 Section 1 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 1, January 2, 1880. Mark Twain on Artemis Ward, read by John Greenman. Mark Twain on Artemis Ward. He pays him a friend's tribute, and tells a new story. From Knoxville, Tennessee Tribune. Some time ago, as our readers will doubly remember, we took the position that Mark Twain stood at the head of American humorists and wits, the National American having given that place to Artemis Ward. We sent a copy of the Tribune containing our answer to the American's article to Mark Twain, and in reply we have a very pleasant letter from that great American mirth-provoker. Mr. Clemens speaks with such kindness of Artemis Ward, and discusses some of the personal qualities that endeared him to the English people in such a pleasant way, that we are sure he will not object to the publication of that part of the letter. It also affords us an opportunity to put in print a guac, perpetrated by Artemis, which Mr. Clemens assures us has never before been published. Mark Twain was born in East Tennessee, and perhaps still retains some affection for the scenes of his childhood. At any rate, he counts, in East Tennessee, many of his most enthusiastic admirers and sincere friends. The letter of which we have spoken is as follows, and we hope Brother Dock, of the American, will enjoy the new joke attributed to his favorite humorists. Hartford, December 18, 1879, Frank B. Ernest Esquire. Dear Sir, I thank you very much for that pleasant article. Of course it is not for me to judge between Artemis and myself or trade merits, but when it comes to speaking of matters personally, I am a good witness. Artemis was one of the kindest and gentlest men in the world, and the hold which he took on the Londoners surpasses imagination. To this day one of the first questions which a Londoner asks me is if I knew Artemis Ward. The answer? Yes. Makes that man my friend on the spot. Artemis seems to have been on the warmest terms with thousands of those people. Well, he seems never to have written a harsh thing against anybody. Neither have I, for that matter, at least nothing harsh enough for a body to fret about, and I think he never felt bitter toward people. There may have been three or four other people like that in the world at one time or another, but they probably died a good while ago. I think his lecture on the babes in the wood was the funniest thing I ever listened to. Artemis once said to me gravely, almost sadly, Clemens, I have done too much fooling, too much trifling, I am going to write something that will live. Well what, for instance? In the same grave way he said, a lie. It was an admirable surprise. I was just getting ready to cry. He was becoming so pathetic. This has never been in print. You should give it to your friend of the American, for I judge by what he writes on Artemis that he will appreciate it. I think it's mighty bright, as well for its quiet sarcasm as for its happy suddenness and unexpectedness. Yours truly, S. L. Clemens. of Section 1, January 2, 1880, Mark Twain on Artemis Ward, read by John Greenman. Section 2 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 2, October 17, 1880. General Grant in Hartford, welcomed with processions, speeches, and fireworks, read by John Greenman. General Grant in Hartford, welcomed with processions, speeches, and fireworks. The departure from Boston, a public reception in Hartford, welcomed by Samuel L. Clemens and others, General Grant's response, starting for New York. Starting October 16. General Grant and Party left the Brunswick about eight o'clock this morning, and were driven to the depot of the New York and New England Road, where they took the train for Hartford. A large number of people assembled to see him off. At 8.20 the train moved off amid the cheers of the crowd. Hartford, October 16. The train stopped a short time at Putnam, where a great number of people assembled. At Willamantic the train was back down on the Providence Division, where the fifteen hundred employees of the Willamantic Linnon Company assembled in front of their large new mill. General Grant stood upon the platform and received a cordial welcome from the assembly. One of the girls employed in the mill presented him a cabinet containing an assortment of thread manufactured at the company's mills. General Hawley joined the train here, and the party was also met by others of the special reception committee from Hartford, including James G. Batterson, whose guest General Grant is, Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, ex-Governor Marshall Jewel, Colonel Frank W. Cheney, and other prominent citizens. The train arrived at Hartford at twelve o'clock, and the party took carriages immediately for the Allen House. The ladies of General Grant's party went on to New York by special car attached to the twelve-twenty-five train from Hartford. The city was thronged with visitors, business was almost suspended, and the streets were lined with decorations not only along the line of March of the procession, but elsewhere. After a collation at the Allen House, General Grant was formally received on a stand in Bushnell Park, addresses of welcome being made by Mr. James G. Batterson, Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, and General Hawley. Mr. Clemens spoke as follows. General Grant, I also am deputized to welcome you to the sincere and cordial hospitalities of Hartford, the city of the historic and revered Charter Oak, of which the most of this town is built, laughter. At first it was proposed to have only one speaker to welcome you, but this was changed because it was feared that considering the shortness of the crop of speeches this year, if anything occurred to prevent that speaker from delivering his speech, you would feel disappointed. Laughter and applause. I desire at this point to refer to your past history. By years of colossal labor and colossal achievement, you at last beat down a gigantic rebellion and saved your country from destruction. Then the country commanded you to take the helm of state. You preferred your great office of general of the army, and the rest and comfort which it afforded, but you loyally obeyed and relinquished permanently the ample and well-earned salary of the general ship, and resigned your accumulating years to the chance mercies of a precarious existence. Applause. By this present fatiguing progress through the land, you are mightily contributing towards saving your country once more, this time from dishonor and shame and from commercial disaster. Applause. You are now a private citizen, but private employments are close against you because your name would be used for speculative purposes, and you have refused to permit that. But your country will reward you never fear. Loud applause. In Wellington, one Waterloo, a battle about on a level with some dozen of your victories, sordid England tried to pay him for that service with wealth and grandeur. She made him a duke, and gave him four million dollars. If you had done and suffered for any other country what you have done and suffered for your own, you would have been affronted in the same sordid way. But thank God this vast and rich and mighty republic is imbued to the core with a delicacy which will forever preserve her from so degrading a deserving son. Your country loves you. Your country is proud of you. Your country is grateful to you. Applause. Her applause which have been thundering in your ears all these weeks and months will never cease while the flag you saved continues to wave. Great applause. Your country stands ready from this day forth to testify her measureless love and pride and gratitude toward you in every conceivable, inexpensive way. Welcome to Hartford, great soldier, honoured statesman, unselfish citizen. Loud and long continued applause. General Grant said, Mr. President, and gentlemen of Hartford, I am very proud of the welcomes that I have received at the hands of my fellow citizens from San Francisco to Boston. But this is the first occasion when I have been thrice welcomed. So much has been said in the three welcomes I have received that it leaves me little to say, except to disagree with the last speaker as to the character of the American people for generosity. General Grant thus referred to remarks of Mark Twain substantially to the effect that republics are ungrateful. I recognize their generosity, and what they have given me is more valued than gold or silver. No amount of the latter could compensate for the courtesy and kind feeling with which I have everywhere been received. I feel you have given testimony to that today, and for that I thank you one and all. General Grant and party then entered carriages and were escorted through the city by a procession composed of two thousand or more veterans and soldiers from all parts of the state, and nearly three thousand members of the Republican campaign clubs of Hartford and the surrounding towns. After the parade, General Grant, General Hawley, General Badoe, and other invited guests dined with Mr. James G. Batterson. Subsequently there was a reception for an hour at the residence of General William H. Bulkley, after which there were a grand torchlight parade, illuminations and decorations, and in a blaze of fireworks, electric lights and torches, and the cheers of thousands of people, General Grant was escorted to the depot, leaving by the 10.25 p.m. train for New York. End of Section 2, October 17, 1880, General Grant in Hartford. Read by John Greenman. Section 3 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 3. Mark Twain Lifts His Voice. