ranges of sublime women: the Queen of Sheba, Josephine,
Semiramis, Sairey Gamp; the list is endless—but
I will not call the mighty roll, the names rise up
in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous
with the glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed
by the loving worship of the good and the true of
all epochs and all climes. Suffice it for our
pride and our honor that we in our day have added
to it such names as those of Grace Darling and Florence
Nightingale. Woman is all that she should be
gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish,
full of generous impulses. It is her blessed
mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for the erring,
encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed,
uplift the fallen, befriend the friendless—in
a word, afford the healing of her sympathies and a
home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted
children that knock at its hospitable door. And
when I say, God bless her, there is none among us
who has known the ennobling affection of a wife, or
the steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart
will say, Amen!
WOMAN’S PRESS CLUB
On
October 27, 1900, the New York Woman’s Press
Club gave a tea
in
Carnegie Hall. Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor.
If I were asked an opinion I would call this an ungrammatical
nation. There is no such thing as perfect grammar,
and I don’t always speak good grammar myself.
But I have been foregathering for the past few days
with professors of American universities, and I’ve
heard them all say things like this: “He
don’t like to do it.” [There was a stir.]
Oh, you’ll hear that to-night if you listen,
or, “He would have liked to have done it.”
You’ll catch some educated Americans saying that.
When these men take pen in hand they write with as
good grammar as any. But the moment they throw
the pen aside they throw grammatical morals aside with
it.
To illustrate the desirability and possibility of
concentration, I must tell you a story of my little
six-year-old daughter. The governess had been
teaching her about the reindeer, and, as the custom
was, she related it to the family. She reduced
the history of that reindeer to two or three sentences
when the governess could not have put it into a page.
She said: “The reindeer is a very swift
animal. A reindeer once drew a sled four hundred
miles in two hours.” She appended the comment:
“This was regarded as extraordinary.”
And concluded: “When that reindeer was
done drawing that sled four hundred miles in two hours
it died.”
As a final instance of the force of limitations in
the development of concentration, I must mention that
beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known
for these many years. I am filled with the wonder
of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all
distraction. If I could have been deaf, dumb,
and blind I also might have arrived at something.
Copyrights
Mark Twain's Speeches from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
