aurora, her fan from Japan, her diamonds from Brazil,
her bracelets from California, her pearls from Ceylon,
her cameos from Rome. She has gems and trinkets
from buried Pompeii, and others that graced comely
Egyptian forms that have been dust and ashes now for
forty centuries. Her watch is from Geneva, her
card case is from China, her hair is from—from—I
don’t know where her hair is from; I never could
find out; that is, her other hair—her public
hair, her Sunday hair; I don’t mean the hair
she goes to bed with.
And that reminds me of a trifle. Any time you
want to you can glance around the carpet of a Pullman
car, and go and pick up a hair-pin; but not to save
your life can you get any woman in that car to acknowledge
that hair-pin. Now, isn’t that strange?
But it’s true. The woman who has never
swerved from cast-iron veracity and fidelity in her
whole life will, when confronted with this crucial
test, deny her hair-pin. She will deny that
hair-pin before a hundred witnesses. I have stupidly
got into more trouble and more hot water trying to
hunt up the owner of a hair-pin in a Pullman than
by any other indiscretion of my life.
When
the present copyright law was under discussion, Mr.
Clemens
appeared before the committee. He had sent Speaker
Cannon
the following letter:
“Dear uncle Joseph,—Please
get me the thanks of Congress, not next
week but right away. It is very necessary.
Do accomplish this for your affectionate
old friend right away—by, persuasion
if you can, by violence if you must, for it is imperatively
necessary that I get on the floor of the House for
two or three hours and talk to the members,
man by man, in behalf of support; encouragement,
and protection of one of the nation’s
most valuable assets and industries—its
literature. I have arguments with me—also
a barrel with liquid in it.
“Give me a chance.
Get me the thanks of Congress. Don’t wait
for others—there isn’t time;
furnish them to me yourself and let Congress
ratify later. I have stayed away and let Congress
alone for seventy-one years and am entitled
to the thanks. Congress knows this
perfectly well, and I have long felt hurt that
this quite proper and earned expression of gratitude
has been merely felt by the House and never
publicly uttered.
“Send
me an order on the sergeant-at-arms quick. When
shall I
come?
“With
love and a benediction,
“Mark
twain.”
While
waiting to appear before the committee, My. Clemens
talked
to the reporters:
Why don’t you ask why I am wearing such apparently
unseasonable clothes? I’ll tell you.
I have found that when a man reaches the advanced
age of seventy-one years, as I have, the continual
sight of dark clothing is likely to have a depressing
effect upon him. Light-colored clothing is more
pleasing to the eye and enlivens the spirit.
Now, of course, I cannot compel every one to wear
such clothing just for my especial benefit, so I do
the next best thing and wear it myself.
