The Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches


He cracked his whip and went lumbering away with his ancient ruin of a
hearse, and I continued my walk with a valuable lesson learned--that a
healthy and wholesome cheerfulness is not necessarily impossible to any
occupation. The lesson is likely to be lasting, for it will take many
months to obliterate the memory of the remarks and circumstances that
impressed it.






A ROYAL COMPLIMENT

The latest report about the Spanish crown is, that it will now be
offered to Prince Alfonso, the second son of the King of Portugal,
who is but five years of age. The Spaniards have hunted through all
the nations of Europe for a King. They tried to get a Portuguese in
the person of Dom-Luis, who is an old ex-monarch; they tried to get
an Italian, in the person of Victor Emanuel's young son, the Duke of
Genoa; they tried to get a Spaniard, in the person of Espartero, who
is an octogenarian. Some of them desired a French Bourbon,
Montpensier; some of them a Spanish Bourbon, the Prince of Asturias;
some of them an English prince, one of the sons of Queen Victoria.
They have just tried to get the German Prince Leopold; but they have
thought it better to give him up than take a war along with him.
It is a long time since we first suggested to them to try an
American ruler. We can offer them a large number of able and
experienced sovereigns to pick from--men skilled in statesmanship,
versed in the science of government, and adepts in all the arts of
administration--men who could wear the crown with dignity and rule
the kingdom at a reasonable expense.

There is not the least danger of Napoleon threatening them if they
take an American sovereign; in fact, we have no doubt he would be
pleased to support such a candidature. We are unwilling to mention
names--though we have a man in our eye whom we wish they had in
theirs.--New York Tribune.

It would be but an ostentation of modesty to permit such a pointed
reference to myself to pass unnoticed. This is the second time that 'The
Tribune' (no doubt sincerely looking to the best interests of Spain and
the world at large) has done me the great and unusual honour to propose
me as a fit person to fill the Spanish throne. Why 'The Tribune' should
single me out in this way from the midst of a dozen Americans of higher
political prominence, is a problem which I cannot solve. Beyond a
somewhat intimate knowledge of Spanish history and a profound veneration
for its great names and illustrious deeds, I feel that I possess no merit
that should peculiarly recommend me to this royal distinction. I cannot
deny that Spanish history has always been mother's milk to me. I am
proud of every Spanish achievement, from Hernando Cortes's victory at
Thermopylae down to Vasco Nunez de Balboa's discovery of the Atlantic
ocean; and of every splendid Spanish name, from Don Quixote and the Duke
of Wellington down to Don Caesar de Bazan. However, these little graces
of erudition are of small consequence, being more showy than serviceable.

In case the Spanish sceptre is pressed upon me--and the indications
unquestionably are that it will be--I shall feel it necessary to have
certain things set down and distinctly understood beforehand. For
instance: My salary must be paid quarterly in advance. In these
unsettled times it will not do to trust. If Isabella had adopted this
plan, she would be roosting on her ancestral throne to-day, for the
simple reason that her subjects never could have raised three months of a
royal salary in advance, and of course they could not have discharged her
until they had squared up with her. My salary must be paid in gold; when
greenbacks are fresh in a country, they are too fluctuating. My salary
has got to be put at the ruling market rate; I am not going to cut under
on the trade, and they are not going to trail me a long way from home and
then practise on my ignorance and play me for a royal North Adams
Chinaman, by any means. As I understand it, imported kings generally get
five millions a year and house-rent free. Young George of Greece gets
that. As the revenues only yield two millions, he has to take the
national note for considerable; but even with things in that sort of
shape he is better fixed than he was in Denmark, where he had to
eternally stand up because he had no throne to sit on, and had to give
bail for his board, because a royal apprentice gets no salary there while
he is learning his trade. England is the place for that. Fifty thousand
dollars a year Great Britain pays on each royal child that is born, and
this is increased from year to year as the child becomes more and more
indispensable to his country. Look at Prince Arthur. At first he only
got the usual birth-bounty; but now that he has got so that he can dance,
there is simply no telling what wages he gets.