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain Lifts His Voice. Telling Hartford Republicans how to vote and what to vote for. Hartford, Connecticut, October 26. An audience of nearly 2,500 people assembled in the opera house tonight to hear addresses by Charles Dudley Warner, the Honorable Henry C. Robinson, and Mark Twain. The latter made a characteristic speech. He spoke as follows. "'Friends say to me, what do you mean by this? You swore off from lecturing years ago!' "'Well, that is true, I did reform, and I reformed permanently, too. But this ain't a lecture, it is only a speech. Nothing but a mere old, cut-and-dried, impromptu speech. And there's a great moral difference between a lecture and a speech, I can tell you, or when you deliver a lecture, you get good pay. But when you make a speech, you don't get a cent. You don't get anything at all from your own party, and you don't get anything out of the opposition, but a noble, good supply of infamous episodes in your own private life, which you hadn't heard of before. Scorching lot of facts about your private rascalities and scoundrelisms, which is brand new to you, and good enough stuff for buy-and-buy, when you get ready to write your autobiography, but of no immediate use to you, further than to show you what you could have become if you had attended strictly to business. I have never made but one political speech before this. That was years ago. I made a logical, closely-reasoned, compact, powerful argument against a discriminating and iniquitous tax which was about to be imposed by the opposition. I may say I made a most thoughtful, symmetrical, and admirable argument, but a Michigan newspaper editor answered it, refuted it, utterly demolished it by saying I was in the constant habit of horse-whipping my great-grandmother. I should not have minded it so much. Well, I don't know that I should have minded it at all, a little thing like that. If he had said I did it for her good, but when he said I merely did it for exercise, I felt that such a statement as that was almost sure to cast a shadow over my character. However, I don't mind these things particularly. It is the only intelligent and patriotic way of conducting a campaign. I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me, I consider that that is taking an unfair advantage. Why should we be bitter against each other, such of us of both parties as are not ashamed of being Americans? But perhaps I have said enough by way of preface. I am going to vote the Republican ticket myself from old habit, but what I am here for is to try to persuade you to vote the Democratic ticket, because if you throw the government of this country into the hands of the Republicans, they will unquestionably kill that Wood Tariff project. But if you throw this government into the hands of the Democrats, the Wood Tariff project will become the law of the land, and every one of us will reap his share of the enormous benefits resulting from it. There will be nothing sectional about it. Its wholesome generosity are as all embracing as the broad and general atmosphere. The North, the South, the East, the West will all have their portion of those benefactions. Consider the South's share, for instance. With a Tariff's for revenue only, and no Tariff for protection, she will not be obliged to carry on a trade with us of the North and pay Northern prices. No, she can buy of England, duty free, at far cheaper rates. The price of her cotton will remain as before, but the cost of producing will be vastly diminished, and the profit vastly increased. Wealth will pour in on her in such a deluge that she will not know what to do with the money. In time she will be able to buy and sell the North. Will the South cast a solid vote for the Wood Tariff bill? I am glad to believe, yes, to know that the South will stand by our Senator eaten to a man in this great and good cause. The speaker then showed in a facetious way what benefits the North would derive from free trade. The chief benefit would be in getting rid of factory smoke. He showed the saving in washing-bills and profanity, and in the enforced idleness which would be produced. Capable men could be hired for fifty cents a day. Houses could be built cheaper, and real estate would be the same price on the ground that it was in a cart. There would be a long holiday season, and the streets of the North would be adorned with soft, rich carpets of grass. The odious law, which today deprives us of the improving, elevating, humanizing society of the Tramp, will be swept from the statute book by the Tramp himself, for we shall all be Tramps then, and can out-vote anything that can be devised to hamper us, and give the opposition long odds too. He reviewed the course of England during the war, but said that we should now forgive them all, and let them come in here to restore their prostrated industries by voting the Democratic ticket, which is all English, English of Connecticut, and English of Indiana, and English over the water. He closed with what he called a fable, showing a company of sparrows well settled on one side of a lake with cuckoos on the opposite side. The latter wanted to get over and lay eggs in the sparrow's nests, but protective eagles stopped them, and last a majority of the sparrows thought that restriction should be removed. Getting rid of the eagles, the other birds came in, but the experiment was disastrous, and the sparrows resolved to let well enough alone thereafter. End of Section 3, October 27, 1880, Mark Twain lifts his voice, read by John Greenman. Section 4 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 4, December 15, 1880. Babies as Burglar Alarms, read by John Greenman. Babies as Burglar Alarms. Mark Twain was asked to contribute to the paper issued at the fair in aid of abused children in Boston, and responded as follows, Hartford, November 30, 1880. Dear Editors, I do it with pleasure, but I also do it with pain because I am not in sympathy with this movement. Why should I want a society for the prevention of cruelty to children, to prosper, when I have a baby downstairs that kept me awake several hours last night, with no pretext for it, but a desire to make trouble? This occurs every night, and it embitters me, because I see now how needless it was to put in the other burglar alarm a costly and complicated contrivance, which cannot be depended upon, because it's always getting out of order, and won't go, whereas although the baby is always getting out of order too, it can nevertheless be depended on, for the reason that the more it gets out of order, the more it does go. Yes, I am bitter against your society, for I think the idea of it is all wrong, but if you will start a society for the prevention of cruelty to fathers, I will write you a whole book. Yours, with a motion, Mark Twain. End of Section 4, December 15, 1880, Babies as Burglar Alarms, read by John Greenman. The home of Mark Twain. The pleasant impressions it made upon the Iowa Humorist. In a recent letter from Hartford, Connecticut, to the Burlington, Iowa Hawkeye, Mr. R. J. Burdette writes, The pleasantest view I had of the city was from the cozy fireside in that wonderful home of Mr. S. L. Clemens, who was my host during my stay in Hartford. I am not a man addicted to cold weather. I am not sufficiently British to wander through December and January in a short checked coat and no ulster. I am given to much wrapping up when I do go out in the snow, and to very little going out in the snow at all. I begin to shiver with the first frost, and I keep it up until the following April. And so when I can sit down before a bright wood fire and burn up cigars while somebody entertains me, I love the icy winter. I think I have never been in a home more beautifully home-like than this palace of the King of Humorists. The surroundings of the house are beautiful, and its quaint architecture, broad East Indian porticoes, the Greek patterns in mosaic in the dark red brick walls attract and charm the attention and good taste of the passer-by for the home inside and out is the perfection of exquisite taste and harmony. But with all its architectural beauty and originality, the elegance of its interior finish and decorations, the greatest charm about the house is the atmosphere of home-likeness that pervades it. Charmingly, as he can entertain thousands of people at a time from the platform, Mr. Clemens is even a more perfect entertainer in his home. The brightest and best sides of his nature shine out at his fireside. The humour and drollery that sparkle in his conversation is as utterly unaffected and natural as sunlight. Indeed I don't believe he knows or thinks that most of his talk before the sparkling fire, up in the pleasant retirement of his billiard-room study, is marketable merchandise worth so much a page to the publishers. But it is, and it is not all drollery and humour. He is so earnest that his earnestness charms you fully as much as his brighter flashes, and once in a while, there is, in his voice, an inflection of wonderful pathos, so touched with melancholy that you look into the kind, earnest eyes to see what thought has touched his voice, and he has a heart as big as his body. I believe there does not live a man more thoroughly unselfish and self-forgetful. Two little girls and a boy-baby, bright-eyed, good-tempered, and with a full head of hair as brown as his father's, assist Mrs. Clemens to fill the heart of the reigning humorist, and they do it most completely. Personally, Mr. Clemens is, perhaps, a little above the medium height of good symmetrical physique, brown hair, scarcely touched with grey, that curls over a high white forehead, friendship in his eyes, hearty cordiality in the grasp of a well-shaped white hand, strong enough and heavy enough to be a manly hand. His age is forty-something, and he looks thirty-five. In the evening, after the lamps are lighted, his face has a wonderfully boyish look, and he loves a good cigar even better than Grant does. Second of Section 5, January 2, 1881, The Home of Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. The Papyrus Club's Guests The Lady's Night Banquet An Inimitable Speech by Mark Twain Boston, February 24 The Papyrus Club of this city, composed largely of literary men and journalists, had its annual Lady's Night dinner at the Revere House tonight. There was a large and brilliant gathering, each member present being accompanied by a lady or ladies, besides the club's guests. The latter included Charles Dudley Warner, Colonel George E. Warring of Newport, and Mrs. Warring, William D. Howell, T. B. Aldridge, E. P. Whipple, and Mark Twain. Mr. William A. Hovey, the editor of the transcript, as president of the club, sat at the chief