Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0150/01500.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 11KB | 244 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01500}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
My Late Senatorial Secretaryship}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{letter
am
anything
senator
sir
upon
aldermen
gentlemen
mark
state}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title:       Sketches, Old And New
Book:        My Late Senatorial Secretaryship
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1893

My Late Senatorial Secretaryship

     I am not a private secretary to a senator any more, now.  I held the
berth two months in security and in great cheerfulness of spirit, but my bread
began to return from over the waters, then - that is to say my works came back
and revealed themselves.  I judged it best to resign.  The way of it was this.
My employer sent for me one morning tolerably early, and, as soon as I had
finished inserting some conundrums clandestinely into his last great speech
upon finance, I entered the presence.  There was something portentous in his
appearance.  His cravat was untied, his hair was in a state of disorder, and
his countenance bore about it the signs of a suppressed storm.  He held a
package of letters in his tense grasp, and I knew that the dreaded Pacific
mail was in.  He said-

     "I thought you were worthy of confidence."

     I said, "Yes, sir."

     He said, "I gave you a letter from certain of my constituents in the
State of Nevada, asking the establishment of a post-office at Baldwin's Ranch,
and told you to answer it, as ingeniously as you could, with arguments which
should persuade them that there was no real necessity for an office at that
place."

     I felt easier.  "Oh, if that is all, sir, I did do that."

     "Yes, you did.  I will read your answer, for your own humiliation:

"'Washington, Nov. 24.

"'Messrs. Smith, Jones, and others.

          "'Gentlemen: What the mischief do you suppose you want with a post-
     office at Baldwin's Ranch?  It would not do you any good.  If any
     letters came there, you couldn't read them, you know; and, besides,
     such letters as ought to pass through, with money in them, for other
     localities, would not be likely to get through, you must perceive at
     once; and that would make trouble for us all.  No, don't bother about
     a post-office in your camp.  I have your best interests at heart, and
     feel that it would only be an ornamental folly. What you want is a nice
     jail, you know - a nice substantial jail and a free school.  These will
     be a lasting benefit to you.  These will make you really contented and
     happy.  I will move in the matter at once.

     "'Very truly, etc.,

     "'Mark Twain.

     "'For James W. N**, U. S. Senator.'

     "That is the way you answered that letter.  Those people say they will
hang me, if I ever enter that district again; and I am perfectly satisfied
they will, too."

     "Well, sir, I did not know I was doing any harm.  I only wanted to
convince them."

     "Ah.  Well you did convince them, I make no manner of doubt.  Now, here
in another specimen.  I gave you a petition from certain gentlemen of Nevada,
praying that I would get a bill through Congress incorporating the Methodist
Episcopal Church of the State of Nevada.  I told you to say, in reply, that
the creation of such a law came more properly within the province of the State
Legislature; and to endeavor to show them that, in the present feebleness of
the religious element in that new commonwealth, the expediency of
incorporating the church was questionable.  What did you write?

"'Washington, Nov. 24.

"'Rev. John Halifax and others.

          "'Gentlemen: You will have to go to the State Legislature about
     that speculation of yours - Congress don't know anything about religion.
     But don't you hurry to go there, either; because this thing you propose
     to do out in that new country isn't expedient - in fact, it is
     ridiculous.  Your religious people there are too feeble, in intellect,
     in morality, in piety - in everything, pretty much.  You had better
     drop this - you can't make it work.  You can't issue stock on an
     incorporation like that - or if you could, it would only keep you in
     trouble all the time.  The other denominations would abuse it, and
     "bear" it, and "sell it short," and break it down.  They would do with
     it just as they would with one of your silver mines out there - they
     would try to make all the world believe it was "wildcat." You ought not
     to do anything that is calculated to bring a sacred thing into disrepute.
     You ought to be ashamed of yourselves - that is what I think about it.
     You close your petition with the words: "And we will ever pray." I
     think you had better - you need to do it.

     "'Very truly, etc.,

     'Mark Twain.

     "'For James W. N**, U. S. Senator.'

     "That luminous epistle finishes me with the religious element among my
constituents.  But that my political murder might be sure, some evil instinct
prompted me to hand you this memorial from the grave company of elders
composing the Board of Aldermen of the city of San Francisco, to try your hand
upon - a memorial praying that the city's right to the water-lots upon the
city front might be established by law of Congress.  I told you this was a
dangerous matter to move in.  I told you to write a non-committal letter to
the Aldermen - an ambiguous letter - a letter that should avoid, as far as
possible, all real consideration and discussion of the water-lot question.  If
there is any feeling left in you - any shame - surely this letter you wrote,
in obedience to that order, ought to evoke it, when its words fall upon your
ears:

"'Washington, Nov. 27.