I should have to stipulate that the Spanish people wash more and
endeavour to get along with less quarantine. Do you know, Spain keeps
her ports fast locked against foreign traffic three-fourths of each year,
because one day she is scared about the cholera, and the next about the
plague, and next the measles, next the hooping cough, the hives, and the
rash? but she does not mind leonine leprosy and elephantiasis any more
than a great and enlightened civilisation minds freckles. Soap would
soon remove her anxious distress about foreign distempers. The reason
arable land is so scarce in Spain is because the people squander so much
of it on their persons, and then when they die it is improvidently buried
with them.

I should feel obliged to stipulate that Marshal Serrano be reduced to the
rank of constable, or even roundsman. He is no longer fit to be City
Marshal. A man who refused to be king because he was too old and feeble,
is ill qualified to help sick people to the station-house when they are
armed and their form of delirium tremens is of the exuberant and
demonstrative kind.

I should also require that a force be sent to chase the late Queen
Isabella out of France. Her presence there can work no advantage to
Spain, and she ought to be made to move at once; though, poor thing, she
has been chaste enough heretofore--for a Spanish woman.

I should also require that--

I am at this moment authoritatively informed that "The Tribune" did not
mean me, after all. Very well, I do not care two cents.






THE APPROACHING EPIDEMIC

One calamity to which the death of Mr. Dickens dooms this country has not
awakened the concern to which its gravity entitles it. We refer to the
fact that the nation is to be lectured to death and read to death all
next winter, by Tom, Dick, and Harry, with poor lamented Dickens for a
pretext. All the vagabonds who can spell will afflict the people with
"readings" from Pickwick and Copperfield, and all the insignificants who
have been ennobled by the notice of the great novelist or transfigured by
his smile will make a marketable commodity of it now, and turn the sacred
reminiscence to the practical use of procuring bread and butter. The
lecture rostrums will fairly swarm with these fortunates. Already the
signs of it are perceptible. Behold how the unclean creatures are
wending toward the dead lion and gathering to the feast:

"Reminiscences of Dickens." A lecture. By John Smith, who heard him
read eight times.

"Remembrances of Charles Dickens." A lecture. By John Jones, who saw
him once in a street car and twice in a barber shop.

"Recollections of Mr. Dickens." A lecture. By John Brown, who gained a
wide fame by writing deliriously appreciative critiques and rhapsodies
upon the great author's public readings; and who shook hands with the
great author upon various occasions, and held converse with him several
times.

"Readings from Dickens." By John White, who has the great delineator's
style and manner perfectly, having attended all his readings in this
country and made these things a study, always practising each reading
before retiring, and while it was hot from the great delineator's lips.
Upon this occasion Mr. W. will exhibit the remains of a cigar which he
saw Mr. Dickens smoke. This Relic is kept in a solid silver box made
purposely for it.

"Sights and Sounds of the Great Novelist." A popular lecture. By John
Gray, who waited on his table all the time he was at the Grand Hotel,
New York, and still has in his possession and will exhibit to the
audience a fragment of the Last Piece of Bread which the lamented author
tasted in this country.

"Heart Treasures of Precious Moments with Literature's Departed Monarch."
A lecture. By Miss Serena Amelia Tryphenia McSpadden, who still wears,
and will always wear, a glove upon the hand made sacred by the clasp of
Dickens. Only Death shall remove it.

"Readings from Dickens." By Mrs. J. O'Hooligan Murphy, who washed for
him.

"Familiar Talks with the Great Author." A narrative lecture. By John
Thomas, for two weeks his valet in America.

And so forth, and so on. This isn't half the list. The man who has a
"Toothpick once used by Charles Dickens" will have to have a hearing; and
the man who "once rode in an omnibus with Charles Dickens;" and the lady
to whom Charles Dickens "granted the hospitalities of his umbrella during
a storm;" and the person who "possesses a hole which once belonged in a
handkerchief owned by Charles Dickens." Be patient and long-suffering,
good people, for even this does not fill up the measure of what you must
endure next winter. There is no creature in all this land who has had
any personal relations with the late Mr. Dickens, however slight or
trivial, but will shoulder his way to the rostrum and inflict his
testimony upon his helpless countrymen. To some people it is fatal to be
noticed by greatness.