table, with the club's principal guests at either hand. The after-dinner features included the reading of a new and dainty poem sent from London for the occasion by James Russell Lowell, a finely-drawn speech by E. P. Whipple, largely a eulogy of George Elliot, a speech by Mark Twain, and several short poems by members of the club, one by Robert Grant to the Ladies, and another by John Boyle O'Reilly. Mr. Twain's speech was in his own inimitable style, a story in a speech. He said, I am perfectly astounded at the way in which history repeats itself. I find myself situated at this moment exactly and precisely as I was once before, years ago, to a jot, to a tittle, to a very hair. There isn't a shade of difference. It is the most astonishing coincidence that ever—but wait! I will tell you the former instance, and then you will see it for yourself. Years ago I arrived one day at Salamanca, New York, eastward bound. Must change cars there and take the sleeper train. There were crowds of people there, and they were swarming into the long sleeper train and packing it full. And it was a perfect purgatory of rush and confusion and gritting of teeth and soft, sweet and low profanity. I asked the young man in the ticket office if I could have a sleeping section, and he answered, No, with a snarl that shriveled me up like burned leather. I went off, smarting under this insult to my dignity, and asked another local official, supplicatingly, if I couldn't have some poor little corner somewhere in a sleeping car, and he cut me short with a venomous, no you can't. Every corner's full. Now don't bother me any more. And he turned his back and walked off. My dignity was in a state now which cannot be described. I was so ruffled that—well, I said to my companion, if these people knew who I am they—but my companion cut me short there and said, Don't talk such folly. If they did know who you are, do you suppose it would help your high mightiness to a vacancy in a train which has no vacancies in it? This did not improve my condition any to speak of. But just then I observed that the colored porter of a sleeping car had his eye on me. I saw his dark countenance light up. He whispered to the uniform conductor, punctuated with nods and jerks toward me, and straightway this conductor came forward oozing politeness from every poor and said, Can I be of any service? Will you have a place in the sleeper? Yes, I said, and much obliged, too. Give me anything. Anything will answer. He said, We have nothing left but this big family stateroom with two berths and a couple of arm-chairs in it. But it is entirely at your disposal. Here, Tom, take these satchels aboard. He touched his hat, and we and the colored Tom moved along. I was bursting to drop just one little remark to my companion, but I held in and waited. Tom made us comfortable in that sumptuous great apartment, and then said with many bows and a perfect affluence of smiles, Now, is there anything you want? Because you can have just anything you want. It don't make no difference what it is. I said, Can I have some hot water and a tumbler at nine tonight, blazing hot, you know, about the right temperature for a hot scotch punch? Yes, I, that you can. You can pin on it. I'll get it myself. Good. Now, that lamp is hung too high. Can I have a big coach candle fixed up just at the head of my bed so that I can read comfortably? Yes, I, you can. I'll fix her up myself, and I'll fix her so she'll burn all night. Yes, I. And you can just call for anything you want, and this year whole railroad be turned wrong and up inside out for to get it for you. And that's so. And he disappeared. Well, I tilted my head back, hooked my thumbs and my arm holes, smiled a smile on my companion and said gently, Well, what do you say now? My companion was not in a humor to respond and didn't. The next moment that smiling black face was thrust in at the crack of the door and this speech followed. Laws, bless you, sigh, I knowed in a minute. I told the conductor so. Laws, I knowed you the minute I saw eyes on you. Is that so, my boy? Handing him a quadruple fee. Well, who am I? General McLellan. And he disappeared again. My companion said vinegarishly, Well, well, what do you say now? Right there comes in the marvellous coincidence I mentioned a while ago. These, I was speechless. And that is my condition now. Perceive it? End of Section 6. February 25, 1881. The Papyrus Club's Guests. Read by John Greenman. Section 7 of Mark Twain in the New York Times. Part 2. 1880-1889. Mark Twain in the New York Times. Part 2. Section 7. June 9, 1881. Veterans of the Potomac. Read by John Greenman. Veterans of the Potomac. The annual meeting and festivities. This article has been edited to include only pertinent references to Mark Twain's participation. Hartford filled with members of the Army of the Potomac. The parade and business meetings. The banquet. Addresses by General Sherman, Mark Twain, and others. Hartford, June 8. The heavy rainstorm of Tuesday morning probably kept away many who expected to attend the twelfth annual reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac. The attendance, nevertheless, was fully up to the average, and the rain ceased so that the parade ceremonies were not interfered with, although the streets were muddy. The core meetings took place at the Capitol at ten o'clock, and while they were in progress, the First Regiment, CNG, was reviewed by Governor Bigelow, assisted by General Sherman, and members of his staff. It was intended to have Secretary of War Lincoln attend the review and participate in the parade, but by some oversight he received no invitation from the Governor, and finally made his way to the Opera House, in company with General Horace Porter, escorted by Mr. Edgar T. Wells, who entertained them. The procession left the Capitol for the Opera House soon after noon. It consisted of the First Regiment, the Governor's Footguard, the Tibbetts' Core of Troy, Grand Army Posts from Philadelphia and Springfield, members of the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut, the members of the Army of the Potomac, and carriages containing the Governor, prominent soldiers, and disabled veterans. Generals Burnside, Wright, Franklin, Slocum, McMahon, Miles, and others chose to march through the mud with their respective core. The banquet took place at nine o'clock. At that hour the Society of the Army of the Potomac, the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut and the invited guests marched into Allen Hall, which was elegantly decorated. The galleries and boxes were filled with ladies and gentlemen. The floor of the hall was occupied by tables with seats for about four hundred persons. The whole interior of the hall presented a brilliant spectacle. A member of the Fifth Core called for three cheers for the generous and patriotic citizens of Hartford. Grace was said by the Reverend J. H. Twitchell of this city. Soon after the company were seated Secretary Lincoln and General Sherman entered, and were greeted with enthusiastic applause by the soldiers and by the people in the galleries. General H. G. Wright, President of the Society, presided. Secretary Lincoln, sitting at his immediate right, and General Hawley and Governor Bigelow at his left. Generals Burnside, Sickles, Devons, Slocum, and other prominent generals, Daniel Doherty, Ex-Governor Jewel, Mark Twain, Daniel Bulkley, Governor Littlefield of Rhode Island, and other invited guests, also occupied seats at this table, which extended nearly the entire breadth of the hall in front of the stage. Soon after ten o'clock General Wright announced the first toast, the President of the United States. Secretary Lincoln responded being received with much applause. At the close of Secretary Lincoln's speech General Barnum called for three cheers for the worthy and honored son of the great emancipator Abraham Lincoln. They were given with a will. The second toast, the United States, was responded to by General Hawley, who spoke eloquently upon the magnificent growth of the nation and its wonderful development since 1861. The toast to the Governors of the States was responded to by Governor Littlefield of Rhode Island. The next toast was the Army and the Navy. General Sherman responded and was greeted with cheers upon cheers. The next toast, the State of Connecticut, was responded to by Governor Bigelow. The toast, the City of Hartford, was responded to by Mayor Bulkley and the Honorable Henry C. Robinson. The toast to the Army of the Potomac was responded to by General Horace Porter. The next toast, the Benefit of Judicious Training, was responded to by Mark Twain. Other toasts were as follows. The Volunteers, by General Daniel E. Sickles, The Orator of the Day, Daniel Doherty, The Poet of the Day, Colonel Samuel B. Sumner, The Press, General Nelson A. Miles. Mark Twain's Response To the regular toast, The Benefit of Judicious Training, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, responded as follows. Let but the thoughtful civilian instruct the soldier in his duties, and the victory is sure. Martin Farquhar Tupper on the Art of War. Mr. Chairman, I gladly join with my fellow townsmen in extending a hearty welcome to these illustrious generals and these war-scarred soldiers of the Republic. This is a proud day for us, and if the sincere desire of our hearts has been fulfilled, it has not been an unpleasant day for them. I am in full accord, sir, with a sentiment of the toast, for I have always maintained with enthusiasm that the only wise and true way is for the soldier to fight the battle and the unprejudiced civilian to tell him how to do it. Yet, when I was invited to respond to this toast and furnish this advice and instruction, I was almost as much embarrassed as I was gratified, for I could bring to this great service but the one virtue of absence of prejudice and sad opinion. Still, but one other qualification was needed, and it was of only minor importance, I mean knowledge of the subject. Therefore I was not disheartened, for I could acquire that, there being two weeks to spare. A general of high rank in this army of the Potomac said two weeks was really more than