of it, I guess, is finished, but the last half has not been revised yet, and when I get at it I will do a good deal of rewriting and a great deal of tearing up. I may possibly tear up the first part of it too, and rewrite that. With all this tearing up and prospect the book seemed in such danger of being entirely destroyed that one of the reporters suggested the production of a few chapters in advance in the newspapers as samples, but Mr. Twain said that the manuscript was in the bottom of one of his trunks where it could not possibly be reached. He added, however, that the book was descriptive of his latest trip and the places he visited, entirely solemn in character, like The Innocence Abroad, and very much after the general plan of that work, and that it has not yet been named. It is to be published by the same company that brought out his other books, and is to be ready in November. They want me to stay in New York and revise it, he continued, but I cannot possibly do that. I am going to start tomorrow morning for Elmira, where we will stay for some time. On his outgoing voyage Mr. Twain had for fellow passengers Mr. Bayard Taylor, the American minister to Germany, and Mr. Murat Halstead, who started on five minutes' notice, and without any clothes, except those he wore. I did not see Mr. Taylor after we left the ship, he said, but corresponded frequently with him. His death was a great surprise to me. Oh, no, I did not lend Mr. Halstead any clothes. He could not get into mine, and besides, I hadn't any more than I wanted for myself. The age of the author of Innocence Abroad, roughing it, and the Gilded Age, has not increased apparently in the last two years. His hair is no whiter than when he last sailed for Europe. He is very much the same man, except that he went away in a silk cap, and came back in a cloth cap. He was particularly well pleased with the steamer. I don't like some of these vessels, said he. Some of them keep a man hungry all the time, unless he has a good appetite for boiled rice. I know some steamers where they have the same bill of fare they used to have when the company ran sailing pockets. Beans on Tuesday and Friday, stewed prunes on Thursday, and boiled rice on Wednesday. All very healthy, but very bad. But we are fed like princes aboard here, and have made a comfortable voyage. We have been in some seas that would have made the old Quaker City turn somersaults. But this ship kept steady through it all. We could leave a mirror lying on the wash stand, and it would not fall off. If we stood a goblet loose on the shelf at night, it would be there in the morning. Mr. Twain declined positively, however, to say whether a cocktail left standing on the shelf at night would be there all safe in the morning. The ship was hardly steady enough for that. There was a little ponderous silence that no one interrupted, for the returning writer was evidently revolving something in his mind. I want a ride on one of the elevated railroads, said he. I've never been on one of them yet. I used to be afraid of them, but it's no use. Death stares us in the face everywhere, and we may as well take it in its elevated form. I have a friend who wanted to ride on the elevated when the first one was built, but when he looked at it he thought of his wife and children, and concluded to walk home. On the way uptown a woman who was washing a third-story window fell out, and just grazed my friend's head. She was killed, and he had a very narrow escape. It's no use. There are women washing windows everywhere, and we may as well fall as befallen upon. This new book of mine, said he, breaking suddenly off from the Custom House blanks, is different from any book I ever wrote. Before I revised the manuscript as I went along and knew pretty well at the end of each week how much of the weeks work I should use and how much I should throw away. But this one has been written pretty much all in a lump, and I hardly know how much of it I will use, or how much will have to be torn up. When I start at it I tear it up pretty fast, but I think the first half will stand pretty much as it is. I am not quite sure that there is enough yet prepared, but I am still at work at it. The group of reporters and five or six listening cabin passengers stood by waiting for something stupendous in the way of a joke to follow all this serious talk. Several times Mr. Twain's lips moved, as if about to speak, but he was silent. The upper end of Staten Island was passed, and the joke was still unborn. Governor's Island came alongside. The battery drew a stern. The quenard pier was reached, and yet the joker, by profession and reputation, kept his audience in suspense. The landing was made, but the joke still lay locked up with the manuscript in the bottom of the trunk. End of Section 28, September 3, 1879, Mark Twain Home Again, read by John Greenman. Section 29 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 1, Section 29, October 19, 1879, The Innocence in Elmira, and Patriotic Letter from Mark Twain. Read by John Greenman. The Innocence in Elmira. Mark Twain conducts a large Republican meeting, General Hawley, Politics and Beautiful Snow. Elmira, New York, October 18. The largest political meeting of the campaign was held in this city by the Republicans last evening. The opera house was densely packed to hear General Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut. General Hawley was introduced by Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens, who said, I see I am advertised