THE TONE-IMPARTING COMMITTEE

I get old and ponderously respectable, only one thing will be able to
make me truly happy, and that will be to be put on the Venerable
Tone-Imparting committee of the city of New York, and have nothing to do
but sit on the platform, solemn and imposing, along with Peter Cooper,
Horace Greeley, etc., etc., and shed momentary fame at second hand on
obscure lecturers, draw public attention to lectures which would
otherwise clack eloquently to sounding emptiness, and subdue audiences
into respectful hearing of all sorts of unpopular and outlandish dogmas
and isms. That is what I desire for the cheer and gratification of my
gray hairs. Let me but sit up there with those fine relics of the Old
Red Sandstone Period and give Tone to an intellectual entertainment twice
a week, and be so reported, and my happiness will be complete. Those men
have been my envy for long, long time. And no memories of my life are so
pleasant as my reminiscence of their long and honorable career in the
Tone-imparting service. I can recollect that first time I ever saw them
on the platforms just as well as I can remember the events of yesterday.
Horace Greeley sat on the right, Peter Cooper on the left, and Thomas
Jefferson, Red Jacket, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock sat between
them. This was on the 22d of December, 1799, on the occasion of the
state' funeral of George Washington in New York. It was a great day,
that--a great day, and a very, very sad one. I remember that Broadway
was one mass of black crape from Castle Garden nearly up to where the
City Hall now stands. The next time I saw these gentlemen officiate was
at a ball given for the purpose of procuring money and medicines for the
sick and wounded soldiers and sailors. Horace Greeley occupied one side
of the platform on which the musicians were exalted, and Peter Cooper the
other. There were other Tone-imparters attendant upon the two chiefs,
but I have forgotten their names now. Horace Greeley, gray-haired and
beaming, was in sailor costume--white duck pants, blue shirt, open at the
breast, large neckerchief, loose as an ox-bow, and tied with a jaunty
sailor knot, broad turnover collar with star in the corner, shiny black
little tarpaulin hat roosting daintily far back on head, and flying two
gallant long ribbons. Slippers on ample feet, round spectacles on
benignant nose, and pitchfork in hand, completed Mr. Greeley, and made
him, in my boyish admiration, every inch a sailor, and worthy to be the
honored great-grandfather of the Neptune he was so ingeniously
representing. I shall never forget him. Mr. Cooper was dressed as a
general of militia, and was dismally and oppressively warlike. I
neglected to remark, in the proper place, that the soldiers and sailors
in whose aid the ball was given had just been sent in from Boston--this
was during the war of 1812. At the grand national reception of
Lafayette, in 1824, Horace Greeley sat on the right and Peter Cooper to
the left. The other Tone-imparters of the day are sleeping the sleep of
the just now. I was in the audience when Horace Greeley Peter Cooper,
and other chief citizens imparted tone to the great meetings in favor of
French liberty, in 1848. Then I never saw them any more until here
lately; but now that I am living tolerably near the city, I run down
every time I see it announced that "Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper, and
several other distinguished citizens will occupy seats on the platform;"
and next morning, when I read in the first paragraph of the phonographic
report that "Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper, and several other
distinguished citizens occupied seats on the platform," I say to myself,
"Thank God, I was present." Thus I have been enabled to see these
substantial old friends of mine sit on the platform and give tone to
lectures on anatomy, and lectures on agriculture, and lectures on
stirpiculture, and lectures on astronomy, on chemistry, on miscegenation,
on "Is Man Descended from the Kangaroo?" on veterinary matters, on all
kinds of religion, and several kinds of politics; and have seen them give
tone and grandeur to the Four-legged Girl, the Siamese Twins, the Great
Egyptian Sword Swallower, and the Old Original Jacobs. Whenever somebody
is to lecture on a subject not of general interest, I know that my
venerated Remains of the Old Red Sandstone Period will be on the
platform; whenever a lecturer is to appear whom nobody has heard of
before, nor will be likely to seek to see, I know that the real
benevolence of my old friends will be taken advantage of, and that they
will be on the platform (and in the bills) as an advertisement; and
whenever any new and obnoxious deviltry in philosophy, morals, or
politics is to be sprung upon the people, I know perfectly well that
these intrepid old heroes will be on the platform too, in the interest of
full and free discussion, and to crush down all narrower and less
generous souls with the solid dead weight of their awful respectability.
And let us all remember that while these inveterate and imperishable
presiders (if you please) appear on the platform every night in the year
as regularly as the volunteered piano from Steinway's or Chickering's,
and have bolstered up and given tone to a deal of questionable merit and
obscure emptiness in their time, they have also diversified this
inconsequential service by occasional powerful uplifting and upholding of
great progressive ideas which smaller men feared to meddle with or
countenance.