I would need for the purpose. He had known people of my style who had learned enough in forty-eight hours to enable them to advise an army. Aside from the compliment, this was gratifying, because it confirmed an impression I had had before. He told me to go to the United States Military Academy at West Point, and said in his flowery professional way that the cadets would load me up. I went there and stayed two days, and his prediction proved correct. I make no boast on my own account. None. All I know about military matters I got from the gentlemen at West Point, and to them belongs the credit. They treated me with courtesy from the first, but when my mission was revealed this mere courtesy blossomed into warmest zeal. Everybody, officers and all, put down their work and turned their whole attention to giving me military information. Every question I asked was promptly and exhaustively answered. Therefore, I feel proud to state that in the advice which I am about to give you as soldiers, I am backed up by the highest military authority in the land, yes, in the world, if an American does say it, West Point. To begin, gentlemen, when an engagement is meditated, it is best to feel the enemy first. That is, if it is night, for as one of the cadets explained to me, you do not need to feel him in the daytime because you can see him then. I never should have thought of that, but it is true, perfectly true. In the daytime the methods of procedure are various, but the best, it seems to me, is one which was introduced by General Grant. General Grant always sent an active young man, Redoubt, to reconnoiter and get the enemy's bearings. I got this from a high officer at the point who told me he used to be a Redoubt on General Grant's staff and had done it often. When the hour for the battle has come, move to the field with celerity, fool away no time. Under this head I was told of a favorite maxim of General Sheridan's. General Sheridan always said, if the siege train isn't ready, don't wait, go by any trains that are handy, to get there is the main thing. Now, that is the correct idea. As you approach the field, it is better to get out and walk. This gives you a better chance to dispose of your forces judiciously for the assault. Get your artillery in position and throw out stragglers to the right and left to hold your lines of communication against surprise. See that every hod carrier connected with a mortar battery is at his post. They told me at the point that Napoleon despised mortar batteries and never would use them. He said that for real efficiency he wouldn't give a hat full of brickpats for a ton of mortar. However, that is all he knew about it. Everything being ready for the assault, you want to enter the field with your baggage to the front. This idea was invented by our renowned guest, General Sherman. They told me that General Sherman said that the trunks and baggage make a good protection for the soldiers, but that chiefly they attract the attention and rivet the interest of the enemy, and this gives you an opportunity to whirl the other end of the column around and attack him in the rear. I have given a good deal of study to this tactic since I learned about it, and it appears to me it is a rattling good idea. Never fetch on your reserves at the start. This was Napoleon's first mistake at Waterloo. Next he assaulted with his bomb proofs and ambulances and embouchures when he ought to have used a heavier artillery. Thirdly he retired his right by ricochet, which uncovered his pickets, when his only possibility of success lay in doubling up his center flank by flank, and throwing out his chavaux de frise by the left oblique to relieve the skirmish line and confuse the enemy. If such a maneuver would confuse him, and at West Point they said it would. It was about this time that the Emperor had two horses shot under him. How often you see the remark that General So-and-So at such-and-such a battle had two or three horses shot under him! General Burnside and many great European military men, as I was informed by a high artillery officer at West Point, have justly characterized this as a wanton waste of projectiles, and he impressed upon me a conversation in the tent of the Prussian chiefs at Gravelotte, in the course of which our honored guest just referred to, General Burnside, observed that if you can't aim a horse so as to hit the general with it, shoot it over him, and you may bag something on the other side, whereas a horse shot under a general does no sort of damage. I agree cordially with General Burnside, and Heaven knows I shall rejoice to see the artillerists of this land and of all lands cease from this wicked and idiotic custom. At West Point they told me of another mistake at Waterloo, namely that the French were under fire from the beginning of the fight until the end of it, which was plainly a most effeminate and ill-timed attention to comfort and a foolish division of military strength, for it probably took as many men to keep up the fires as it did to do the fighting. It would have been much better to have had a small fire in the rear, and let the men go there by detachments and get warm, and not try to warm up the whole army at once. All the cadets said that an assault along the whole line was the one thing which could have restored Napoleon's advantage at this juncture, and he was actually rising in his stirrups to order it when a subtler burst at his side and covered him with dirt and debris, and before he could recover Wellington opened a tremendous and devastating fire upon him from a monstrous battery of vivandiere, and the star of the great captain's glory set to rise no more. The cadet wept while he told me these mournful particulars. When you leave a battlefield, always leave it in good order, remove the wreck and rubbish, and tidy up the place. However, in the case of a drawn battle, it is neither party's business to tidy up anything. You can leave the field looking as if the city government of New York had bossed the fight. When you are traversing the enemy's country in order to destroy his supplies and cripple his resources, you want to take along plenty of camp followers, the more the better. They are a tremendously effective arm of the service, and they inspire in the foe the liveliest dread. A West Point professor told me that the wisdom of this was recognized as far back as scripture times. He quoted the verse. He said it was from the new revision, and was a little different from the way it reads in the old one. I do not recollect the exact wording of it now, but I remember that it wound up with something about such and such a devastating agent being as terrible as an army with bummers. I believe I have nothing further to add but this. The West Pointers said a private should preserve a respectful attitude toward his superiors, and should seldom or never proceed so far as to offer suggestions to his general in the field. If the battle is not being conducted to suit him, it is better to resign. By the etiquette of war it is permitted to none below the rank of newspaper correspondent to dictate to the general in the field. End of Section 7, June 9, 1881, Veterans of the Potomac, The Annual Meeting and Festivities, read by John Greenman. Section 8 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 8, September 25, 1881, Mark Twain Translated, Editorial on French Translations, read by John Greenman. Mark Twain translated from the Palmol Gazette. In one of his essays on Poets and Humorists in the Parlement, Monsieur André Tourier turns his attention to Mark Twain. That author can hardly be said to translate well, and the extracts from the famous histories of the jumping frog and the naughty little boy who was never punished certainly look very ill at ease in their French dress. Monsieur Tourier struggles hard to be just to the American humorist, but he cannot quite suppress a groan over this coarse-grained comedy which has nothing in common with attic salt. If, notwithstanding his want of delicate fancy, Mark Twain is so much more red than writers of a far higher stamp such as Wendell Holmes, this is due, according to Monsieur Tourier, to the rustic tastes of the American public. Despite all its primary education, America is still, from an intellectual point of view, a very rude and primitive soil only to be cultivated by the application of violent methods. These childish and half-savage minds are not moved except by elementary narratives, command without art, in which burlesque and melodrama, vulgarity and eccentricity are combined in strong doses. And therewith, Monsieur Tourier passes on, per sultum, to bewail the evil effects of democracy upon literature, a well-worn theme indeed, but one which seems to possess for certain highly refined critics a perennial charm, hardly consistent with their constantly professed disdain for all that is hackneyed and commonplace. End of Section 8, September 25, 1881, Mark Twain translated, read by John Greenman. Section 9 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 9, December 2, 1881. Mark Twain's New Book. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain's New Book. Montreal, December 1. Mark Twain's New Book, The Prince and the Pauper, was published yesterday in London, in advance of its American issue, this priority of publication and the residence of the author in Canada, under the Imperial Law, protects the copyright in all British dominions. Mr. Clemens, the author, is residing in Canada to superintend the production of the Canadian copyright edition, which will be published soon by Dawson Brothers of Montreal. End of Section 9, December 2, 1881, Mark Twain's New Book, read by John Greenman. Section 10 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 10, December 8, 1881. Authoritative Contradiction. Read by John Greenman. Authoritative Contradiction. Mark Twain informs an inquiring friend in South Australia that he is not dead. A gentleman in South Australia who was under the impression that Mark Twain had once visited that faraway region, and when there had actually lodged under the same roof with his father, happened to hear recently that the famous humorist was dead. He was so much affected by the news that he at once wrote to Mr. Clemens to ascertain if it was true. The reply he received is printed in the Adelaide Observer of October 15, and is as follows. During the present year I have received letters from three gentlemen in Australia who had in past times known people who had known me in Australia, but I have never been in any part of Australia in my life. By these letters it appears that the persons who knew me there knew me intimately, not for a day but for weeks and even months, and apparently I was not confined to one place, but was scattered all around over the country. Also, apparently, I was very respectable. At least, I suppose so, from the character of the company I seem to have kept, government officials, ladies of good position, editors of newspapers, etc. It is very plain, then, that someone has been in Australia who did me the honour to personate me and call himself by my name. Now, if this man paid his debts and conducted himself in an orderly and respectable way, I suppose I have no very great cause of complaint against him, and yet I am not able to believe that a man can falsely assume another man's name and, at the same time, be in other respects a decent and worthy person. I suspect that, specious as this stranger seems to have been, he was at bottom a rascal, and a pretty shabby sort of rascal at that. That is all I wished to say about the matter. There are signs that I have an audience among the people of Australia. I want their good opinion, therefore I thought I would speak up and say that, if that adventurer was guilty of any misconduct there, I hope the resulting obliquy will be reserved for him and not leveled at me, since I am not to blame. Today's mail brings a letter to a member of my family from an old English friend of ours dated Government House, Sydney, May 29, in which the writer is shocked to hear of my sudden death. Now that suggests that that aforementioned imposter has even gone the length of dying for me. This generosity disarms me. He has done a thing for me which I wouldn't even have done for myself. If he will only stay dead now, I will call the account square and drop the grudge I bear him. Mark Twain Hartford, United States of America, July 24, 1881 End of Section 10, Authoritative Contradiction, read by John Greenman Section 11 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 11, December 10, 1881 Mark Twain in Montreal, read by John Greenman Mark Twain in Montreal, his speech at the banquet in his honor, an explanation how he came to be in an ostensibly foreign land, looking forward to the good times coming when literary property will be as sacred as whiskey There was a very pleasant gathering of gentlemen at the banquet given Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal on Thursday evening. The gazette says of it, the assembly was essentially a gathering of the devoted admirers of a great genius who sought in a peculiarly English way to evince their appreciation of his literary peerage. The gathering was thoroughly representative of the intellectual and commercial greatness of Canada. The chair was occupied by the Honourable Lucius Seth Huntington, who was supported on the right by the guest of the evening, and Louis Frichette, and on his left by Council General Smith, the Reverend J. F. Stevenson, and Mr. T. White, Member of Parliament. After the toast to the Queen and the President, the latter being responded to by the Council General Smith and a poem in French, composed and read by Mr. Frichette, the poet laureate of Canada, the toast in honour of the guest of the evening was presented and was responded to by him as follows that a banquet should be given to me in this ostensibly foreign land and in this great city and that my ears should be greeted by such complementary words from such distinguished lips are eminent surprises to me and I will not conceal the fact that they are also deeply gratifying. I thank you, one and all gentlemen, for these marks of favour and friendliness, and even if I have not really or sufficiently deserved them, I assure you that I do not any the less keenly enjoy and esteem them on that account. When a stranger appears abruptly in a country without any apparent business there and at an unusual season of the year the judicious thing for him to do is to explain. Well this seems peculiarly necessary in my case on account of a series of unfortunate happenings here which followed my arrival and which I suppose the public have felt compelled to connect with that circumstance. I would most gladly explain if I could, but I have nothing for my defence but my bare word, so I simply declare in all sincerity and with my hand on my heart that I never heard of that diamond robbery till I saw it in the morning paper and I can say with perfect truth that I never saw that box of dynamite till the police came to inquire of me if I had any more of it. These are mere assertions I grant you, but they come from the lips of one who was never known to utter an untruth except for practice and who certainly would not so stultify the traditions of an upright life as to utter one now in a strange land and in such a presence as this when there is nothing to be gained by it and he does not need any practice. I brought with me to this city a friend, a Boston publisher, but alas even this does not sufficiently explain these sinister mysteries. If I had brought a Toronto publisher along the case would have been different, but no possibly not. The burglar took the diamond studs but left the shirt. Only a reformed Toronto publisher would have left that shirt. To continue my explanation I did not come to Canada to commit crime this time but to prevent it. I came here to place myself under the protection of the Canadian law and secure a copyright. I have complied with the requirements of the law. I have followed the instructions of some of the best legal minds in the city, including my own, and so my errand is accomplished, at least so far as any exertions of mine can aid that accomplishment. This is rather a cumbersome way to fence and fortify one's property against the literary buccaneer it is true. Still if it is effective it is a great advance upon past conditions and one to be correspondingly welcomed. It makes one hope and believe that a day will come when in the eye of the law literary property will be as sacred as whiskey or any other of the necessaries of life. In this age of ours if you steal another man's label to advertise your own brand of whiskey with you will be heavily fined and otherwise punished for violating that trademark. If you steal the whiskey without the trademark you go to jail but if you could prove that the whiskey was literature you can steal them both and the law wouldn't say a word. It grieves me to think how far more profound and reverent a respect the law would have for literature if a body could only get drunk on it. Still the world moves, the interests of literature upon our continent are improving. Let us be content and wait. We have with us here a fellow craftsman born on our own side of the Atlantic who has created an epic in this continent's literary history, an author who has earned and worthily earned and received the vast distinction of being crowned by the Academy of France. This is honour and achievement enough for the cause and the craft for one decade assuredly. If one may have the privilege of throwing in a personal impression or two, I may remark that my stay in Montreal and Quebec has been exceedingly pleasant, but the weather has been a good deal of a disappointment. Canada has a reputation for magnificent winter weather and has a prophet who is bound by every sentiment of honour and duty to furnish it, but the result this time has been a mess of characterless weather, which all right-feeling Canadians are probably ashamed of. Still only the country is to blame. Nobody has a right to blame the prophet for this wasn't the kind of weather he promised. Well, never mind what you lack in weather you make up in the means of grace. This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window. Yet I was told that you were going to build one more. I said the scheme is good, but where are you going to find room? They said we will build it on top of another church and use an elevator. This shows that the gift of lying is not yet dead in the land. I suppose one must come in the summer to get the advantages of the Canadian scenery. A cab man drove me two miles up a perpendicular hill in a slay and showed me an admirable snowstorm from the heights of Quebec. The man was an ass. I could have seen the snowstorm as well from the hotel window and saved my money. Still I may have been the ass myself. There is no telling. The thing is all mixed in my mind, but anyway there was an ass in the party. And I do suppose that wherever a mercenary cab man and a gifted literary character are gathered together for business there is bound to be an ass in the combination somewhere. It has always been so in my experience, and I have usually been elected too, but it is no matter. I would rather be an ass than a cab man any time, except in summertime. Then, with my advantages, I could be both. I saw the plains of Abraham and the spot where the lamented wolf stood when he made the memorable remark that he would rather be the author of craze, elegy, than take Quebec. But why did he say so rash a thing? It was because he supposed there was going to be international copyright. Otherwise there would be no money in it. I was also shown the spot where Sir William Phipps stood when he said he would rather take a walk than take two Quebecs. And he took the walk. I have looked with emotion here in your city upon the monument which makes forever memorable the spot where Horatio Nelson did not stand when he fell. I have seen the cab which Champlain employed when he arrived over land at Quebec. I have seen the horse which Jacques Cartier rode when he discovered Montreal. I have used them both. I will never do it again. Yes, I have seen all the historical places. The localities have been pointed out to me when the scenery is warehouse for the season. My sojourn has been to my