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DINNER TO HAMILTON W. MABIE
ADDRESS DELIVERED APRIL 29, 1901
In introducing Mr. Clemens, Doctor Van Dyke said:
"The longer the speaking goes on to-night the more I wonder how
I got this job, and the only explanation I can give for it is
that it is the same kind of compensation for the number of
articles I have sent to The Outlook, to be rejected by Hamilton
W. Mabie. There is one man here to-night that has a job cut
out for him that none of you would have had--a man whose humor
has put a girdle of light around the globe, and whose sense of
humor has been an example for all five continents. He is going
to speak to you. Gentlemen, you know him best as Mark Twain."
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN,--This man knows now how it feels to be the
chief guest, and if he has enjoyed it he is the first man I have ever
seen in that position that did enjoy it. And I know, by side-remarks
which he made to me before his ordeal came upon him, that he was feeling
as some of the rest of us have felt under the same circumstances. He was
afraid that he would not do himself justice; but he did--to my surprise.
It is a most serious thing to be a chief guest on an occasion like this,
and it is admirable, it is fine. It is a great compliment to a man that
he shall come out of it so gloriously as Mr. Mabie came out of it
tonight--to my surprise. He did it well.
He appears to be editor of The Outlook, and notwithstanding that, I have
every admiration, because when everything is said concerning The Outlook,
after all one must admit that it is frank in its delinquencies, that it
is outspoken in its departures from fact, that it is vigorous in its
mistaken criticisms of men like me. I have lived in this world a long,
long time, and I know you must not judge a man by the editorials that he
puts in his paper. A man is always better than his printed opinions.
A man always reserves to himself on the inside a purity and an honesty
and a justice that are a credit to him, whereas the things that he prints
are just the reverse.
Oh yes, you must not judge a man by what he writes in his paper. Even in
an ordinary secular paper a man must observe some care about it; he must
be better than the principles which he puts in print. And that is the
case with Mr. Mabie. Why, to see what he writes about me and the
missionaries you would think he did not have any principles. But that is
Mr. Mabie in his public capacity. Mr. Mabie in his private capacity is
just as clean a man as I am.
In this very room, a month or two ago, some people admired that portrait;
some admired this, but the great majority fastened on that, and said,
"There is a portrait that is a beautiful piece of art." When that
portrait is a hundred years old it will suggest what were the manners and
customs in our time. Just as they talk about Mr. Mabie to-night, in that
enthusiastic way, pointing out the various virtues of the man and the
grace of his spirit, and all that, so was that portrait talked about.
They were enthusiastic, just as we men have been over the character and
the work of Mr. Mabie. And when they were through they said that
portrait, fine as it is, that work, beautiful as it is, that piece of
humanity on that canvas, gracious and fine as it is, does not rise to
those perfections that exist in the man himself. Come up, Mr. Alexander.
[The reference was to James W. Alexander, who happened to be sitting--
beneath the portrait of himself on the wall.] Now, I should come up and
show myself. But he cannot do it, he cannot do it. He was born that
way, he was reared in that way. Let his modesty be an example, and I
wish some of you had it, too. But that is just what I have been saying
--that portrait, fine as it is, is not as fine as the man it represents,
and all the things that have been said about Mr. Mabie, and certainly
they have been very nobly worded and beautiful, still fall short of the
real Mabie. |
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