OUR PRECIOUS LUNATIC

[From the Buffalo Express, Saturday, May 14, 1870.]

New YORK, May 10.

The Richardson-McFarland jury had been out one hour and fifty minutes.
A breathless silence brooded over court and auditory--a silence and a
stillness so absolute, notwithstanding the vast multitude of human beings
packed together there, that when some one far away among the throng under
the northeast balcony cleared his throat with a smothered little cough it
startled everybody uncomfortably, so distinctly did it grate upon the
pulseless air. At that imposing moment the bang of a door was heard,
then the shuffle of approaching feet, and then a sort of surging and
swaying disorder among the heads at the entrance from the jury-room told
them that the Twelve were coming. Presently all was silent again, and
the foreman of the jury rose and said:

"Your Honor and Gentleman: We, the jury charged with the duty of
determining whether the prisoner at the bar, Daniel McFarland, has been
guilty of murder, in taking by surprise an unarmed man and shooting him
to death, or whether the prisoner is afflicted with a sad but
irresponsible insanity which at times can be cheered only by violent
entertainment with firearms, do find as follows, namely:

"That the prisoner, Daniel McFarland, is insane as above described.
Because:

"1. His great grandfather's stepfather was tainted with insanity, and
frequently killed people who were distasteful to him. Hence, insanity is
hereditary in the family.

"2. For nine years the prisoner at the bar did not adequately support his
family. Strong circumstantial evidence of insanity.

"3. For nine years he made of his home, as a general thing, a poor-house;
sometimes (but very rarely) a cheery, happy habitation; frequently the
den of a beery, drivelling, stupefied animal; but never, as far as
ascertained, the abiding place of a gentleman. These be evidences of
insanity.

"4. He once took his young unmarried sister-in-law to the museum; while
there his hereditary insanity came upon him to such a degree that he
hiccupped and staggered; and afterward, on the way home, even made love
to the young girl he was protecting. These are the acts of a person not
in his right mind.

"5. For a good while his sufferings were so great that he had to submit
to the inconvenience of having his wife give public readings for the
family support; and at times, when he handed these shameful earnings to
the barkeeper, his haughty soul was so torn with anguish that he could
hardly stand without leaning against something. At such times he has
been known to shed tears into his sustenance till it diluted to utter
inefficiency. Inattention of this nature is not the act of a Democrat
unafflicted in mind.

"6. He never spared expense in making his wife comfortable during her
occasional confinements. Her father is able to testify to this. There
was always an element of unsoundness about the prisoner's generosities
that is very suggestive at this time and before this court.

"7. Two years ago the prisoner came fearlessly up behind Richardson in
the dark, and shot him in the leg. The prisoner's brave and protracted
defiance of an adversity that for years had left him little to depend
upon for support but a wife who sometimes earned scarcely anything for
weeks at a time, is evidence that he would have appeared in front of
Richardson and shot him in the stomach if he had not been insane at the
time of the shooting.

"8. Fourteen months ago the prisoner told Archibald Smith that he was
going to kill Richardson. This is insanity.

"9. Twelve months ago he told Marshall P. Jones that he was going to kill
Richardson. Insanity.

"10. Nine months ago he was lurking about Richardson's home in New
Jersey, and said he was going to kill Richardson. Insanity.

"11. Seven months ago he showed a pistol to Seth Brown and said that that
was for Richardson. He said Brown testified that at that time it seemed
plain that something was the matter with McFarland, for he crossed the
street diagonally nine times in fifty yards, apparently without any
settled reason for doing so, and finally fell in the gutter and went to
sleep. He remarked at the time that McFarland acted strange--believed he
was insane. Upon hearing Brown's evidence, John W. Galen, M.D., affirmed
at once that McFarland was insane.

"12. Five months ago, McFarland showed his customary pistol, in his
customary way, to his bed-fellow, Charles A. Dana, and told him he was
going to kill Richardson the first time an opportunity offered. Evidence
of insanity.