moral and intellectual profit. I have behaved with propriety and discretion. I have meddled nowhere but in the election. But I am used to voting for I live in a town where, if you may judge by local prince, there are only two conspicuous industries committing burglaries and holding elections. And I like to keep my hand in, so I voted a good deal here. Where so many of the guests are French, the propriety will be recognized of my making a portion of my speech in the beautiful language in order that I may be perfectly understood. I speak French with timidity and not flowingly, except when excited. When using that language I have often noticed that I have hardly ever been mistaken for a Frenchman, except perhaps by horses. Never, I believe, by people. I had hoped that mere French construction with English words would answer, but this is not the case. I tried it at a gentleman's house in Quebec and it would not work. The maid servant asked, what would Monsieur, and I said, Monsieur so-and-so, is he with himself? She did not understand that either. I said, he will desolate himself when he learns that his friend American was arrived and he not with himself to shake him at the hand. She did not even understand that. I don't know why, but she didn't, and she lost her temper besides. Somebody in the rear called out, qui est donc là, or words to that effect, and she said, c'est un fou, and shut the door on me. Perhaps she was right, but how did she ever find that out? For she had never seen me before till that moment. But as I have already intimated, I will close this oration with a few sentiments in the French language. I have not ornamented them. I have not burdened them with flowers or rhetoric, for, to my mind, that literature is best, and most enduring, which is characterized by a noble simplicity. Ah, prenez les chapeaux de dra, noire, de ton beau frère malade. Tout à l'heure, savoir faire, qu'est-ce que vous dis? Pas de fois gras. Revenons à nos moutons. Pardon, Monsieur, pardonne-moi. Essayant à parler la belle langue d'Ollendorf strains me more than you can possibly imagine. But I mean well, and I've done the best I could. Loud and continued laughter and applause. End of Section 11. Mark Twain in Montreal, December 10, 1881, read by John Greenman. Section 12 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 12, December 17, 1881, Canada surprises Mark Twain. Read by John Greenman. Canada surprises Mark Twain. Ottawa, Ontario, December 16. The application of Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, for a Canadian copyright of his new book, has been refused by the Department of Agriculture and Arts. The claim was based on Clemens' visit and domicile for two weeks in Montreal. The authorities decided that such residence is not a domicile. Hartford, Connecticut, December 16. In relation to the refusal of the Canadian authorities to grant Mark Twain a copyright on his new book, the author says his interests are covered by the publication of the book in London a day before its publication here. The English copyright covers Canada, and he has retained counsel there to prosecute any attempts at piracy. End of Section 12, December 17, 1881, Canada surprises Mark Twain. Section 13 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 13, December 25, 1881, Mark Twain explains the copyright laws, read by John Greenman. Mark Twain explains what he accomplished by his sojourn in Canada the copyright laws to the editor of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican. If you will glance at the first article in your second editorial column of today's issue, you may find two things forcibly illustrated there, that the less a man knows about his subject, the more glibly he can reel off his paragraph, and that the difference between the ordinary court and the high court of journalism is that the former requires facts upon which to base an injurious judgment against a man, the other requires suspicions only. You have not caught me in any divergence from the truth, nor in any incompatibility, but a truce to that, under pretext of rising to defend myself, I have really risen for a more respectable purpose. Your remarks have, of course, disseminated the impression that in my humble person a greater was defeated in Canada and got its creatus, these copyright. Now I think the fact is of public and general importance, and therefore worth printing, that the exact opposite was the case. I applied formally for Canadian copyright and failed to get it, but this did not cripple my case, because by being in Canada and submitting to certain legal forms, when my book issued in London, I acquired both Imperial and Canadian copyright. I did know several hours before I left Montreal, as heretofore stated in my name, that my application for legal copyright had been refused, but I also knew that my Canadian copyright was perfect without it, and that it would not have been absolutely perfect if I had not sojourned in Canada, while the book was published in England and printed and published in Canada. Curious as it seems to seem to you, I did leave in Canada perfected arrangements for the prosecution of any who might pirate the book, although I had hardly the ghost of a fear that any attempt would be made to pirate it. Please do not laugh at me any more for this, for the act was not ridiculous. I was not protecting myself against an expectation, but only against a possibility. Perhaps you do not catch the idea. I will put it in another form. If you were going to stop overnight with me, I should not expect you to set fire to the place. Still I would step down and get the house insured, just the same. Have you ever read the Dominion copyright laws? And if so, do you think you understand them? Undeceive yourself, it is ten thousand to one that you are mistaken. I went to Canada, armed to the teeth, with both Canadian and American legal opinions. They were the result of a couple of months of industry and correspondence between trained Canadian and American lawyers. These men agreed upon but one thing, that a perfect imperial and provincial copyright was obtainable through a brief sojourn in Canada and the observance of certain specified forms. They were pretty uncertain, under one form of procedure, as to the possibility of acquiring a copyright from the Dominion government itself. Well, as before remarked, I tried that form. It failed, but no harm was done. Some little good was done, however. The experiment established the fact, as far as it can be established, without the decision of a court, that elective domicile is not sufficient in a copyright matter. There was one other mode of procedure, which promised considerably better, in fact. I was told that it had been tried already by a couple of American clergymen and with success. This is to kind of sort of let on in a general way in your written declaration to the Dominion government, that you haven't come to Canada merely to sojourn, but to stay. My friend, there are reputations that can stand a strain like that, but you know yourself that it would not answer for you or me to take such a risk. I declined to try that mode. Mark Twain. Hartford, Connecticut. Sunday, December 18th, 1881. End of Section 13, December 25th, 1881, Mark Twain explains. Read by John Greenman. Section 14 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 14, December 26th, 1881. Mark Twain on the Pilgrims. Read by John Greenman. Mark Twain on the Pilgrims. His effort at the dinner of the New England Sons in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Press says that when Mr. Samuel L. Clemens was called upon at the dinner of the Sons of New England in that city on Thursday evening, he rose, and in a peculiar sleepy manner, began his remarks by thanking the company for the deserved compliment to himself and to his posterity. I shall continue to do my best, trawled out the speaker, and he continued as follows. I rise to protest. I have kept still for years. But really, I think, there is no sufficient justification for this sort of thing. What do you want to celebrate those people? For those ancestors of yours, of 1620, the Mayflower tribe, I mean. What do you want to celebrate them for? Your pardon, the gentleman at my left, assures me that you are not celebrating the Pilgrims themselves, but the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock on the 22nd of December. So you are celebrating their landing. Why, the other pretext was thin enough, but this is thinner than ever. The other was tissue, tinfoil, fish bladder, but this is gold leaf. Celebrating their landing. What was there remarkable about it, I would like to know? What can you be thinking of? Why, those Pilgrims had been at sea three or four months. It was the very middle of winter. It was as cold as death off Cape Cod there. Why shouldn't they come ashore? If they hadn't landed, there would be some reason in celebrating the fact. It would have been a case of monumental leather-headedness which the world would not willingly let die. If it had been you, gentlemen, you probably wouldn't have landed, but you would have no shadow of right to be celebrating in your ancestors gifts which they did not exercise, but only transmitted. Why, to be celebrating the mere landing of the Pilgrims, to be trying to make out that this most natural and simple and customary procedure was an extraordinary circumstance, a circumstance to be amazed at and admired, aggrandized and glorified at orgies like this for two hundred and sixty years. Hang it, a horse would have known enough to land a horse. Pardon again. The gentleman on my right assures me that it was not merely the landing of the Pilgrims that we are celebrating, but the Pilgrims themselves. So we have struck an inconsistency here. One says it was the landing, the other says it was the Pilgrims. It is an inconsistency characteristic of your intractable and disputatious tribe, for you never agree about anything but Boston. Well then, what do you want to celebrate those Pilgrims for? They were a mighty hard lot. You know it, I grant you, without the slightest unwillingness, that they were a deal more gentle and merciful and just than were the peoples of