14 January 1868 • Washington, D.C. (MS and transcript: NPV and
Washington Evening Star, 13 Jan 68, UCCL 00179)
Dear Fold FolksⒶemendation—I thought you might like to read my speech, which Speaker Colfax said was the best dinner-table speech he ever heard at a banquet.1explanatory note
enclosure:
The twelfth—“Woman:
The Pride of the
Professions, and the jewel of ours”—was re-
sponded to by Mr. Clemens, better
known as
“Mark Twain.”
Mr. Twain remarked as follows:
Mr. President:2explanatory note—“I do not know why I should
have been singled out to receive the greatest
distinction of
the evening—for so the office of
replying to the toast to woman has been regard-
ed in every age.
[Applause.] I do not knowⒶemendation
why I have received this distinction, unless it
be that I am a trifle less homely than the other
members of the
Club. But be this as it may,
Mr. President, I am proud of the position, and
you could not have chosen any one who
would
have accepted it more gladly, or labored with a
heartier good-will to do the subject justice, than
I. Because,
sir, I love the sex. [Laughter.]Ⓐemendation
I love all the women, sir, irrespective of age or
color. [Laughter.]
Human intelligence cannot estimate what weⒶemendation
owe to woman, sir. She sews on our buttons,Ⓐemendation
[laughter,] she mends our clothes, [laughter,]
sheⒶemendation ropes us in at the church fairs—she confidesⒶemendation
in us; she tells us whatever she can find outⒶemendation
about the little private affairs of the neigh-Ⓐemendation
bors—she gives us good advice—and plenty of
it—she gives us a piece of her mind,
sometimes—
and sometimes all of it—she soothes our ach-
ing brows—she bears our
children—ours as a
general thing. In all the relations of life, sir,
it is but just and a graceful tribute to woman to
say of her that she is a brick.
[Great laugh-
ter.]Ⓐemendation
Wheresoever you place woman, sir—in what-
soever position or estate—she is an
ornament to
that place she occupies, and a treasure to the
world. [Here Mr. Twain paused, looked
in-
quiringly at his hearers and remarked that
the applause should come in at this point. It
came in. Mr. Twain
resumed his eulogy.] Look
at the noble names of history! Look at Cleo-
patra!—look at
Desdemona!—look at Florence
Nightingale!—look at Joan of Arc!—look at
Lucretia Borgia!
[Disapprobation expressed.
“Well,” said Mr. Twain, scratching his head
doubtfully,
“suppose we let Lucretia slide.”]
Look at Joyce Heth!3explanatory note—look at Mother Eve!
[Cries of “Oh!”
“Oh!”] You need not look at
her unless you want to, but, (said Mr. Twain
reflectively,
after a pause,) Eve was ornamen-
tal, sir—particularly before the fashions
changed! I repeat, sir, look at
the illustrious
names of history! Look at the Widow
Machree!4explanatory note—look at Lucy Stone!—look at
Elizabeth Cady Stanton!—look at George
Francis
Train!5explanatory note [Great laughter.] And,
sir, I say it with bowed head and deepest
veneration, look at the
Mother of Washington!
she raised a boy that could not lie—could not lie—
[Applause.] But he never had any chance.
[Oh! Oh!] It
might have been different with
him if he had belonged to a newspaper cor-
respondent’s club.
[Laughter, groans, hisses,
cries of “put him out.” Mark looked around
placidly upon his
excited audience and re-
sumed.]
I repeat, sir, that in whatsoever position you
place a woman she is an ornament to society
and a
treasure to the world. As a sweetheart
she has few equals and no
superiors—[laugh-
ter;]—as a cousin she is convenient; as a
wealthy
grandmother, with an incurable distemper, she
is precious—as a wet nurse she has no equal
among
men! [Laughter.]
What, sir, would the peoples of the earth
be, without woman? ........ They would
be scarce,
sir—almighty scarce! Then let us
cherish her—let us protect her—let us give her
our
support, our encouragement, our sympa-
thy—ourselves, if we get a chance. [Laughter.]
But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is
lovable, gracious, kind of heart,
beautiful—
worthy of all respect, all ofⒶemendation esteem, of all defer-
ence. Not any here will refuse to drink her
health right cordially in this bumper of wine,
for each and every one of us has
personally
known, and loved, and honored, the very best
one of them all—his own mother!
[Applause.]Ⓐemendation
The second annual banquet of the Washington Newspaper Correspondents’ Club began at 7:00 p.m. in Welcker’s Restaurant on Saturday, 11 January. Clemens wrote in his Alta letter of the next day that he regarded it as “altogether the most brilliant affair of the kind” in his experience. Thirty-seven journalists and nine guests attended, and the celebration went on well past midnight, too late for any report of it to appear in either of the city’s two Sunday newspapers, the Washington Sunday Morning Chronicle or the Sunday Herald (the Sunday form of the National Intelligencer, which ran a brief report of the event on Monday morning). But the Washington Evening Star for Monday, 13 January, printed a lengthy report of the proceedings, which included a transcript of Clemens’s speech, evidently recorded by a stenographer. Although no enclosure now accompanies the letter manuscript, Clemens undoubtedly enclosed at least his speech as it appeared in the Star, which (in the absence of newsprint) is reproduced here in type facsimile. His letter must therefore have been written at 2:00 a.m. on 14 (not 13) January. Out of fifteen regular toasts, Clemens responded to the twelfth, “Woman: The Pride of the Professions, and the jewel of ours.” Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, who would be elected vice-president under Grant in November 1868, was present as one of the guests. He responded to the first regular toast by proposing “The health of the members of the Washington Correspondents’ Club: May they always wield the power of the club honestly, conscientiously, and wisely” (SLC 1868; “The Press Banquet,” Washington National Intelligencer, 13 Jan 68, 2; “Annual Banquet of the Correspondents’ Club,” Washington Evening Star, 13 Jan 68, 2).
