by Mark Twain
A Cooper Indian who has been washed is a poor thing, and commonplace; it is the Cooper Indian in his paint that thrills. Cooper's extra words are Cooper's paint -- his paint, his feathers, his tomahawk, his warwhoop.
In the two-thirds of a page elsewhere referred to, wherein Cooper scored 114
literary transgressions out of a possible 115, he appears before us with all his things on.
As follows; the italics are mine -- they indicate violations of Rule 14: In a minute he was once more fastened to the tree, a helpless object of any insult or wrong that might be offered. So eagerly did every one now act, that nothing was said. The fire was immediately lighted in the pile, and the end of all was anxiously expected.
It was not the intention of the Hurons absolutely to destroy the life of their victim by means of fire.
They designed merely to put his physical fortitude to the severest proofs it could endure, short of that extremity. In the end, they fully intended to carry his scalp into their village, but it was their wish first to break down his resolution, and to reduce him to the level of a complaining sufferer. With this view, the pile of brush and branches had been placed at a proper distance, or one at which it was thought the heat would soon become intolerable, though it might not be immediately dangerous. As often happened, however, on these occasions, this distance had been miscalculated, and the flames began to wave their forked tongues in a proximity to the face of the victim that would have proved fatal in another instant had not Hetty rushed through the crowd, armed with a stick, and scattered the blazing pile in a dozen directions. More than one hand was raised to strike the presumptuous intruder to the earth; but the chiefs prevented the blows by reminding their irritated followers of the state of her mind. Hetty, herself, was insensible to the risk she ran; but , as soon as she had performed this bold act, she stood looking about her in frowning resentment, as if to rebuke the crowd of attentive savages for their cruelty.
"God bless you , dearest sister, for that brave and ready act," murmured Judith, herself unnerved so much as to be incapable of exertion; "Heaven itself has sent you on its holy errand."
Number of words, 320; necessary ones, 220: words wasted by the generous spendthrift, 100.
In our day those 100 unnecessary words would have to come out. We will take them out presently and make the episode approximate the modern requirement in the matter of compression.
If we may consider each unnecessary word in Cooper's report of that barbecue a separate and individual violation of Rule 14, then that rule is violated 100 times in that report. Other rules are violated in it. Rule 12, 2 instances; Rule 13, 5 instances; Rule 15, 1 instance; Rule 16, 2 instances; Rule 17, 1 or 2 little instances; the report in its entirety is an offense against Rule 18 -- also against Rule 16. Total score, about 114 violations of the laws of literary art out of a possible 115.*
* Rule 12: “[The author shall] Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it."
Rule 13: “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”
Rule 15: “Not omit necessary details.”
Rule 16: “Avoid slovenliness of form.”
Rule 17: “Use good grammar.”
Rule 18: “Employ a simple and straightforward style.” [B. DV.]
Let us now bring forward the report again, with the most of the unnecessary words knocked out. By departing from Cooper's style and manner, all the facts could be put into 150 words, and the effects heightened at the same time -- this is manifest, of course -- but that would not be desirable. We must stick to Cooper's language as closely as we can:
In a minute he was once more fastened to the tree. The fire was immediately lighted. It was not the intention of the Hurons to destroy Deerslayer's life by fire; they designed merely to put his fortitude to the severest proofs it could endure short of that extremity. In the end, they fully intended to take his life, but it was their wish first to break down his resolution and reduce him to a complaining sufferer. With this view the pile of brush had been placed at a distance at which it was thought the beat would soon become intolerable, without being immediately dangerous. But this distance had been miscalculated; the fire was so close to the victim that he would have been fatally burned in another instant if Hetty had not rushed through the crowd and scattered the brands with a stick. More than one Indian raised his hand to strike her down, but the chiefs saved her by reminding them of the state of her mind. Hetty herself was insensible to the risk she ran; she stood looking about her in frowning resentment, as if to rebuke the savages for their cruelty.
"God bless you, dearl" cried Judith, "for that brave and ready act. Heaven itself has sent you on its holy errand, and you shall have a chromo."
Number of words, 220 -- and the facts are all in.
Official Report to the I.I.A.S.
(1909)
AS SECRETARY of the Indianapolis Institute of Applied Science it has been my duty to inquire into the alleged discovery of the North Pole and lay the result of the inquiry before your honorable body.
In pursuance of this duty it has seemed to me sufficient to get the views of Professor Hiram Bledso, a recognized master in Comparative Science and Theology, and stop there.
I asked him if, in his judgment, we should accept the discovery as a thing conclusively established, and go on and celebrate it, along with the other memorable Nines -- 1609, 1809, and 1909 -- at the same time displaying, upon a decorated float, a man representing Henry Hudson; upon another float a man representing Robert Fulton, and upon a third float Dr. Frederick Cook in person.
Professor Bledso asked leave to consider the question a few minutes. Then he said, ''The answer, yes or no, depends entirely upon the answer to this question: Is it claimed that Dr. Cook's achievement is a Fact, or is it a Miracle?"
"Why so?"
"Because if it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence wifl answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary."
"Is that the law?"