Europe of that day. I grant you that they were better than their predecessors. But what of that? That is nothing. People always progress. You are better than your fathers and grandfathers were. This is the first time I have ever aimed a measureless slander at the departed, for I consider such things improper. Yes, those among you who have not been in the penitentiary, if such there be, are better than your fathers and grandfathers were. But is that any sufficient reason for getting up annual dinners and celebrating you? No, by no means. By no means. Well, I repeat, those Pilgrims were a hard lot. They took good care of themselves, but they abolished everybody else's ancestors. I am a border ruffian from the State of Missouri. I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption. In me you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture. This gentleman is the combination that makes the perfect man. But where are my ancestors? Whom shall I celebrate? Where shall I find the raw material? My first American ancestor, gentlemen, was an Indian, an early Indian. Your ancestors skinned him alive, and I am an orphan. Not one drop of my blood flows in that Indian's veins today. I stand here, alone, and forlorn, without an ancestor. Later ancestors of mine were the Quakers, William Robinson, Mamadouk Stevenson at all. Your tribe chased them out of the country for their religion's sake. Promised them death if they came back, for your ancestors had forsaken the homes they loved, and braved the perils of the sea, the implacable climate, and the savage wilderness, to acquire that highest and most precious of boons, freedom for every man on this broad continent to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, and they were not going to allow a lot of pesterous Quakers to interfere with it. Your ancestors broke forever the chains of political slavery and gave the vote to every man in this wide land, excluding none. None except those who did not belong to the Orthodox Church. Your ancestors, yes, they were a hard lot, but, nevertheless, they gave us religious liberty to worship as they required us to worship, and political liberty to vote as the Church required, and so I, the bereft one, I, the forlorn one, am here to do my best to help you celebrate them right. The Quaker woman, Elizabeth Hooten, was an ancestors of mine. Your people were pretty severe with her, you will confess that, but poor thing, I believe they changed her opinions before she died, and took her into their fold, and so we have every reason to presume that, when she died, she went to the same place which your ancestors went to. It is a great pity, for she was a good woman. Roger Williams was an ancestor of mine. I don't really remember what your people did with him, but they banished him to Rhode Island anyway, and then, I believe, recognizing that this was really carrying harshness to an unjustifiable extreme, they took pity on him and burned him. They were a hard lot. All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine. Your people made it tropical for them. Yes, they did. By pressure and the gallows, they made such a clean deal with them, that there hasn't been a witch and hardly a halter in our family from that day to this, and that is one hundred and eighty-nine years. The first slave brought into New England, out of Africa, by your progenitors, was an ancestor of mine, for I am of a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and exquisite mongrel. I'm not one of your sham mershawms that you can color in a week. No, my complexion is the patient art of eight generations. Well, in my own time I had acquired a lot of my kin, by purchase and swapping around, and one way and another, and was getting along very well. Then, with the inborn perversity of your lineage, you got up a war and took them all away from me. And so, again, I am bereft. Again am I forlorn. No drop of my blood flows in the veins of any living being who is marketable. Oh, my friends, hear me, and reform! I seek your good, not mine. You have heard the speeches. Dispand these New England societies, nurseries of a system of steadily augmenting laudation, and hose-anning, which, if persisted in uncurbed, may someday, in the remote future, beguile you into prevaricating and bragging. Oh, stop! Stop while you are still temperate in your appreciation of your ancestors. Hear me, I beseech you. Get up an auction, and sell Plymouth Rock. The pilgrims were a simple and ignorant race. They had never seen any good rocks before, or at least any that were not watched, and so they were excusable for hopping a shore in frantic delight, and clapping an iron fence around this one. But you, gentlemen, are educated. You are enlightened. You know that in the rich land of your nativity, opulent New England, overflowing with rocks, this one isn't worth, at the outside, more than thirty-five cents. Therefore sell it, before it is injured by exposure, or at least throw it open to the patent medicine advertisements, and let it earn its taxes. Yes. Hear your true friend, your only true friend. List to his voice. Dispand these societies, hot beds of vise, of moral decay, perpetuators of ancestral superstition. Here on this board I see water, I see milk, I see the wild and deadly lemonade. These are but steps upon the downward path. Next we shall see tea, then chocolate, then coffee, hotel coffee. A few more years, all too few I fear, mark my words, we shall have cider. Gentlemen, pause ere it be too late. You are on the broad road which leads to dissipation, physical ruin, moral decay, gory crime, and the gallows. I beseech you, I implore you, in the name of your anxious friends, in the name of your suffering families, in the name of your impending widows and orphans. Stop ere it be too late. Dispand these New England societies, renounce these soul-blistering Saturnalia. Cease from varnishing the rusty reputations of your long vanished ancestors, the super-high, moral, old ironclads of Cape Cod, the pious buccaneers of Plymouth Rock. Go home and try to learn to behave. However, chaff and nonsense aside, I think I honour and appreciate your pilgrim rock as much as you do yourselves, perhaps, and I endorse and adopt a sentiment uttered by a grandfather of mine once, a man of sturdy opinions, of sincere make of mind, and not given to flattery. He said, People may talk as they like about that pilgrim rock, but, after all's said and done, it would be pretty hard to improve on those people, and, as for me, I don't mind coming out flat-footed and saying there ain't any way to improve on them, except having them born in Missouri. End of Section 14, December 26, 1881, Mark Twain on the Pilgrims, read by John Greenman. Section 15 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 15, December 29, 1881, Mark Twain's Copyright, read by John Greenman. Mark Twain's Copyright, why his application was denied in Canada, points of Canadian law. Ottawa, Ontario, December 28. There has been some fearful blundering over the interpretation of the Canadian copyright law within the past few weeks, and no one appears to have fallen into greater error than Mark Twain himself. He claims that when his book was issued in London, England, he acquired both an Imperial and Canadian copyright, and although his application for local copyright had been refused, he knew his Canadian copyright was perfect without it. Mark Twain, to obtain an Imperial copyright, had to submit to the conditions of the Imperial Act, which provides that the work must first be published in the United Kingdom, after which the copyright, so obtained, extends to all British possessions. Such copyright protects him against any Canadian reprint being made of his work, but does not save him, per se, from the importation into Canada of foreign reprints, having paid 12.5% royalty at entering. Whereas a Canadian copyright would have secured him from the introduction into Canada of any such foreign reprints, Mr. Clemens has fallen into error in supposing that he secures the same protection in the Dominion from an Imperial copyright as he would from a copyright issued in Canada. Any person domiciled in Canada or in any part of the British possessions, or being a citizen of any country having an international copyright treaty with the United Kingdom, who is the author of any book, map, chart, or musical composition, etc., and legal representatives of such person shall have the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, reproducing, and vending such literary or scientific works or compositions in whole or part, and of allowing translations to be printed or reprinted and sold of such literary works from one language into another language, for a term of twenty-eight years from the time of recording the copyright. The Canada Official Gazette of December 3 contained the following note. Copyright Notice Notice is hereby given that an interim copyright has been taken out for a work entitled The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. The Canadian edition will be published by Dawson Brothers Montreal. Although an interim registration was granted, the copyright was refused. In his application for an interim copyright, Mark Twain stated he was domiciled in Canada, whereas in his subsequent application for a full copyright he stated that he had an elective domicile in Canada and consequently the second application was refused. In the eyes of the department here there is a wide difference between being domiciled in the country and electing to domicile in the same country. It is held that a person is domiciled in a country who resides in said country with the Animas Manendi. While in law an elective domicile is an address or place where it has been agreed that the delivery will be accepted, although it does not follow that the person so electing his domicile there shall ever visit another condition under which a Canadian copyright is granted is that the work be printed and published or reprinted and republished in Canada, whether published for the first time or contemporaneously with or subsequently to publication elsewhere, provided that in no case the exclusive privilege in Canada shall continue