The president of the Correspondents’ Club was George W. Adams (1838–86), part owner of the Washington Evening Star and Washington correspondent of the New York World (“The Press Banquet,” Washington National Intelligencer, 13 Jan 68, 2).
Joice Heth was a slave who attracted public attention in the summer of 1835 when her owners claimed she was over 160 years old and had been George Washington’s nurse. P. T. Barnum got his start as a showman when he purchased and exhibited her, until her death in early 1836. Barnum asserted in his autobiography that he was deceived by the claims about her age; her actual age is unknown (Barnum, 73–76).
In the popular song “Widow Machree” the title character is coaxed to leave off her mourning and accept a new husband. Irish author, composer, and artist Samuel Lover (1797–1868) first published the lyrics in an 1842 novel, Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life; the sheet music was issued soon thereafter (Lover, 45, 284–85; Moffat, 318–19).
Lucy Stone (1818–93) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), formerly ardent abolitionists, were now prominent leaders in the fight for women’s rights. George Francis Train (1829–1904), an eccentric entrepreneur, writer, and lecturer, was an outspoken champion of suffrage for women. Train had recently paid for, and taken part in, a lecture tour of prominent suffragists through major midwestern and eastern cities. The tour ended with a meeting in New York City on 14 December, at which Train reportedly “nominated himself for the Presidency” (“The Rights of Woman,” New York Tribune, 16 Dec 67, 8; Lutz, 154–55). Clemens made fun of Train’s grandiose schemes in an undated piece published in the New York Tribune on 22 January, called him an “insufferable fool” in a letter to the Enterprise dated 30 January, and referred to him as “the great Fenian Female Suffrage Ass” in a letter to the Chicago Republican dated 21 February (SLC 1868 , SLC 1868, SLC 1868).
For the enclosure, because no example of the original newsprint was found that would reproduce legibly in photographic facsimile, the original typesetting in the Star has been transcribed line-for-line. In copies of the Star which the editors have seen, several characters at line ends failed to print; they have been emended, where possible, on the assumption that not all originals were identically defective. No other emendations have been made.
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV), is copy-text for the letter; for an envelope that may belong to it, see 9 Jan 68 to JLC and PAMclick to open link; copy-text for the enclosure, which does not survive in the original document sent, is that portion of “Annual Banquet of the Correspondents’ Club” (Washington Evening Star, 13 Jan 68, 2) which published a stenographic transcription of Clemens’s speech. Although he might have enclosed his manuscript for the speech (if he wrote one), none has been found, and it seems more likely that he would send a more legible and less bulky clipping, if possible: the Star is the only known printing that appeared in time to be included. The Star’s full report of the dinner ran to more than half a large page of newsprint, and included (in addition to Clemens’s speech) full transcriptions of the remarks by the club’s president, George W. Adams, as well as letters to the club from Edwin B. Haskell (Boston Press Club president) and John Russell Young. On the assumption that Clemens would not have sent his speech still embedded in these several columns of reportage, only his speech has been reproduced as the enclosure.
L2 , 155–158; MTB , 1:348–49, brief paraphrase and an inaccurate excerpt from the letter proper. The enclosure, or some variant thereof, was widely reprinted at the time: “A Eulogy of Woman by ‘Mark Twain,’” New York Evening Post, 15 Jan 68, 1; “Woman. Mark Twain’s Eulogy of the Fair Sex,” St. Louis Missouri Republican, 22 Jan 68, 3 (an original clipping of the Republican, annotated by Paine, is in CU-MARK, box 3A, no. 41); “Woman—Mark Twain’s Opinion of Her,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, 2 Feb 68, 1; “A Eulogy of Woman by ‘Mark Twain,’” San Francisco Examiner, 3 Feb 68, 1; “Woman—Mark Twain’s Opinion of Her,” Oakland (Calif.) News, 10 Apr 68, 4; “A Eulogy of Women, by ‘Mark Twain,’” unidentified clipping, TxU; “Mark Twain’s Eulogy of the Fair Sex,” unidentified clipping (misidentified as the Washington Star), reproduced in photographic facsimile in Meltzer, 109; “Eulogy on Woman. By ‘Mark Twain,’” Excelsior Monthly Magazine, August 1868, 99–100 (see Enclosure with 3 September 1868 to Elisha Bliss, Jr.click to open link); MTS 1910, 104–6; MTB , 3:1612–13; MTS 1923, 31–33. All of the above appear to derive directly or indirectly from the Evening Star. Four of them (the St. Louis Missouri Republican, the clipping in Meltzer, the Excelsior, and MTB , 3:1612–13) omit part or all of two phrases that were presumably considered indelicate for some readers: ‘she bears our children—ours as a general thing’ (155.37–38) and the proposal to drink Woman’s health ‘right cordially in this bumper of wine’ (157.1). In addition, one text has been found which was not based on the Star’s report: a separate stenographic record published in 1868 by Clemens’s friend Andrew J. Marsh (Marsh 1868, 91–92). Among the variants in this transcription is a probably more authorial (and certainly more risible) version of one remark: ‘look at Frances——Frances——George Francis Train!’ (see 156.25–26).
For the letter, see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 512–14; for a possible envelope, see the commentary to 9 Jan 68 to JLC and PAMclick to open link; the original enclosure is not known to survive.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.