Mark Twain Speaking

51. On Adam

178 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING· 51 · A note on the manuscript ofthe speech below says that it was "Delivered about 1880-85. Exact occasion unknown." It was probably given at a dinner ofthe Royal Literary and Scientific Society, which convened in Ottawa, May 22-26, 1883. Mark Twain was there at the time as a guest ofthe governor general and his lady, Lord Lorne, and Princess Louise, at Rideau Hall. An obvious assumption is that he was called upon to speak to the society. The conjecture is supported by a passage on Adam in Mark Twain's Notebook 17, May 1883-8eptember 1884, MTP. On Adam Royal Literary and Scientific Society Dinner, Ottawa, May 23, 1883 I never feel wholly at home and equal to the occasion except when I am to respond for the royal family or the President of the United States. But I am full of serenity, courage and confidence then, because I know by experience that I can drink standing and "in silence" just as long as anybody wants me to. Sometimes I have gone on responding to those toasts with mute and diligent enthusiasm until I have become an embarrassment, and people have requested me to sit down and rest myself. But responding by speech is a sore trial to me. The list of toasts being always the same, one is always so apt to forget and say something that has already been said at some other banquet some time or other. For instance, you take the toast to--well, take any toast in the regulation lot, and you won't get far in your speech before you notice that everything you are saying is old; not only old, but stale; and not only stale, but rancid. At any rate, that is my experience. There are gifted men who have the faculty of saying an old thing in a new and happy way-they rub the old Aladdin lamp and bring forth the smoke and thunder, the giants and genii, the pomp and pageantry of all the wide and secret realms of enchantment-and these men are the saviors of the banquet; but for them it must have gone silent, as Carlyle would say, generations ago, and ceased from among the world's occasions MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 179 and industries. But I cannot borrow their trick; I do not know the mystery of how to rub the old lamp the right way_ And so it has seemed to me that for the behoofof my sort and kind, the toast list ought to be reconstructed. We ought to have some of the old themes knocked out of it and a new one or two inserted in their places. There are plenty ofnew subjects, ifwe would only look around. And plenty of old ones, too, that have not been touched. There is Adam, for instance. Who ever talks about Adam at a banquet? All sorts of recent and ephemeral celebrities are held up and glorified on such occasions, but who ever says a good word for Adam? Yet why is he neglected, why is he ignored in this offensive way-can you tell me that? What has he done, that we let banquet after banquet go on, and never give him a lift? Considering what we and the whole world owe him, he ought to be in the list-yes, and he ought to be away up high in the list, too. He ought to take precedence of the Press; yes, and the Army and Navy; and Literature; and the Day we Celebrate; and pretty much everything else. In the United States he ought to be at the very top-he ought to take precedence of the President; and even in the loyalest monarchy he ought at least to come right after the royal family. And be "drunk in silence and standing," too. It is his right; and for one, I propose to stick here and drink him in silence and standing till I can't tell a ministering angel from a tax collector. This neglect has been going on too long. You always place Woman at the bottom of the toast list; it is but simple justice to place Adam at the top of it-for if it had not been for the help of these two, where would you and your banquets be?-answer me that. You must excuse me for losing my temper and carrying on in this way; and in truth I would not...