Mark Twain Speaking

14. Aldine Dinner Speech

MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 65 1861: "Gov. Nye brought some goods with him from New York for distribution among the Indians. Before starting out last Monday, the goods were overhauled and a fine assortment of hoops were found among the lot."· 14 · The Aldine, a monthly published in New York, called itself "A Typographic ArtJournal." In April 1871, itpublished a picture and "An Autobiography" of Mark Twain. He said: "I was born November 30, 1835. I continue to live,just the same." The 1872 dinner, given by the publisher, James Sutton, and the editor, R. H. Stoddard, attracted such banqueting and literary lights as Schuyler Colfax, E. C. Stedman, George P. Putnam, and Bayard Taylor. Mark Twain's speech was reported to have been received with "shouts oflaughter ." Dinner Speech The Aldine Dinner, St. James Hotel, New York, Early February 1872 Gentlemen, I would rather address a "stag" dinner party than any other assemblage in the world, for the reason that when you make a point, those who have been listening always applaud, and those who have been talking to each other and did not hear it, applaud louder than anybody else, and if I only had a speech prepared for this occasion, I would take genuine delight in delivering it. But I got the notification to be present at this dinner this evening, at half-past eleven o'clock this morning to pay what lowe to the Aldine establishment; and I had to leave an hour after that in order that I might take the trip, so I had no opportunity to prepare a speech, and I am not one of those geniuses who can make a speech impromptu. I have made a great many happy impromptu speeches but I had time to prepare them. Now, it is singular, and I suppose that, but for circumstances which 66 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING happened when I was fourteen years of age, I might have rushed blindly into real impromptu speeches, and injured myselfa good deal. This circumstance, which happened when I was fourteen years ofage, has always protected me against anything of that kind, and it has led me to think a good deal. Now, I don't think a good deal, generally of what may probably be the moving springs of human nature. I put that in merely because it is a good expression. I mean it has led me to question in my own mind, what may probably have been the incidents in a man's life which have remained with him longest; whether they are important incidents or whether they are merely trivial ones. I have almost come to the conclusion that the things that stay longest by man, and shape his action in after life, are really things of trivial importance . Now, I call your attention to the fact, in support of this argument, that Newton when he was-well, I don't know what he was doing now; I make no insinuations against Newton; I don't know what he was doing in the apple orchard, but you know he saw the apple fall, and that suggested the idea of the attraction of gravitation-I call your attention again to that expression and then again, one of the gr~atest inventors that ever lived-I am sorry for your instruction, I cannot tell his name-was led into this matter of gravitation by having to wait upon his mother while she was hearing confession, and, seeing the pendulum move back and forward-there was nothing else for him to contemplate-and that set him into this matter of looking at mechanics , and he invented a great many things-I don't know what they were, now it was trivial you know. And Galileo, loafing around in the Cathedral at Pisa, not knowing what he was there for, or how he was putting in his time, but he saw and took note of the gentle vibration of the chandelier to and fro, and through that invented the pendulum, which is understood to have made a revolution in mechanics, and I suppose it has. I take these learned things for granted. All these are trivial matters, but they brought about vast results. Now the thing that made the deepest impression on my mind, and has lasted until this moment, was a matter itself essentially trivial. It occurred when I was a boy, and it has protected me, up to this time, against making a speech when I hadn't...