to introduce the speaker of the evening, General Hawley of Connecticut, and I see it is the report that I am to make a political speech. Now I must say this is an error. I wasn't constructed to make stump speeches, and on that head, politics, I have only this to say. First, see that you vote. Second, see that your neighbor votes. Lastly, see that yourself or neighbor don't scratch the ticket. General Hawley was president of the Centennial Commission. He was a gallant soldier in the war. He has been governor of Connecticut, member of Congress, and was president of the convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln. General Hawley, that nominated Grant Twain, he says it was Grant, but I know better. He is a member of my church at Hartford and the author of Beautiful Snow. Maybe he will deny that, but I am only here to give him a character from his last place. As a pure citizen I respect him. As a personal friend of years I have the warmest regard for him. As a neighbor whose vegetable garden adjoins mine, why, why, I watch him. That's nothing. We all do that with any neighbor. Mr. Hawley keeps his promises not only in private, but in public. He is an editor who believes what he writes in his own paper. As the author of Beautiful Snow he has added a new pang to winter. He is broad-sold, generous, noble, liberal, alive to his moral and religious responsibilities. Whenever the contribution box was passed I never knew him to take out a cent. He is a square, true, honest man in politics, and I must say he occupies a mighty lonesome position. He has never shirked a duty or backed down from any position taken in public life. He has been right every time and stood there. As governor, as congressman, as a soldier, as the head of the Centennial Commission which increased our trade in every port, and pushed American production into all the known world, he has conferred honor and credit upon the United States. He is an American of Americans. Would we had more such men? So broad, so bountiful is his character, that he never turned a tramp empty-handed from his door, but always gave him a letter of introduction to me. His public trusts have been many, and never in the slightest did he prove unfaithful. Pure, honest, incorruptible, that is Joe Hawley. Such a man in politics is like a bottle of perfumery in a glue factory. It may modify the stench, but it doesn't destroy it. And now, in speaking thus highly of the speaker of the evening, I haven't said any more of him than I would say of myself. Ladies and gentlemen, this is General Hawley. Mr. Clemens was frequently interrupted by applause and laughter. At the close of his remarks, General Hawley stepped forward and, for an hour and a half, spoke on the issues of the day. End of The Innocence in Elmira Patriotic Letter from Mark Twain The following letter from Mark Twain was read at the dinner, given the Gates City Guard of Atlanta, Georgia, in Hartford, Connecticut, on Thursday. Elmira, October 14th P. D. Peltier, Esquire Dear sir, please receive my best thanks for the invitation to meet the Atlanta soldiers and the Putnam's. I was on the point of starting when a committee requested me to remain here and introduce General Joseph R. Hawley to a political mass meeting. This was a great surprise to me, for I had supposed the man was comparatively well-known. I shall remain, of course, and shall do what I can to blow the fog from around his fame. Meantime, will you kindly see that the portion of your banquet, which I should be allowed to consume if I were present, is equitably distributed among the public charities of our several states and territories? I would not that any partiality be shown on account of political creed or geographical position, but would beg that all the crates be of the same heft. I am glad to add my voice to yours in welcoming the Georgians to Hartford. Personal contact and communion of the Northerners and Southerners over the friendly board will do more toward obliterating sectional lines and restoring mutual respect and esteem than any other thing that can be devised. We cannot meet thus too often, for whereas we meet as Northerners and Southerners we grow in breadth and stature, meantime, and part as Americans. There is not any name among the world's nationalities that can oversize that one, sincerely hoping that our guests will receive a welcome at our town's hands which will cause them to forget the length of their journey and make them willing to come again. I am truly yours, S. L. Clemens. End of Patriotic Letter from Mark Twain. And Section 29, October 19, 1879, read by John Greenman. Section 30 of Mark Twain in the New York Times Part 1, 1867 to 1879. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times Part 1, Section 30, November 15, 1879. Banquet of the Army of the Tennessee. Read by John Greenman. Banquet of the Army of the Tennessee. Another long speech by the general. The Toasts and the Speakers. Chicago, November 14. At the banquet last night given by the Society of the Army of the Tennessee at the Palmer House, six hundred and one covers were laid, and every chair was occupied. The bill of fare was printed on a card shaped into the likeness of a tent, adorned with battle scenes. After dinner the President of the Society announced the first toast, our country, her place among nations. General Grant responded as follows. General of the Army and invited guests. A notice was sent to me some days ago that I was to speak, but I paid no attention to it at the time. Having