"Yes. It is absolute. Modifications of it are not permissible. A very pertinent remark has been quoted from the Westminster Gazette, which points out that 'the golfer, when he puts in a record round, has to have his card signed, and that there is nobody to sign Dr. Cook's card; there are two Eskimos to vouch for his feat, to be sure, but they were his caddies, and at golf their evidence would not be accepted.' There you have the whole case. If Dr. Cook's feat is put forward as Fact, the evidence of his two caddies is inadequate; if it is put forward as Miracle, one caddy is aplenty."
"Is there really all that difference between Fact and Miracle?"
"Yes, there is history for it -- ages of history. There has never been a Miracle that noticeably resembled a Fact. Take an illustration. Mr. Janvier quotes this item from Henry Hudson's log -- Hudson wrote it fourteen months before his discovery of the River:
This morning one of our companie looking overboard saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up and by that time shee was come close to the ships side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after a sea came and overturned her. From the navill upward her backe and breasts were like a womans, but her body as big as one of us. Her skin very white, and long haire hanging down behinde of colour blacke. In her going downe they saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of a porposse, and speckled like a macrell. Their names that saw her were Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner.
"Observe, to Hudson that was not a Fact, it was a Miracle. How do I know this?
Because he believes, on the mere say-so of a couple of sailors. He knows they saw the mermaids, for he doesn't say they thought they saw, he says with convinced positiveness, they saw. Very well. As a Miracle, the sailors' say-so is quite sufficient --
indeed, more than sufficient; there isn't a better-grounded Miracle in history. But to Dr.
Asher, a recent commentator, who considered that Hudson was registering the incident as a Fact, the evidence was but caddy evidence and quite inadequate. He remarks,
'Probably a seal.'"<
br />
"Then the difference --"
"Quite so. The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. It could not be better expressed."
"Very well. What do we arrive at, in this North Pole matter? What course is best for the Institute and the Robert Fulton people to pursue?"
"In my judgment, this. If you wish to proceed upon the hypothesis that it is a Miracle, go right along, get your float ready, the evidence is overwhelming. But if you wish to proceed upon the hypothesis that it is a Fact, wait till Cook arrives and has a chance to furnish his evidence in comprehensive detail. It cannot be fair to decide upon a verdict any earlier."
H. J. WALKER,
Secretary
Indianapolis, Sept. 3
The Gorky Incident
(1906)
LET ME resurrect the "York Minster" episode of seventy-five years ago -- and enlarge it a little for present purposes. York Minster -- such was his nickname -- was a native of Tierra del Fuego. He was a likable young fellow, bright, animated, rather handsome, and of a particularly shapely figure. Let him be where he might, his figure was always on exhibition, for he wore not a rag of clothing, except a square of untanned skin between his shoulders. His costume did not make him conspicuous, because it was the costume of his whole nation.
The commander of a British warship fitted York Minster out with Christian clothing, taught him the rudiments of English speech, and took him home over the seas.
He became at once an object of great and earnest interest; the public welcomed him, the newspapers were full of him, all ranks offered him their hospitalities. Naturally he was pleased and grateful. Among his invitations was one which took precedence of all the others -- the King's ball, at St. James's Palace. He got himself ready for that. For the sake of convenience and comfort he resumed his national costume, thinking no harm; and at 11 P.M., he appeared in the midst of that gorgeous assemblage clad only in his awful innocence and that pathetic shoulder-skin.
Do you know, he emptied that place in two minutes by the watch. Then the guards turned him into the street. When he reached his hotel he was denied admission.
The other hotels refused him. It looked as if he was nevermore going to find shelter, but at last he was rescued from his difficulties by compassionate friends.
Then the wise and the unwise began on him in the newspapers, and led him a dance. A friend defended him and explained that York was only following a recognized and perfectly proper custom of his own country and therefore was doing no wrong.
Other friends defended him and proved by facts and arguments that the dress customs of Tierra del Fuego were more just and rational than were those of England; and then claimed that since this was the case the English had no right to find fault with this foreigner and inhospitably upbraid him and revile him for what he had done.
All of which was wasted ink, I think. Laws are coldly reasoned out and established upon what the lawmakers believe to be a basis of right. But customs are not. Customs are not enacted, they grow gradually up, imperceptibly and unconsciously, like an oak from its seed. In the fullness of their strength they can stand up straight in front of a world of argument and reasoning, and yield not an inch. We do not know how or when it became custom for women to wear long hair, we only know that in this country it is custom, and that settles it. Maybe it is right, maybe it is wrong -- that has nothing to do with the matter; customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one may reason all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden. Women may shave their heads elsewhere, but here they must refrain or take the uncomfortable consequences. Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The penalty may be unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no matter, it will be inflicted, just the same.
Certainly, then, there can be but one wise thing for a visiting stranger to do -- find out what the country's customs are, and refrain from offending against them.
The efforts which have been made in Gorky's justification are entitled to all respect because of the magnanimity of the motive back of them, but I think that the ink was wasted. Custom is custom; it is built of brass, boiler iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.
However, I must return to York Minster and finish that story. After reflection, he put on his clothes again.
