CONTEXT

This is one of my favorite pieces by a humorous keynote speaker and writer. Mark Twain was the premier business humorist and humorous keynote speaker of his day. The original speech was delivered in 1877 and as Abraham Lincoln (another inspirational and motivational speaker) is reputed to have said about his Gettysburg address "It did not scour."

Humorist Twain's follow up reference in his biography is a masterpiece. Every inspirational, motivational speaker in the world has bombed at some stage. Every humorous keynote speaker has at some stage felt cold sweat at the back of the neck and truly understands Twain's reaction. "When I sat down it was with a heart which had long ceased to beat. I shall never be as dead again as I was then. I speak now as one who doesn't know what the condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I shall never be as wretched again as I was then." 

*********************************************************

THE STORY OF A SPEECH    

An address delivered in 1877, and a review of it twenty-nine years later. The original speech was delivered at a dinner given by the publishers of The Atlantic Monthly in honor of the     seventieth anniversary of the birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, December 17, 1877. 

********************

This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk; therefore I will drop lightlyinto history myself.  Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic and contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just succeededin stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly Californiaward.  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 'nom de guerre'. I very soon had an opportunity. 

I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin in the foot-hills of the Sierras just at nightfall.  It was snowing at the time.  A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door to me.  When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than before.  He let me in--pretty reluctantly, I thought--and after the customary bacon and beans, black coffee and 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 littery man that has 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--consound the lot!" 

You can, easily believe I was interested.  I supplicated--three hot whiskeys did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began.  Said he: "They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in of course.  Said they were going to the Yosemite.  They were a rough lot,but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot. 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 doublechins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a prizefighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a wigmade of hair-brushes.  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 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 thee more stately mansions, 

  O my soul!' 

"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want to. 'Blamed 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 awhile, and then he takes me aside by the buttonhole and says:

"'Give me agates for my meat; 

  Give me cantharids 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 warn't used to the ways of littery swells. But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr. Longfellow and buttonholes me, and interrupts me.  Says he:      

"'Honor be to Mudjekeewis!

 You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--'

"But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll be so kind as to hold your yawp 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 he fires up all of a sudden and yells: 

"Flash out a stream of blood-red wine! 

 For I would drink to other days.'

"By George, I was getting kind of worked up.  I don't deny it, I was getting kind of worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes, and says I, 'Looky here, 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 don't want to sass such famous litterypeople, but you see they kind of forced me.  There ain't nothing onreasonable 'bout me; I don't mind a passel of guests a-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,' I says, 'you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry.'  Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin and strike attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck and went to playing euchre at 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 ca'mly 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!' 

Hang'd 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 all of a sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em.  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. Longfellow smiles as sweet as pie and says: 

"'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,  

  For the lesson thou hast taught,' 

--and blamed if he didn't down with another right bower!  Emerson claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went under a bunk.There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he,

'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws, I'll lay down on him and smother him!'  All quieton the Potomac, you bet!

"They were pretty how-come-you-so by now, and they begun to blow. Emerson says, 'The nobbiest thing I ever wrote was "Barbara Frietchie." 'Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my "Biglow Papers."'  Says Holmes,'My "Thanatopsis" lays over 'em both.'  They mighty near ended in a fight.Then they wished they had some more company--and Mr. Emerson pointed to me and says:   

"'Is yonder squalid peasant all  

 That this proud nursery could breed?' 

He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it 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-at thirteen minutes past four this morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke at seven, they were leaving, thank goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my only boots on, and his'n under hisarm.  Says I, 'Hold on, there, Evangeline, what are you going to do with them?'  He says, 'Going to make tracks with 'em; because:  

"'Lives of great men all remind us 

  We can make our lives sublime;   

  And, departing, leave behind us

  Footprints on the sands of time.'

 "As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours--and I'm going to move; I ain't suited to a littery atmosphere." I said to the miner, "Why, my dear sir, these were not the gracious singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and homage; these were impostors." The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said he, "Ah! impostors, were they?  Are you?" I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not travelled on my'nom de guerre' enough to hurt.  Such was the reminiscence I was moved to contribute, Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this. 

From Mark Twain's Autobiography.

                                             January 11, 1906.

Answer to a letter received this morning:

     DEAR MRS. H.,--I am forever your debtor for reminding me of that

     curious passage in my life.  During the first year or, two after it

     happened, I could not bear to think of it.  My pain and shame were

     so intense, and my sense of having been an imbecile so settled,

     established and confirmed, that I drove the episode entirely from my

     mind--and so all these twenty-eight or twenty-nine years I have

     lived in the conviction that my performance of that time was coarse,

     vulgar, and destitute of humor.  But your suggestion that you and

     your family found humor in it twenty-eight years ago moved me to

     look into the matter.  So I commissioned a Boston typewriter to

     delve among the Boston papers of that bygone time and send me a copy

     of it.