had no idea until I got here what it was I was to reply to, and thinking that when the time came I could execute some flank movement and get out of it. But after my arrival here I found I was to be the first one to be called upon. You would have me say much about the position of our country among the nations of the earth. Our nation we have been in the habit of looking upon as one of the first nations of the earth. For a long period of time the Yankee had not only a very respectable opinion of himself, but of his country as a whole. And it has been our opinion that we had nothing to fear in a contest with any other power. I am pleased to say that from the observations that I have been able to make in the last two and a half years we are beginning to be regarded a little by other powers as we in our vanity have regarded ourselves as to the place we have among nations. I think we have all the elements that go to make up a great nationality. We have the strength, we have the individual self-controlling independence, and we have to a greater degree than almost any other nation the power to colonize and settle up new countries and develop them. We have also a very great advantage in being without neighbors to molest or make us afraid. It is true we have northern frontiers and southern frontiers, and we get along with a very small army, keeping no standing army, and what little we have is not a standing army because it has no time to stand. I do not know anything that I can especially add to what I have said except in the way of advice, and that is, let us be true to ourselves, avoid all bitterness and ill-feeling either on the part of sections or parties toward each other, and we need have no fear in future of maintaining the standing we have taken among nations so far as opposition from foreign nations goes. A applause. The second toast, the President and Congress of the United States, was then given. General Logan in response discussed the relations and respective duties of these two branches of the government from a legal and political standpoint. He reviewed the list of presidents who have served with honor to themselves and to the nation with special eulogies of Jackson, Lincoln, and Grant. The third toast, the Army of the Tennessee under great leaders, it accomplished great victories, was replied to by General S.A. Holbert. General Holbert's remarks were followed by music by the Lombards, marching through Georgia, the whole company joining the chorus. The fourth toast, our first commander, General U.S. Grant, was responded to by Colonel Villas. The fifth toast, the Army of the Tennessee in the absence of Lieutenant General Sheridan, was responded to by General Schofield. The response to the sixth toast, the Navy, was assigned to Secretary Thompson. The seventh toast, the Officers and Soldiers of the Mexican War, was responded to by Leonard Sweatt. The eighth toast, the memory of McPherson, Blair, and all of our heroic dead, was drunk standing and in silence, a dirge being played by the band. The ninth toast was the Army of the Cumberland and its leader, the Rock of Chickamauga. Their glory can never fade, and was responded to by General Garfield. The tenth toast, the Army of the Potomac, it fought with persistent, valor and achieved victory and undying fame, was responded to by General Woodford. The response to the eleventh toast, all the other armies of the Union, alike with us, they shared the honor of its grand achievement, devolved on General Pope. The twelfth toast, the Volunteer Soldiers of the Union Army, whose valorous patriotism saved to the world a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, was responded to by Colonel Ingersoll. The thirteenth toast, the patriotic people of the United States who fed, clothed, and encouraged our armies, and stood by us in defeat as well as in victory, was responded to by Emery A. Stores. The response to the fourteenth toast, Woman, devolved on General Fletcher. The fifteenth toast, the Babies. As they comfort us in our sorrows, let us not forget them, in our festivities, was responded to by Samuel L. Clemens in a humorous and highly appreciated speech. His injunction, As long as you are in your right mind, don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot, and there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection, called forth shouts of laughter. In conclusion he alluded to the future Farraguts, historians and presidents, who are now lying in their cradles, and said, In still one more cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find some way to get his big toe into his mouth. An achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his attention to some fifty-six years ago. And if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded. Laughter and applause. General Grant is spending today quietly at the house of his son, Colonel Fred Grant, where he held a private reception this afternoon. In the evening the Chicago Club tendered him a reception. Tomorrow afternoon General Grant will have his first public reception here at the Grand Pacific Hotel, lasting from three to five o'clock. The public at large will thus have an opportunity to shake him by hand. Later in the evening he will sit down with a few friends to a dinner given by John B. Drake. Among those invited to meet him at the dinner are Judge Drummond of the United States Circuit Court and Governor Geir of Iowa. End of Section 30. November 15th, 1879. Banquet of the Army of the Tennessee. Read by John Greenman.