Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches

by Mark Twain

  December 17, 1877

  A Presidential Candidate

  I have pretty much made up my mind to run for President. What the country wants is a candidate who cannot be injured by investigation of his past history, so that the enemies of the party will be unable to rake up anything against him that nobody ever heard of before. If you know the worst about a candidate, to begin with, every attempt to spring things on him will be check-mated. Now I am going to enter the field with an open record. I am going to own up in advance to all the wickedness I have done, and if any Congressional committee is disposed to prowl around my biography in the hope of discovering any dark and deadly deed that I have secreted, why—let it prowl.

  In the first place, I admit that I treed a rheumatic grandfather of mine in the winter of 1850. He was old and inexpert in climbing trees, but with the heartless brutality that is characteristic of me I ran him out of the front door in his nightshirt at the point of a shotgun, and caused him to bowl up a maple tree, where he remained all night, while I emptied shot into his legs. I did this because he snored. I will do it again if I ever have another grandfather. I am as inhuman now as I was in 1850. I candidly acknowledge that I ran away at the battle of Gettysburg. My friends have tried to smooth over this fact by asserting that I did so for the purpose of imitating Washington, who went into the woods at Valley Forge for the purpose of saying his prayers. It was a miserable subterfuge. I struck out in a straight line for the Tropic of Cancer because I was scared. I wanted my country saved, but I preferred to have somebody else save it. I entertain that preference yet. If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon’s mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty. If it is loaded my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of every fight two-thirds more men than when I went in. This seems to me to be Napoleonic in its grandeur.

  My financial views are of the most decided character, but they are not likely, perhaps, to increase my popularity with the advocates of inflation. I do not insist upon the special supremacy of rag money or hard money. The great fundamental principle of my life is to take any kind I can get.

  The rumor that I buried a dead aunt under my grapevine was correct. The vine needed fertilizing, my aunt had to be buried, and I dedicated her to this high purpose. Does that unfit me for the Presidency? The Constitution of our country does not say so. No other citizen was ever considered unworthy of this office because he enriched his grapevines with his dead relatives. Why should I be selected as the first victim of an absurd prejudice?

  I admit also that I am not a friend of the poor man. I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned, he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands and to improve our export trade with that region. I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: “Desiccate the poor workingman; stuff him into sausages.”

  These are about the worst parts of my record. On them I come before the country. If my country don’t want me, I will go back again. But I recommend myself as a safe man—a man who starts from the basis of total depravity and proposes to be fiendish to the last.

  June 9, 1879

  The Babies. As They Comfort Us in Our Sorrows, Let Us Not Forget Them in Our Festivities

  Thirteenth Reunion Banquet,

  Army of the Tennessee, Chicago

  I like that. We haven’t all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven’t all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground, for we’ve all been babies. It is a shame that for a thousand years the world’s banquets have utterly ignored the baby—as if he didn’t amount to anything! If you gentlemen will stop and think a minute—if you will go back fifty or a hundred years, to your early married life, and recontemplate your first baby, you will remember that he amounted to a good deal, and even something over. You soldiers all know that when that little fellow arrived at family headquarters, you had to hand in your resignation. He took entire command. You became his lackey—his mere body servant, and you had to stand around, too. He was not a commander who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything else—you had to execute his order whether it was possible or not. And there was only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that was the double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and disrespect, and the bravest of you didn’t dare to say a word.

  You could face the death storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, and pulled your hair, and twisted your nose, you had to take it. When the thunders of war were sounding in your ears, you set your face toward the batteries, and advanced with steady tread; but, when he turned on the terrors of his war whoop, you advanced in the other direction—and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing syrup, did you venture to throw out any side remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap bottle, and it wasn’t warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, just to see if it was right—three parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those infernal hiccups. I can taste that stuff yet.

  And how many things you learned, as you went along! Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin—simply wind on the stomach, my friends! If the baby proposed to take a walk at the usual hour-half-past two in the morning—didn’t you rise up promptly and remark—with a mental addition which wouldn’t improve a Sunday school book much—that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh, you were under good discipline. And as you went fluttering up and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified baby talk, but even turned up your martial voices and tried to sing!—“Rock-a-by baby in the tree top,” for instance. And what an affliction for the neighbors, too—for it isn’t everybody within a mile around that likes military music at three in the morning. And when you had been keeping this sort of thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet-head intimated that nothing suited him like exercise and noise, and proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all night—what did you do? [When Mark Twain paused, voices shouted: “Go on!”] You simply went on till you dropped in the last ditch.