to exist after it has expired anywhere else. Following closely upon the appointment of Mr. West as Commissioner of the British Government to confer with authorities at Washington on the subject of international copyright law, the case of Mark Twain has additional interest. During his recent visit to Washington it is understood that the Minister of Finance has conferred with Mr. West regarding the subject of international copyright treaty. Mr. West was instructed by the Imperial Government to confer with the Canadian Government and obtain such assistance as would enable the British Government to protect the interests of Canada in the event of an international copyright treaty being arranged between Great Britain and the United States. The result of Sir Leonard Tilley's interview with Mr. West has not been made public, although it is understood that the Dominion Government will afford Mr. West every facility to enable him to report at an early date to his Government. The Canadian Publishers Association is now moving in the direction of petitioning the Imperial Government for absolute power for the Dominion Parliament over copyright laws. The present Copyright Act, which was passed by the Dominion Parliament in 1875, is also an Imperial Act having been passed subsequently by the British Parliament and the House of Lords. End of Section 15, December 29, 1881, Mark Twain's Copyright, read by John Greenman. Section 16 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880 to 1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 16. September 10, 1882, Mark Twain's Summer Home, read by John Greenman. Mark Twain's Summer Home, a visit to his house and study in the suburbs of Elmira. Elmira, New York, Correspondence, Louisville Courier Journal. The summer residence of Mr. Clemens is acknowledged to be here in the vicinity of Elmira, notwithstanding he has a house or two in other parts of the United States. His place is known as Quarry Farm, which is also the residence of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Theodore Crane, and is situated about two miles away from the business portion of the city, on an eminence known as East Hill. The funny man's house is reached from the city by a winding road, which is steep, very steep, and at times is really a dangerous driveway. We go thither in a coop, drawn by two large horses, to whom the task of climbing seems not an unfamiliar one. Up and still up, and after an exciting dash up the hillside, we see the house in the distance and handkerchiefs fluttering from the veranda. A few moments later I alight from the coop, and am seated in a huge easy-chair with the members of Mark Twain's family on every side. The house, an elegantly built and furnished structure, has an abundance of windows and glass doors on the outside so that, from within, the lovely scenery in the valley below is plainly visible. An arched carriageway connects with the veranda, and the hole is protected from glare and heat by vines and awnings, so as not to obstruct the view. In front of the house and beyond, in place of the pretty lawn, is a huge field of oats, which completely shrouds the brow of the hill, and with its undulating surface softens and disguises any abruptness or roughness which there might otherwise be in the foreground. The house throughout is furnished in an elegant and costly manner. Devans, Persian rugs, easy-chairs, books, statuary, articles of virtue, and brick-a-brack are on every side, and the hole has the appearance of a place where one could dream his life away. Mr. Clemens retires to his study every morning after breakfast and writes steadily until four in the afternoon. He does all his own work and employs neither secretary nor emmanuensis. He has become quite proficient in the use of the typewriter, and utilizes that instrument in attending to his correspondence. During the past few weeks he has been somewhat annoyed by visitors and sightseers. One day in the week, and this happens to be the very day, the genial humorous seeks repose and rest by going down to the city, meeting some of his friends, indulging in a hotel dinner and several games of billiards. This is what he calls rest from his literary labours. Owing to his absence we have an opportunity of peeping into his sanctum sanctorum. The visitor finds the humorous study higher up the hill, in the rear of the house, and screened by vines and evergreens. It is a small octagonal building containing but a single room. Here the humorous does the greater portion of his summer's work, and here for eight summers Mark Twain has worked industriously. For notwithstanding the fact that he has been called indolent, he is a most indefatigable worker. To keep away the large number of sightseers who come up the big hill to his sanctum, Twain has posted on the door the following novel sign. Step softly, keep away. Do not disturb the remains. In spite of this characteristic warning we open the door and enter. The floor is bare, and has across one corner some pages of manuscript and scraps of newspaper articles pinned to it to prevent dispersion by the wind. There is a table in the centre of the room covered with books, pamphlets, newspapers, manuscripts, and all the paraphernalia of authorship. On one side is a comfortable-looking lounge, somewhat soiled by use, and over the fireplace is a shelf on which rests a few books and a couple of boxes of choice cigars. That is all except a pervasive odor of smoke. The five o'clock dinner hour brings Mark Twain up from the city and he joins his family in the parlor. He is now forty-seven years of age, with iron-grey hair cut rather short and mustache of same colour. He is of medium height, inclining to portliness, has a small black, piercing eye, and a rather aculent nose. He is pleasant in his manner and talks when he has anything to say, but has a particular horror of people who expect to be entertained by witty remarks, and especially of some who seem to think that they must talk nothing but nonsense in his presence. He is remarkably domestic in his tastes, and is blessed with a very lovely wife and three beautiful little daughters. Mrs. Clemens is a slender, graceful lady of rare beauty, genial, chatty, and charming. She is the daughter of the late Jay Langdon of Elmira. End of Section 16, September 10, 1882. Mark Twain's Summer Home, read by John Greenman. Section 17 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, 1880-1889. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 2, Section 17, November 21, 1882. Mark Twain's Barometer, read by John Greenman. Mark Twain's Barometer, from the Philadelphia Press. Somebody was asking a Hartford man how it happened that Mark Twain wrote and published so little nowadays. He writes as much as ever, was the reply, but his barometer is out of order, and he does not know what to publish, so he publishes nothing. What in the world has his barometer to do with his literary activity? Well, his barometer is a man's servant named Jacob, who is remarkable for his deficient sense of humor. Mark never can judge of the merit of his own performances. Years ago he fell into the habit of testing everything that he wrote by observing its effect upon Jacob. If Jacob listened to the reading of the article, just or story, with unmoved countenance, or merely smiled in a perfunctory way, Mark was satisfied and sent the manuscript to the printer. But if Jacob laughed outright or gave any other indication of genuine merriment, the humorous concluded that the stuff was hopeless and withheld it from production. He regarded Jacob as infallible and came to lean upon his judgment. About three years ago it appears Jacob learned for the first time from some outsider that his master was a professional humorist. He felt greatly honoured that he should have been chosen habitually to enjoy the first freshness of every new production of genius. He did not exactly understand why he should have been thus chosen, but felt in a vague way that a great humorist must need sympathy and appreciation, and must naturally look for it to the fellow being nearest at hand. He also felt that he had perhaps failed to be at all times sufficiently appreciative. So Jacob kept his discovery to himself as far as his master was concerned, and resolved to be as appreciative in the future as anybody could desire. One day Mark called Jacob in and read him a sketch entitled The Cow and the Lightning Rod Man. In composing it, Mark had flattered himself that he had struck a pretty fine steak. To his amazement Jacob put back his head and roared. With a half suppressed ejaculation Mark dashed the manuscript into the waste basket. Then Mark waited six weeks or two months to collect his forces, for he has never precipitated into anything he does, and achieved a romance called How I Bounced the Baby. He summoned Jacob and watched his face with obvious anxiety as he read the touching narrative. Jacob's mirth was painful to observe. Mark tore up the story and then tore his hair. Two or three experiments of this sort with unvarying results persuaded Mark Twain that the malaria, which he has been dreading ever since it began to creep up the Connecticut Valley, had reached him at last and destroyed his powers of usefulness. He fell into a settled melancholy. His friend, the Reverend Mr. Twichel, tried in vain to cheer him up. Perhaps, suggested Twichel, your man has really cultivated a sense of humor so that you must no longer judge by opposites. Mark shook his head and borrowed a volume of Jonathan Edwards' sermons from his friend's library. He copied out a long passage from the discourse on eternal punishment and palmed it off on Jacob as his own latest effort. For the first time in history the gloomy periods provoked peals of laughter. Jacob held his sides and shook all over. Then he suddenly stopped. His countenance became blank, turned pale, and he incontinently fled. He had seen murder in his master's eye. That, said the Hartford man in conclusion, is why Mark Twain does not write. He hung his reputation as a humorist upon his barometer, and his barometer no longer works. End of Section 17, November 21st, 1882, Mark Twain's barometer. Read by John Greenman.