"13. Five months and two weeks ago McFarland asked John Morgan the time
of day, and turned and walked rapidly away without waiting for an answer.
Almost indubitable evidence of insanity. And--

"14. It is remarkable that exactly one week after this circumstance, the
prisoner, Daniel McFarland, confronted Albert D. Richardson suddenly and
without warning, and shot him dead. This is manifest insanity.
Everything we know of the prisoner goes to show that if he had been sane
at the time, he would have shot his victim from behind.

"15. There is an absolutely overwhelming mass of testimony to show that
an hour before the shooting, McFarland was ANXIOUS AND UNEASY, and that
five minutes after it he was EXCITED. Thus the accumulating conjectures
and evidences of insanity culminate in this sublime and unimpeachable
proof of it. Therefore--

"Your Honor and Gentlemen--We the jury pronounce the said Daniel McFarland
INNOCENT OF MURDER, BUT CALAMITOUSLY INSANE."

The scene that ensued almost defies description. Hats, handkerchiefs and
bonnets were frantically waved above the massed heads in the courtroom,
and three tremendous cheers and a tiger told where the sympathies of the
court and people were. Then a hundred pursed lips were advanced to kiss
the liberated prisoner, and many a hand thrust out to give him a
congratulatory shake--but presto! with a maniac's own quickness and a
maniac's own fury the lunatic assassin of Richardson fell upon his
friends with teeth and nails, boots and office furniture, and the amazing
rapidity with which he broke heads and limbs, and rent and sundered
bodies, till nearly a hundred citizens were reduced to mere quivering
heaps of fleshy odds and ends and crimson rags, was like nothing in this
world but the exultant frenzy of a plunging, tearing, roaring devil of a
steam machine when it snatches a human being and spins him and whirls him
till he shreds away to nothingness like a "Four o'clock" before the
breath of a child.

The destruction was awful. It is said that within the space of eight
minutes McFarland killed and crippled some six score persons and tore
down a large portion of the City Hall building, carrying away and casting
into Broadway six or seven marble columns fifty-four feet long and
weighing nearly two tons each. But he was finally captured and sent in
chains to the lunatic asylum for life.

(By late telegrams it appears that this is a mistake.--Editor Express.)

But the really curious part of this whole matter is yet to be told. And
that is, that McFarland's most intimate friends believe that the very
next time that it ever occurred to him that the insanity plea was not a
mere politic pretense, was when the verdict came in. They think that the
startling thought burst upon him then, that if twelve good and true men,
able to comprehend all the baseness of perjury, proclaimed under oath
that he was a lunatic, there was no gainsaying such evidence and that he
UNQUESTIONABLY WAS INSANE!

Possibly that was really the way of it. It is dreadful to think that
maybe the most awful calamity that can befall a man, namely, loss of
reason, was precipitated upon this poor prisoner's head by a jury that
could have hanged him instead, and so done him a mercy and his country a
service.

POSTSCRIPT-LATER

May 11--I do not expect anybody to believe so astounding a thing, and yet
it is the solemn truth that instead of instantly sending the dangerous
lunatic to the insane asylum (which I naturally supposed they would do,
and so I prematurely said they had) the court has actually SET HIM AT
LIBERTY. Comment is unnecessary. M. T.






THE EUROPEAN WARS--[From the Buffalo Express, July 25, 1870.]

First Day
THE EUROPEAN WAR!!!

NO BATTLE YET!!!
HOSTILITIES IMMINENT!!!
TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT.
AUSTRIA ARMING!
BERLIN, Tuesday.

No battle has been fought yet. But hostilities may burst forth any week.

There is tremendous excitement here over news from the front that two
companies of French soldiers are assembling there.

It is rumoured that Austria is arming--what with, is not known.

.......................

Second Day
THE EUROPEAN WAR

NO BATTLE YET!
FIGHTING IMMINENT.
AWFUL EXCITEMENT.
RUSSIA SIDES WITH PRUSSIA!
ENGLAND NEUTRAL!!
AUSTRIA NOT ARMING.
BERLIN, Wednesday.

No battle has been fought yet. However, all thoughtful men feel that the
land may be drenched with blood before the Summer is over.

There is an awful excitement here over the rumour that two companies of
Prussian troops have concentrated on the border. German confidence
remains unshaken!!