"'The Hon. Board of Aldermen, etc.

          "'Gentlemen: George Washington, the revered Father of his Country
     is dead.  His long and brilliant career is closed, alas!  forever.
     He was greatly respected in this section of the country, and his
     untimely decease cast a gloom over the whole community.  He died on
     the 14th day of December, 1799.  He passed peacefully away from the
     scene of his honors and his great achievements, the most lamented hero
     and the best beloved that ever earth hath yielded unto Death.  At such
     a time as this, you speak of water-lots! - what a lot was his!

          "'What is fame!  Fame is an accident.  Sir Isaac Newton discovered
     an apple falling to the ground - a trivial discovery, truly, and one
     which a million men had made before him - but his parents were
     influential, and so they tortured that small circumstance into something
     wonderful, and lo! the simple world took up the shout and, in almost
     the twinkling of an eye, that man was famous.  Treasure these thoughts.

     "'Poesy, sweet poesy, who shall estimate what the world owes to thee!
     "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow -
     And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go."

     "Jack and Gill went up the hill
     To draw a pail of water;
     Jack fell down and broke his crown,
     And Gill came tumbling after."

          For simplicity, elegance of diction, and freedom from immoral
     tendencies, I regard those two poems in the light of gems.  They are
     suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life - to the
     field, to the nursery, to the guild.  Especially should no Board of
     Aldermen be without them.

          "'Venerable fossils!  write again.  Nothing improves one so much as
     friendly correspondence.  Write again - and if there is anything in this
     memorial of yours that refers to anything in particular, do not be
     backward about explaining it.  We shall always be happy to hear you
     chirp.

     Very truly etc.

     "'Mark Twain.

     "'For James W. N**, U. S. Senator.'

     That is an atrocious, a ruinous epistle!  Distraction."

     "Well, sir, I am really sorry if there is anything wrong about it -but -
but it appears to me to dodge the water-lot question."

     "Dodge the mischief!  Oh! - but never mind.  As long as destruction must
come now, let it be complete.  Let it be complete - let this last of your
performances, which I am about to read, make a finality of it.  I am a ruined
man.  I had my misgivings when I gave you the letter from Humboldt, asking
that the post route from Indian Gulch to Shakespeare Gap and intermediate
points, be changed partly to the old Mormon trail.  But I told you it was a
delicate question, and warned you to deal with it deftly - to answer it
dubiously, and leave them a little in the dark.  And your fatal imbecility
impelled you to make this disastrous reply.  I should think you would stop
your ears, if you are not dead to all shame:

     "'Washington, Nov. 30.

     "'Messrs. Perkins, Wagner, et al.

          "'Gentlemen: It is a delicate question about this Indian trail, but,
     handled with proper deftness and dubiousness, I doubt not we shall
     succeed in some measure or otherwise, because the place where the route
     leaves the Lassen Meadows, over beyond where those two Shawnee chiefs,
     Dilapidated-Vengeance and Biter-of-the-Clouds, were scalped last
     winter, this being the favorite direction to some, but others preferring
     something else in consequence of things, the Mormon trail leaving
     Mosby's at three in the morning, and passing through Jawbone Flat
     Flatt to Blucher, and then down by Jug-Handle, the road passing to
     the right of it, and naturally leaving it on the right, too, and
     Dawson's on the left of the trail where it passes to the left of said
     Dawson's and onward thence to Tomahawk, thus making the route cheaper,
     easier of access to all who can get at it, and compassing all the
     desirable objects so considered by others, and, therefore, conferring
     the most of good upon the greatest number, and, consequently, I am
     encouraged to hope we shall.  However, I shall be ready, and happy, to
     afford you still further information upon the subject, from time to time,
     as you may desire it, and the Post-Office Department be enabled to
     furnish it to me.

     Very truly,etc.

     "'Mark Twain,

     "'For James W. N**, U. S. Senator.'

     "There - now what do you think of that?"

     "Well, I don't know, sir.  It - well, it appears to me - to be dubious
enough."

     "Du - leave the house!  I am a ruined man.  Those Humboldt savages never
will forgive me for tangling their brains up with this inhuman letter, I have
lost the respect of the Methodist Church, the Board of Aldermen-"

     "Well, I haven't anything to say about that, because I may have missed it
a little in their cases, but I was too many for the Baldwin's Ranch people,
General!"

     "Leave the house!  Leave it for ever and for ever, too!"

     I regarded that as a sort of covert intimation that my service could be
dispensed with, and so I resigned.  I never will be a private secretary to a
senator again.  You can't please that kind of people.  They don't know
anything.  They can't appreciate a party's efforts."