     It came this morning, and if there is any vulgarity about it I am

     not able to discover it.  If it isn't innocently and ridiculously

     funny, I am no judge.  I will see to it that you get a copy.

 
What I have said to Mrs. H. is true.  I did suffer during a year or twoWhat I have said to Mrs. H. is true.  I did suffer during a year or two

from the deep humiliations of that episode.  But at last, in 1888, in

Venice, my wife and I came across Mr. and Mrs.  A. P. C., of Concord,

Massachusetts, and a friendship began then of the sort which nothing but

death terminates.  The C.'s were very bright people and in every way

charming and companionable.  We were together a month or two in Venice

and several months in Rome, afterward, and one day that lamented break of

mine was mentioned.  And when I was on the point of lathering those

people for bringing it to my mind when I had gotten the memory of it

almost squelched, I perceived with joy that the C.'s were indignant about

the way that my performance had been received in Boston.  They poured out

their opinions most freely and frankly about the frosty attitude of the

people who were present at that performance, and about the Boston

newspapers for the position they had taken in regard to the matter.

That position was that I had been irreverent beyond belief, beyond

imagination.  Very well; I had accepted that as a fact for a year or two,

and had been thoroughly miserable about it whenever I thought of it

--which was not frequently, if I could help it.  Whenever I thought of it

I wondered how I ever could have been inspired to do so unholy a thing.

Well, the C.'s comforted me, but they did not persuade me to continue to

think about the unhappy episode.  I resisted that.  I tried to get it out

of my mind, and let it die, and I succeeded.  Until Mrs. H.'s letter

came, it had been a good twenty-five years since I had thought of that

matter; and when she said that the thing was funny I wondered if possibly

she might be right.  At any rate, my curiosity was aroused, and I wrote

to Boston and got the whole thing copied, as above set forth.

I vaguely remember some of the details of that gathering--dimly I can see

a hundred people--no, perhaps fifty--shadowy figures sitting at tables

feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless forevermore.  I don't know who

they were, but I can very distinctly see, seated at the grand table and

facing the rest of us, Mr. Emerson, supernaturally grave, unsmiling;

Mr. Whittier, grave, lovely, his beautiful spirit shining out of his

face; Mr. Longfellow, with his silken white hair and his benignant face;

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, flashing smiles and affection and all

good-fellowship everywhere like a rose-diamond whose facets are being

turned toward the light first one way and then another--a charming man,

and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was sitting

still (what he would call still, but what would be more or less motion to

other people).  I can see those figures with entire distinctness across

this abyss of time.

One other feature is clear--Willie Winter (for these past thousand years

dramatic editor of the New York Tribune, and still occupying that high

post in his old age) was there.  He was much younger then than he is now,

and he showed 'it.  It was always a pleasure to me to see Willie Winter

at a banquet.  During a matter of twenty years I was seldom at a banquet

where Willie Winter was not also present, and where he did not read a

charming poem written for the occasion.  He did it this time, and it was

up to standard: dainty, happy, choicely phrased, and as good to listen to

as music, and sounding exactly as if it was pouring unprepared out of

heart and brain.

Now at that point ends all that was pleasurable about that notable

celebration of Mr. Whittier's seventieth birthday--because I got up at

that point and followed Winter, with what I have no doubt I supposed

would be the gem of the evening--the gay oration above quoted from the

Boston paper.  I had written it all out the day before and had perfectly

memorized it, and I stood up there at my genial and happy and

self-satisfied ease, and began to deliver it.  Those majestic guests;

that row of venerable and still active volcanoes, listened; as did

everybody else in the house, with attentive interest.  Well, I delivered

myself of--we'll say the first two hundred words of my speech.  I was

expecting no returns from that part of the speech, but this was not the

case as regarded the rest of it.  I arrived now at the dialogue:  "The

old miner said, 'You are the fourth, I'm going to move.'  'The fourth

what?' said I.  He answered, 'The fourth littery man that has been here

in twenty-four hours.  I am going to move.'  'Why, you don't tell me;'

said I. 'Who were the others?'  'Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Oliver

Wendell Holmes, consound the lot--'"

Now, then, the house's attention continued, but the expression of

interest in the faces turned to a sort of black frost.  I wondered what

the trouble was.  I didn't know.  I went on, but with difficulty

--I struggled along, and entered upon that miner's fearful description of

the bogus Emerson, the bogus Holmes, the bogus Longfellow, always hoping

--but with a gradually perishing hope that somebody--would laugh, or that

somebody would at least smile, but nobody did.  I didn't know enough to

give it up and sit down, I was too new to public speaking, and so I went

on with this awful performance, and carried it clear through to the end,

in front of a body of people who seemed turned to stone with horror.

