Mark Twain's Speeches

And he was that kind of a boy. He should have lived, and yet he should not have lived, because he died at that early age – he couldn’t have been more than twenty – he had seen all there was to see in the world that was worth the trouble of living in it; he had seen all of this world that is valuable; he had seen all of this world that was illusion, and illusion, is the only valuable thing in it. He had arrived at that point where presently the illusions would cease and he would have entered upon the realities of life, and God help the man that has arrived at that point.

Accident Insurance – Etc

Delivered in Hartford, at A dinner to Cornelius Walford, of London.

Gentleman, – I am glad, indeed, to assist in welcoming the distinguished guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance centre has extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band of brothers working sweetly hand in hand – the Colt’s arms company making the destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life-insurance citizens paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating their memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comrades taking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming our guest – first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt of hospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because he is in sympathy with insurance, and has been the means of making many other men cast their sympathies in the same direction.

Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insurance line of business – especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been a director in an accident-insurance company I have felt that I am a better man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half their horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest – as an advertisement. I do not seem, to care for poetry any more. I do not care for politics – even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now there is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable.

There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man’s face when he feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seen nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer’s face when he found he couldn’t collect on a wooden leg.

I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity which we have named the Hartford accident insurance company[2 - The speaker was a director of the company named.] is an institution, which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it his custom. No man pan take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the year is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so often with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetite left him, he ceased to smile – said life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land – has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and travels around on a shutter.

I will say in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I curl say the same far the rest of the speakers.

Osteopathy

On February 27, 1901, Mr. Clemens appeared before the Assembly Committee in Albany, New York, in favor of the Seymour bill legalizing the practice of osteopathy.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, – Dr. Van Fleet is the gentleman who gave me the character. I have heard my character discussed a thousand times before you were born, sir, and shown the iniquities in it, and you did not get more than half of them.

I was touched and distressed when they brought that part of a child in here, and proved that you cannot take a child to pieces in that way. What remarkable names those diseases have! It makes me envious of the man that has them all. I have had many diseases, and am thankful for all I have had.

One of the gentlemen spoke of the knowledge of something else found in Sweden, a treatment which I took. It is, I suppose, a kindred thing. There is apparently no great difference between them. I was a year and a half in London and Sweden, in the hands of that grand old man, Mr. Kildren.

I cannot call him a doctor, for he has not the authority to give a certificate if a patient should die, but fortunately they don’t.

The State stands as a mighty Gibraltar clothed with power. It stands between me and my body, and tells me what kind of a doctor I must employ. When my soul is sick unlimited spiritual liberty is given me by the State. Now then, it doesn’t seem logical that the State shall depart from this great policy, the health of the soul, and change about and take the other position in the matter of smaller consequence – the health of the body.

The Bell bill limitations would drive the osteopaths out of the State. Oh, dear me! when you drive somebody out of the State you create the same condition as prevailed in the Garden of Eden.

You want the thing that you can’t have. I didn’t care much about the osteopaths, but as soon as I found they were going to drive them out I got in a state of uneasiness, and I can’t sleep nights now.

I know how Adam felt in the Garden of Eden about the prohibited apple. Adam didn’t want the apple till he found out he couldn’t have it, just as he would have wanted osteopathy if he couldn’t have it.

Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.

I was the subject of my mother’s experiment. She was wise. She made experiments cautiously. She didn’t pick out just any child in the flock. No, she chose judiciously. She chose one she could spare, and she couldn’t spare the others. I was the choice child of the flock; so I had to take all of the experiments.

In 1844 Kneipp filled the world with the wonder of the water cure. Mother wanted to try it, but on sober second thought she put me through. A bucket of ice-water was poured over to see the effect. Then I was rubbed down with flannels, sheet was dipped in the water, and I was put to bed. I perspired so much that mother put a life-preserver to bed with me.

But this had nothing but a spiritual effect on me, and I didn’t care for that. When they took off the sheet it was yellow from the output of my conscience, the exudation of sin. It purified me spiritually, and it remains until this day.

