Mark Twain's sketches, new and old now first published in complete form |
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MY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIP. |
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 | Mark Twain's sketches, new and old |  |
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:
“`Gentlemen: What the mischief do you suppose you want with a post-office at Baldwin's
Ranche? 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.
“That is the way you answered that letter. Those people say they will hang me,
“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
is 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?
“`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.
“That luminous epistle finishes me with the religious element among my
constituents. But that my political murder might be made 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:
“`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!
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.
“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 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
not dead to all shame:
“`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 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
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.
“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.
| Mark Twain's sketches, new and old | |