It was the sort of expression their faces would have worn if I had been

making these remarks about the Deity and the rest of the Trinity; there

is no milder way, in which to describe the petrified condition and the

ghastly expression of those people.

When I sat down it was with a heart which had long ceased to beat.

I shall never be as dead again as I was then.  I shall never be as

miserable again as I was then.  I speak now as one who doesn't know what

the condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I shall

never be as wretched again as I was then.  Howells, who was near me,

tried to say a comforting word, but couldn't get beyond a gasp.  There

was no use--he understood the whole size of the disaster.  He had good

intentions, but the words froze before they could get out.  It was an

atmosphere that would freeze anything.  If Benvenuto Cellini's salamander

had been in that place he would not have survived to be put into

Cellini's autobiography.  There was a frightful pause.  There was an

awful silence, a desolating silence.  Then the next man on the list had

to get up--there was no help for it.  That was Bishop--Bishop had just

burst handsomely upon the world with a most acceptable novel, which had

appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, a place which would make any novel

respectable and any author noteworthy.  In this case the novel itself was

recognized as being, without extraneous help, respectable.  Bishop was

away up in the public favor, and he was an object of high interest,

consequently there was a sort of national expectancy in the air; we may

say our American millions were standing, from Maine to Texas and from

Alaska to Florida, holding their breath, their lips parted, their hands

ready to applaud, when Bishop should get up on that occasion, and for the

first time in his life speak in public.  It was under these damaging

conditions that he got up to "make good," as the vulgar say.  I had

spoken several times before, and that is the reason why I was able to go

on without dying in my tracks, as I ought to have done--but Bishop had

had no experience.  He was up facing those awful deities--facing those

other people, those strangers--facing human beings for the first time in

his life, with a speech to utter.  No doubt it was well packed away in

his memory, no doubt it was fresh and usable, until I had been heard

from.  I suppose that after that, and under the smothering pall of that

dreary silence, it began to waste away and disappear out of his head like

the rags breaking from the edge of a fog, and presently there wasn't any

fog left.  He didn't go on--he didn't last long.  It was not many

sentence's after his first before he began to hesitate, and break, and

lose his grip, and totter, and wobble, and at last he slumped down in a

limp and mushy pile.

Well, the programme for the occasion was probably not more than

one-third finished, but it ended there.  Nobody rose.  The next man

hadn't strength enough to get up, and everybody looked so dazed, so

stupefied, paralyzed; it was impossible for anybody to do anything, or

even try. Nothing could go on in that strange atmosphere.  Howells

mournfully, and without words, hitched himself to Bishop and me and

supported us out of the room.  It was very kind--he was most generous.

He towed us tottering away into same room in that building, and we sat

down there.  I don't know what my remark was now, but I know the nature

of it.  It was the kind of remark you make when you know that nothing in

the world can help your case.  But Howells was honest--he had to say the

heart-breaking things he did say: that there was no help for this

calamity, this shipwreck, this cataclysm; that this was the most

disastrous thing that had ever happened in anybody's history--and then he

added, "That is, for you--and consider what you have done for Bishop.  It

is bad enough in your case, you deserve, to suffer.  You have committed

this crime, and you deserve to have all you are going to get.  But here

is an innocent man.  Bishop had never done you any harm, and see what you

have done to him.  He can never hold his head up again.  The world can

never look upon Bishop as being a live person.  He is a corpse."

That is the history of that episode of twenty-eight years ago, which

pretty nearly killed me with shame during that first year or two whenever

it forced its way into my mind.

Now then, I take that speech up and examine it.  As I said, it arrived

this morning, from Boston.  I have read it twice, and unless I am an

idiot, it hasn't a single defect in it from the first word to the last.

It is just as good as good can be.  It is smart; it is saturated with

humor.  There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it

anywhere.  What could have been the matter with that house?  It is

amazing, it is incredible, that they didn't shout with laughter, and

those deities the loudest of them all.  Could the fault have been with

me?  Did I lose courage when I saw those great men up there whom I was

going to describe in such a strange fashion?  If that happened, if I

showed doubt, that can account for it, for you can't be successfully

funny if you show that you are afraid of it.  Well, I can't account for

it, but if I had those beloved and revered old literary immortals back

here now on the platform at Carnegie Hall I would take that same old

speech, deliver it, word for word, and melt them till they'd run all over

that stage.  Oh, the fault must have been with me, it is not in the

speech at all.