  The idea that a baby doesn’t amount to anything! Why, one baby is just a house and front yard full by itself. One baby can furnish more business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He is enterprising, irrepressible, brim full of lawless activities. Do what you please, you can’t make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto the day is one baby—as long as you are in your right mind don’t you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain’t any real difference between triplets and an insurrection.

  Yes, it was high time for a toastmaster to recognize the importance of the babies. Think what is in store for the present crop! Fifty years from now we shall all be dead—I trust—and then this flag, if it still survive—and let us hope it may—will be floating over a Republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase; our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathan—a Great Eastern—and the cradled babies of today will be on deck. Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big contract on their hands. Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. In one of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething—think of it!—and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated and perfectly ju
stifiable profanity over it, too; in another, the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way, with but a languid interest—poor little chap!—and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet nurse; in another the future great historian is lying—and doubtless he will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended; in another the future President is busying himself with no pro-founder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his hair so early, and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some sixty thousand future office-seekers getting ready to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a second time.

  And in still one more cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious Commander in Chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind, at this moment, to trying to find out some way to get his own big toe into his mouth—an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his whole attention to some fifty-six years ago. And if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.

  November 13, 1879

  A Cat Tale

  My little girls—Susie, aged eight, and Clara, six and a half—often require me to help them go to sleep, nights, by telling them original tales. They think my tales are better than paregoric, and quicker. While I talk, they make comments and ask questions, and we have a pretty good time. I thought maybe other little people might like to try one of my narcotics—so I offer this one.

  M.T.

  Once there was a noble big cat, whose Christian name was Catasauqua—because she lived in that region—but she did not have any surname, because she was a short-tailed cat—being a Manx—and did not need one. It is very just and becoming in a long-tailed cat to have a surname, but it would be very ostentatious, and even dishonorable, in a Manx. Well, Catasauqua had a beautiful family of catlings; and they were of different colors, to harmonize with their characters. Cattaraugus, the eldest, was white, and he had high impulses and a pure heart; Catiline, the youngest, was black, and he had a self-seeking nature, his motives were nearly always base, he was truculent and insincere. He was vain and foolish, and often said he would rather be what he was, and live like a bandit, yet have none above him, than be a cat-o-nine-tails and eat with the King. He hated his harmless and unoffending little catercousins, and frequently drove them from his presence with imprecations, and at times even resorted to violence.

  Susie—What are catercousins, papa?

  Quarter-cousins-it is so set down in the big dictionary. You observe I refer to it every now and then. This is because I do not wish to make any mistakes, my purpose being to instruct as well as entertain. Whenever I use a word which you do not understand, speak up and I will look and find out what it means. But do not interrupt me except for cause, for I am always excited when I am erecting history, and want to get on. Well, one day Catasauqua met with a misfortune; her house burned down. It was the very day after it had been insured for double its value, too—how singular! Yes, and how lucky! This often happens. It teaches us that mere loading a house down with insurance isn’t going to save it. Very well, Catasauqua took the insurance money and built a new house; and a much better one, too; and what is more, she had money left to add a gaudy concatenation of extra improvements with. O, I tell you! what she didn’t know about catalactics no other cat need ever try to acquire.

  Clara—What is catalactics, papa?

  The dictionary intimates, in a nebulous way, that it is a sort of demi-synonym for the science commonly called political economy.

  Clara—Thank you, papa.

  Yes, behind the house she constructed a splendid large catadrome, and enclosed it with a caterwaul about nine feet high, and in the center was a spacious grass-plot where—

  Clara—What is a catadrome, papa?

  I will look. Ah, it is a race-course; I thought it was a ten-pin alley.—But no matter; in fact it is all the better; for cats do not play ten-pins, when they are feeling well, but they do run races, you know; and the spacious grass-plot was for cat-fights, and other free exhibitions; and for ball-games-three-cornered cat, and all that sort of thing; a lovely spot, lovely. Yes, indeed; it had a hedge of dainty little catkins around it, and right in the centre was a splendid great categorematic in full leaf, and—

  Susie—What is a categorematic, papa?

  I think it’s a kind of a shade-tree, but I’ll look. No—I was mistaken; it is a word; “a word which is capable of being employed by itself as a term.”

  Susie—Thank you, papa.