I have experimented with osteopathy and allopathy. I took a chance at the latter for old times’ sake, for, three tines, when a boy, mother’s new methods got me so near death’s door she had to call in the family physician to pull me out.

The physicians think they are moved by regard for the best interests of the public. Isn’t there a little touch of self-interest back of it all? It seems to me there is, and I don’t claim to have all the virtues – only nine or ten of them.

I was born in the “Banner State,” and by “Banner State” I mean Missouri. Osteopathy was born in the same State, and both of us are getting along reasonably well. At a time during my younger days my attention was attracted to a picture of a house which bore the inscription, “Christ Disputing with the Doctors.”

I could attach no other meaning to it than that Christ was actually quarreling with the doctors. So I asked an old slave, who was a sort of a herb doctor in a small way – unlicensed, of course – what the meaning of the picture was. “What had has done?” I asked. And the colored man replied “Humph, he ain’t got no license.”

Water-Supply

Mr. Clemens visited Albany on February 21 and 28, 1901. The privileges of the floor were granted and he was asked to make a short address to the Senate.

Mr. President and gentlemen, – I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for this high honor which you are conferring upon me. I have for the second time now enjoyed this kind of prodigal hospitality – in the other House yesterday, to-day in this one. I am a modest man, and diffident about appearing before legislative bodies, and yet utterly an entirely appreciative of a courtesy like this when it is extended to me, and I thank you very much for it.

If I had the privilege, which unfortunately I have not got, of suggesting things to the legislators in my individual capacity, I would so enjoy the opportunity that I would not charge anything for it at all. I would do that without a salary. I would give them the benefit of my wisdom and experience in legislative bodies, and if I could have had the privilege for a few minutes of giving advice to the other House I should have liked to, but of course I could not undertake it, as they did not ask me to do it – but if they had only asked me!

Now that the House is considering a measure which is to furnish a water-supply to the city of New York, why, permit me to say I live in New York myself. I know all about its ways, its desires, and its residents, and – if I had the privilege – I should have urged them not to weary themselves over a measure like that to furnish water to the city of New York, for we never drink it.

But I will not venture to advise this body, as I only venture to advise bodies who are, not present.

Mistaken Identity

Address at the annual “Ladies’ day,” Papyrus Club, Boston.

Ladies and gentlemen, – I am perfectly astonished – a-s-t-o-n-i-s-h-e-d – ladies and gentlemen – astonished at the way 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 dust 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 shrivelled 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; but he cut me short with a venomous “No, you can’t; every corner is 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—“Don’t talk such folly,” he said; “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 uniformed conductor, punctuating with nods and jerks toward me, and straightway this conductor came forward, oozing politeness from every pore.

“Can I be of any service to you?” he asked. “Will you have a place in the sleeper?”

“Yes,” I said, “and much oblige me, too. Give me anything – anything will answer.”

“We have nothing left but the big family state-room,” he continued, “with two berths and a couple of arm-chairs in it, but it is entirely at your disposal. Here, Tom, take these satchels aboard!”

Then 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 dey anything you want, sah? Case you kin have jes’ anything you wants. It don’t make no difference what it is.”

“Can I have some hot water and a tumbler at nine to-night-blazing hot?” I asked. “You know about the right temperature for a hot Scotch punch?”

“Yes, sah, dat you kin; you kin pen 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, sah, you kin; I’ll fix her up myself, an’ I’ll fix her so she’ll burn all night. Yes, sah; an’ you can jes’ call for anything you want, and dish yer whole railroad’ll be turned wrong end up an’ inside out for to get it for you. Dat’s so.” And he disappeared.

Well, I tilted my head back, hooked my thumbs in my armholes, smiled a smile on my companion, and said, gently:

“Well, what do you say now?”

My companion was not in the 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, sah, I knowed you in a minute. I told de conductah so. Laws! I knowed you de minute I sot eyes on you.”

“Is that so, my boy?” (Handing him a quadruple fee.) “Who am I?”