Now there was another great man, I can’t think
of his name either, who used to loaf around and watch
the great chandelier in the cathedral at Pisa., which
set him to thinking about the great law of gunpowder,
and eventually led to the discovery of the cotton-gin.
Now, I don’t say this as an inducement for our
young men to loaf around like Mr. Newton and Mr. Galileo
and Captain Smith, but they were once little babies
two days old, and they show what little things have
sometimes accomplished.
The children of the Educational
Alliance gave a performance of “The
Prince and the Pauper” on the afternoon of April
14, 1907, in the theatre of the Alliance
Building in East Broadway. The audience
was composed of nearly one thousand children of the
neighborhood. Mr. Clemens, Mr. Howells,
and Mr. Daniel Frohman were among the invited
guests.
I have not enjoyed a play so much, so heartily, and
so thoroughly since I played Miles Hendon twenty-two
years ago. I used to play in this piece ("The
Prince and the Pauper”) with my children, who,
twenty-two years ago, were little youngsters.
One of my daughters was the Prince, and a neighbor’s
daughter was the Pauper, and the children of other
neighbors played other parts. But we never gave
such a performance as we have seen here to-day.
It would have been beyond us.
My late wife was the dramatist and stage-manager.
Our coachman was the stage-manager, second in command.
We used to play it in this simple way, and the one
who used to bring in the crown on a cushion—he
was a little fellow then—is now a clergyman
way up high—six or seven feet high—and
growing higher all the time. We played it well,
but not as well as you see it here, for you see it
done by practically trained professionals.
I was especially interested in the scene which we
have just had, for Miles Hendon was my part.
I did it as well as a person could who never remembered
his part. The children all knew their parts.
They did not mind if I did not know mine. I
could thread a needle nearly as well as the player
did whom you saw to-day. The words of my part
I could supply on the spot. The words of the
song that Miles Hendon sang here I did not catch.
But I was great in that song.
[Then Mr. Clemens hummed
a bit of doggerel that the reporter
made out as this:
“There
was a woman in her town,
She
loved her husband well,
But
another man just twice as well.”
“How is that?”
demanded Mr. Clemens. Then resuming]
It was so fresh and enjoyable to make up a new set
of words each time that I played the part.
If I had a thousand citizens in front of me, I would
like to give them information, but you children already
know all that I have found out about the Educational
Alliance. It’s like a man living within
thirty miles of Vesuvius and never knowing about a
volcano. It’s like living for a lifetime
in Buffalo, eighteen miles from Niagara, and never
going to see the Falls. So I had lived in New
York and knew nothing about the Educational Alliance.