  Don’t mention it. Yes, you see, it wasn’t a shade tree; the good Catasauqua didn’t know that, else she wouldn’t have planted it right there in the way; you can’t run over a word like that, you know, and not cripple yourself more or less. Now don’t forget that definition, it may come handy to you some day—there is no telling—life is full of vicissitudes.—Always remember, a categorematic is a word which a cat can use by herself as a term; but she mustn’t try to use it along with another cat, for that is not the idea.—Far from it. We have authority for it, you see—Mr. Webster; and he is dead, too, besides. It would be a noble good thing if his dictionary was, too. But that is too much to expect. Yes; well, Catasauqua filled her house with internal improvements—cat-calls in every room, and they are O ever so much handier than bells; and catamounts to mount the stairs with, instead of those troublesome elevators which are always getting out of order; and civet-cats in the kitchen, in place of the ordinary sieves, which you can’t ever sift anything with, in a satisfactory way; and a couple of tidy ash-cats to clean out the stove and keep it in order; and—catenated on the roof—an alert and cultivated pole-cat to watch the flag-pole and keep the banner a-flying. Ah yes—such was Catasauqua’s country residence; and she named it Kamscatka—after her dear native land far away.

  Clara—What is catenated, papa?

  Chained, my child. The pole-cat was attached by a chain to some object upon the roof contiguous to the flag-pole. This was to retain him in his position.

  Clara—Thank you, papa.

  The front garden was a spectacle of sublime and bewildering magnificence.—A stately row of flowering catalpas stretched from the front door clear to the gate, wreathed from stem to stern with the delicate tendrils and shining scales of the cat’s foot ivy, whilst ever and anon the enchanted eye wandered from congeries of lordly cat-tails and kindred catapetalous blooms too deep for utterance, only to encounter the still more entrancing vision of catnip without number and without price, and swoon away in ecstasy unutterable, under the blissful intoxication of its too, too fragrant breath!

  Both Children—O, how lovely!

  You may well say it. Few there be that shall look upon the like again. Yet was not this all; for hither to the north boiled the majestic cataract in unimaginable grandiloquence, and thither to the south sparkled the gentle catadupe in serene and incandescent tranquillity, whilst far and near the halcyon brooklet flowed between!

  Both Children—O, how sweet! What is a catadupe, papa?

  Small waterfall, my darlings. Such is Webster’s belief. All things being in readiness for the house-warming, the widow sent out her invitations, and then proceeded with her usual avocations. For Catasauqua was a widow—sorrow cometh to us all. The husband-cat—Catullus was his name—was no more. He was of a loftly character, brave to rashness, and almost incredibly unselfish. He gave eight of his lives for his country, reserving only one for himself. Yes—the banquet having been ordered, the good Catasauqua tuned up for the customary morning-song, accompanying herself on the catarrh, and her little ones joined in.

  These were the words:

  There was a little cat,

  And she caught a little rat,

  Which she dutifully rendered to her mother,

  Who said “Bake him in a pie,

  For his flavor’s rather high—

  Or confer him on the poor, i
f you’d druther.”

  Catasauqua sang soprano, Catiline sang tenor, Cattaraugus sang bass. It was exquisite melody; it would make your hair stand right up.

  Susie—Why, papa, I didn’t know cats could sing.

  O, can’t they, though! Well, these could. Cats are packed full of music—just as full as they can hold; and when they die, people remove it from them and sell it to the fiddlemakers. O yes indeed. Such is life.

  Susie—O, here is a picture! Is it a picture of the music, papa?

  Only the eye of prejudice could doubt it, my child.

  Susie—Did you draw it, papa?

  Morning-Song

  I am indeed the author of it.

  Susie—How wonderful! What is a picture like this called, papa?

  A work of art, my child.—There—do not hold it so close; prop it up on the chair, three steps away; now then—that is right; you see how much better and stronger the expression is than when it is close by. It is because some of this picture is drawn in perspective.

  Clara—Did you always know how to draw, papa?

  Yes. I was born so. But of course I could not draw at first as well as I can now. These things require study—and practice. Mere talent is not sufficient. It takes a person a long time to get so he can draw a picture like this.

  Clara—How long did it take you, papa?

  Many years—thirty years, I reckon. Off and on—for I did not devote myself exclusively to art. Still, I have had a great deal of practice. Ah, practice is the great thing!—it accomplishes wonders. Before I was twenty-five, I had got so I could draw a cork as well as anybody that ever was. And many a time I have drawn a blank in a lottery. Once I drew a check that wouldn’t go; and after the war I tried to draw a pension—but this was too ambitious. However, the most gifted must fail sometimes. Do you observe those things that are sticking up in this picture? They are not bones, they are paws; it is very hard to express the difference between bones and paws, in a picture.