I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men,
to sprinkle themselves through the audience armed
with big clubs. Every time I said anything they
could possibly guess I intended to be funny they were
to pound those clubs on the floor. Then there
was a kind lady in a box up there, also a good friend
of mine, the wife of the Governor. She was to
watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her
she was going to deliver a gubernatorial laugh that
would lead the whole audience into applause.
At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked
under a United States flag in front of me where I
could get at it in case of need. But I managed
to get started without it. I walked up and down—I
was young in those days and needed the exercise—and
talked and talked.
Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem.
I had put in a moving, pathetic part which was to
get at the hearts and souls of my hearers. When
I delivered it they did just what I hoped and expected.
They sat silent and awed. I had touched them.
Then I happened to glance up at the box where the
Governor’s wife was—you know what
happened.
Well, after the first agonizing five minutes, my stage-fright
left me, never to return. I know if I was going
to be hanged I could get up and make a good showing,
and I intend to. But I shall never forget my
feelings before the agony left me, and I got up here
to thank you for her for helping my daughter, by your
kindness, to live through her first appearance.
And I want to thank you for your appreciation of her
singing, which is, by-the-way, hereditary.
Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor
at a reception held at Barnard College (Columbia
University), March 7, 1906, by the Barnard
Union. One of the young ladies presented Mr.
Clemens, and thanked him for his amiability
in coming to make them an address.
She closed with the expression of the great joy it
gave her fellow-collegians, “because
we all love you.”
If any one here loves me, she has my sincere thanks.
Nay, if any one here is so good as to love me—why,
I’ll be a brother to her. She shall have
my sincere, warm, unsullied affection. When I
was coming up in the car with the very kind young
lady who was delegated to show me the way, she asked
me what I was going to talk about. And I said
I wasn’t sure. I said I had some illustrations,
and I was going to bring them in. I said I was
certain to give those illustrations, but that I hadn’t
the faintest notion what they were going to illustrate.
Now, I’ve been thinking it over in this forest
glade [indicating the woods of Arcady on the scene
setting], and I’ve decided to work them in with
something about morals and the caprices of memory.
That seems to me to be a pretty good subject.
You see, everybody has a memory and it’s pretty
sure to have caprices. And, of course, everybody
has morals.