Simplified Spelling
THE first time I was in Egypt a Simplified Spelling epidemic had broken out and the atmosphere was electrica with feeling engendered by the subject. This was four or five thousand years ago -- I do not remember just how many thousand it was, for my memory for minor details has suffered some decay in the lapse of years. I am speaking of a former state of existence of mine, perhaps my earliest reincarnation; indeed I think it was the earliest. I had been an angel previously, and I am expecting to be one again -
- but at the time I speak of I was different.
The Simplifiers had risen in revolt against the hieroglyphics. An uncle of Cadmus who was out of a job had come to Egypt and was trying to introduce the Phoenician alphabet and get it adopted in place of the hieroglyphics. He was challenged to show cause, and he did it to the best of his ability. The exhibition and discussion took place in the Temple of Astarte, and I was present. So also was the Simplified Committee, with Croesus as foreman of the Revolt -- not a large man physically, but a simplified speller of acknowledged ability. The Simplifiers were few; the Opposition were multitudinous.
The Khedive was the main backer of the Revolt, and this magnified its strength and saved it from being insignificant. Among the Simplifiers were many men of learning and distinction, mainly literary men and members of college faculties; but all ranks and conditions of men and all grades of intellect, erudition, and ignorance were represented in the Opposition.
As a rule the speeches on both sides were temperate and courteous, but now and then a speaker weakened his argument with personalities, the Revolters referring to the Opposition as fossils, and the Opposition referring to the Revolters as "those cads,"
a smart epithet coined out of the name of Uncle Cadmus.
Uncle Cadmus began with an object lesson, with chalk, on a couple of blackboards. On one of them he drew in outline a slender Egyptian in a short skirt, with slim legs and an eagle's head in place of a proper head, and he was carrying a couple of dinner pails, one in each hand. In front of this figure he drew a toothed line like an excerpt from a saw; in front of this he drew three skeleton birds of doubtful ornithological origin; in front of these he drew a partly constructed house, with lean Egyptians fetching materials in wheelbarrows to finish it with; next he put in some more unclassified birds; then a large king, with carpenter's shavings for whiskers and hair; next he put in another king jabbing a mongrel lion with a javelin; he followed this with a picture of a tower, with armed Egyptians projecting out of the top of it and as crowded for room as the cork in a bottle; he drew the opposing army below, fierce of aspect but much out of drawing as regards perspective. They were shooting arrows at the men in the tower, which was poor military judgment because they could have reached up and pulled them out by the scruff of the neck. He followed these pictures with line after line of birds and beasts and scraps of saw-teeth and bunches of men in the customary short frock, some of them doing things, the others waiting for the umpire to call game; and finally his great blackboard was full from top to bottom. Everybody recognized the invocation set forth by the symbols: it was the Lord's Prayer.
It had taken him forty-five minutes to set it down. Then he stepped to the other blackboard and dashed off "Our Father which art in heaven," and the rest of it, in graceful Italian script, spelling the words the best he knew how in those days, and finished it up in four minutes and a half.
It was rather impressive.
He made no comme
nt at the time, but went to a fresh blackboard and wrote upon it in hieroglyphics:
"At this time the King possessed of cavalry 214,580 men and 222,631 horses for their use; of infantry 16,341 squadrons together with an emergency reserve of all arms, consisting of 84,946 men, 321 elephants, 37,264 transportation carts, and 28,954
camels and dromedaries."
It filled the board and cost him twenty-six minutes of time and labor. Then he repeated it on another blackboard in Italian script and Arabic numerals and did it in two minutes and a quarter. Then he said:
"My argument is before you. One of the objections to the hieroglyphics is that it takes the brightest pupil nine years to get the forms and their meanings by heart; it takes the average pupil sixteen years; it takes the rest of the nation all their days to accomplish it -- it is a life sentence. This cost of time is much too expensive. It could be employed more usefully in other industries, and with better results.
"If you will renounce the hieroglyphics and adopt written words instead, an advantage will be gained. By you? No, not by you. You have spent your lives in mastering the hieroglyphics, and to you they are simple, and the effect pleasant to the eye, and even beautiful. You are well along in life; it would not be worth your while to require the new learning; the aspect of it would be unpleasant to you; you will naturally cling with affection to the pictured records which have become beautiful to you through habit and use, and which are associated in your mind with the moving legends and tales of our venerable past and the great deeds of our fathers, which they have placed before you indestructibly engraved upon stone. But I appeal to you in behalf of the generations which are to follow you, century after century, age after age, cycle after cycle. I pray you consider them and be generous. Lift this heavy burden from their backs. Do not send them toiling and moiling down to the twentieth century still bearing it, still oppressed by it. Let your sons and daughters adopt the words and the alphabet, and go free. To the youngest of them the hieroglyphics have no hallowed associations; the words and the alphabet will not offend their eyes; custom will quickly reconcile them to it, and then they will prefer it -- if for no other reason, for the simple reason that they will have had no experience of any method of communication considered by others comelier or better. I pray you let the hieroglyphics go, and thus save millions of years of useless time and labor to fifty generations of posterity that are to follow you.