Mark Twain Speaking

169. Our Guest

558 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING -169Among the 250 guests at the Society ofthe Pilgrims luncheon were H. Rider Haggard, Anthony Hope Hawkins, Sir Gilbert Parker, Chauncey Depew, T. P. O'Connor, Sir Thomas Lipton, H. Beerbohm Tree, Sir Douglas Straight, Henry Rogers, N orman Hapgood, and T. Fisher Unwin. On the speakers' table was a statuette ofMark Twain garbed in a pilgrim's robe, carrying a long pen in lieu of a staff, and leading a huge frog. On the menu were Saumon du Mississippi Froid, Asperges Sauce Hannibal, Savoury Calaveras, Tokay Extra Dry, Braunelberger, and Chandon Dry Imperial. The Right Honorable Augustine Birrell, chiefsecretaryforIreland, presided. Introducing the guest of honor, he called Mark Twain "a true consolidator of nations," a man whose "delightful humor. . . dissipates and destroys nationalprejudices," whose"love of truth . . . and love ofhonor overflow all boundaries. . . . Long may he live to reap the plentiful harvest ofhearty honest human affection." Our Guest Society of the Pilgrims Luncheonfor Mark Twain, Hotel Savoy, London, June 25, 1907 Pilgrims, I desire first to thank those undergraduates of Oxford. When a man has grown so old as I am, when he has reached the verge of seventy-two years, there is nothing that carries him back to the dreamland of his life, to his boyhood, like the recognition of those young hearts up yonder. And so I thank them out of my heart. I desire, too, to thank the Pilgrims of New York also for their kind notice and message which they have cabled over here. Mr. Birrell says he does not know how he got here. But he will be able to get away all right-he has not drunk anything since he came here. I am glad to know about those friends of his-Otway and Chatterton-fresh, new names to me. I am glad of the disposition he has shown to rescue them from the evils of poverty, and if they are still in London, I hope to have a talk with them. For a while I thought he was going to tell us the effect which my books had upon his growing manhood. I thought he was going to tell us how much that effect amounted to, and whether it really made him what he now is, but with the discretion born of MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 559 Parliamentary experience he dodged that, and we do not know whether he read the books or not. He did that very neatly. I could not do it any better myself. My books have had effects, and very good ones, too, here and there, and some others not so good. There is no doubt about that. But I remember one monumental instance of it years and years ago. Professor Norton, of Harvard, was over here, and when he came back to Boston I went out with Howells to call on him. Norton was allied in some way by marriage with Darwin. Mr. Norton was very gentle in what he had to say, and almost delicate, and he said: "Mr. Clemens, I have been spending some time with Mr. Darwin in England, and I should like to tell you something connected with that visit. You were the object ofit, and I myself would have been very proud ofit, but you may not be proud of it. At any rate, I am going to tell you what it was, and to leave you to regard it as you please. Mr. Darwin took me up to his bedroom and pointed out certain things there-pitcher plants, and so on, that he was measuring and watching from day to day-and he said, 'The chambermaid is permitted to do what she pleases in this room, but she must never touch those plants and never touch those books on that table by that candle. With those books I read myself to sleep every night.' Those were your own books." I said, "There is no question to my mind as to whether I should regard that as a compliment or not. I do regard it as a very great compliment, and a very high honor, that that great mind, laboring for the whole human race, should rest itself on my books. I am proud that he should read himself to sleep with them." Now, I could not keep that to myself-I was so proud of it. As soon as I got home to Hartford I called up my oldest friend-and dearest enemy on occasion-the Rev. Joseph...