Mark Twain's Speeches eBook

Since to you now, my gentlemen, the character of my mission known is, beseech I you so friendly to be and to me your valuable help grant.  Mr. Potzl has the public believed make would that I to Vienna come am in order the bridges to clog up and the traffic to hinder, while I observations gather and note.  Allow you yourselves but not from him deceived.  My frequent presence on the bridges has an entirely innocent ground.  Yonder gives it the necessary space, yonder can one a noble long German sentence elaborate, the bridge-railing along, and his whole contents with one glance overlook.  On the one end of the railing pasted I the first member of a separable verb and the final member cleave I to the other end—­then spread the body of the sentence between it out!  Usually are for my purposes the bridges of the city long enough; when I but Potzl’s writings study will I ride out and use the glorious endless imperial bridge.  But this is a calumny; Potzl writes the prettiest German.  Perhaps not so pliable as the mine, but in many details much better.  Excuse you these flatteries.  These are well deserved.

Now I my speech execute—­no, I would say I bring her to the close.  I am a foreigner—­but here, under you, have I it entirely forgotten.  And so again and yet again proffer I you my heartiest thanks.

GERMAN FOR THE HUNGARIANS

          Addressat the Jubilee celebration of the emancipation of the
          Hungarian press, march 26, 1899

The Ministry and members of Parliament were present.  The subject was the “Ausgleich”—­i. e., the arrangement for the apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria.  Paragraph 14 of the ausgleich fixes the proportion each country must pay to the support of the army.  It is the paragraph which caused the trouble and prevented its renewal.

Now that we are all here together, I think it will be a good idea to arrange the ausgleich.  If you will act for Hungary I shall be quite willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time for it.  There couldn’t be a better, for we are all feeling friendly, fair-minded, and hospitable now, and, full of admiration for each other, full of confidence in each other, full of the spirit of welcome, full of the grace of forgiveness, and the disposition to let bygones be bygones.

Let us not waste this golden, this beneficent, this providential opportunity.  I am willing to make any concession you want, just so we get it settled.  I am not only willing to let grain come in free, I am willing to pay the freight on it, and you may send delegates to the Reichsrath if you like.  All I require is that they shall be quiet, peaceable people like your own deputies, and not disturb our proceedings.

If you want the Gegenseitigengeldbeitragendenverhaltnismassigkeiten rearranged and readjusted I am ready for that.  I will let you off at twenty-eight per cent.—­twenty-seven—­even twenty-five if you insist, for there is nothing illiberal about me when I am out on a diplomatic debauch.