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A New Text of Mark
Twain’s After-Dinner Speech An After-Dinner Speech by Mark Twain Meridian has very bravely undertaken to
present to the public for the first time anywhere a speech by Mark Twain he
never gave, but in his most finely denunciatory style, rather like the famous
letter to the gas company. Bravely, I say, in this time of tippy-tippy-toe-through-my-garden
poesy. Twain
opens as though he were Dean Swift about to pull the rug out from under some
dastardly heathenish swinism, but the Yankee is a hundred years on and
won’t be tormenting a thing when he can dash it to bits right there on
the spot. His theme is a college in Philadelphia endowed by its benefactor
against sectarianism, and latterly taken over by a mob of the creatures, “cheats,
hypocrites, shirkers of plain duty, traitors to a solemn trust, abusers of a
dead man’s confidence; and... prosperous, respected, honored, courted
in Philadelphia, and reverently referred to by the Philadelphia press.” Naturally,
Meridian is so excited and overjoyed by this discovery in the Special
Collections of the U. of Va. Library, they stumble over some of the words,
even though the two pages of facsimile taken from the evidently penciled
manuscript are clear and easy enough to read (with some crossing-out and
emendations). “I
was elevated last year by Yale University to a position [M.A. honoris
causa] which seems to make me responsible for collegiate education in
this country, and in fact in the world.” This is a major event for
American letters, even if these days they just “love to stand there and
smell.” |