Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-07-31
Mark Twain Goes After the Shah.


In letter to the New York Herald un-
der date of London, June Is, Mark Twain
writes as follows:
would you like to go over to Bel.
GUM and help bring the Shah to En-
gland ?"
l said / was willing.
the Admiralty which will admit YOU on
board Her Majesty's ship Lively, now ~
ing at Ostend, and you can return in her
day after tomorrow"
That was all. That was the end of it.
Without stopping to think, l had in
manner taken upon myself to bring the
Shah of Persia to England / could not
otherwise regard the conversation l had
just held with the London representative
of the New York Herald The amount of
discomfort l endured for the next two or
three hours cannot be set down in words.
could not eat, sleep, talk, smoke with
any satisfaction. The more thought the
thing over the more oppressed | felt.
What was the Shah to me that should
go to all this worry and trouble on his &C
count? Where was there the least occa-
sion for taking upon myself such respon-
sibility? If got him over all right, well.
But if lost himg If he died on my
hands? If he got drowned? 1t was de-
pressing any way looked at it, In the
end, said to myself, "If / get this Shah
over here safe and sound will never take
charge of another one" And yet, at the
same time, / kept thinking, "Ths coun-
try has treated me well, stranger as | am,
and this foreigner is the country's guest
that is enough; will help him out; |
will fetch him over; | will land him in
London, and say to the British people,
Here is your Shah; give me re-
ceipt'"
felt easy in my mind now, and was
about to go to bed, but something occur
red to me. / took a cab and drove down
town and routed out that Herald represen-
tative.
"Where is Belgium" said I.
"Where is Belgium? never heard
such Il question:
THAT doesn't make any difference to
me. If | have got to fetch this Shah |
don't wish to go to the wrong place.
Where is Belgium? Is it shilling fare
in cab?"
He explained that it was in foreign
parts-the first place have heard of lately
which body could not go to in a cab for
a shilling.
! said could not go alone, because |
could not speak foreign languages well,
| could not get up in time for the early
train without help, and could not find my
| way. | said it was enough to have the
Shah on my hands; | did not wish to
have everything piled on me. Mr.. Blank
was then ordered to go with me. | was
not so ignorant as l appeared, but / do
| like to have somebody along to talk to
| when | go abroad When | got home
sat down and thought the thing all over.
| wanted to go into this enterprise under
| standngly. What was the main thing?
That was the question. A little reflection
| informed me. For two weeks the London
papers had sung just one continual song
| just one continual tune, and the idea of it
all was chow to impress the Shah" These
papers had told all about the st. Peters
burg spendors, and had said at the end
that splendors would no longer answer;
that England could not Guido Russia in that
respect, therefore some other way of i'm
pressing the Shah must be contrived.
And these papers had also told all about
the Statistic reception in Prussia and its
| attendant military pageantry. England
could not improve on that sort of thing
she could not impress the Shah with sol
diers; something else must be tried. And
so on. Column after column. page after
page Of agony about how to Empress the
Shah" AT last they had hit upon happy
idca--a grand naval exhibition. That was
it! A man brought up in Oriental seclu-
sion and simplicity; aman who had never
seen anything but camels and such things,
could not help being surprised and de-
lighted with the strange novelty of ships.
The distress was at an end. England
heaved great sigh of relief; she knew at
last how to impress the Shah.
My course was very plain now, after
that bit Of reflection. All had to do was
to go over to Belgium and impress the
Shah. / failed to form any definite plan
as to the process, but made up my mind
to manage it somehow. l said to myself:
81 will impress the Shah, or there shall
be a funeral that will be worth contem-
plating"
went to bed then, but did not sleep a
great deal, for the responsibilities were
weighing pretty heavily upon me. At
six O'Clock in the morning, Mr.. Blank
came and turned me out. Twas surprised
at this, and not gratified, for detest early
rising. never like to say severe things,
but l was good deal tried this time.
said did not mind getting up moder-
ately early but hated to be called day
before yesterday.
He goes on to describe English scenery
and the voyage, and then gives what he
calls Ostend-tatiou information.
Ostend is a curious, comfortable-look
ing, massively- built town, where the
people speak both the French and the
Flemish with exceeding aucncy, and yet
l could not understand them in either
tongue. But will write the rest about
Ostend in to-mOrrow's letter.
We idled about this curious Ostend the
remainder Of the afternoon and far into
the long-lived twilight, apparently to
amuse ourselves, but secretly had a
deeper motive. wanted to see if there
was anything here that might Empress
the Shah" In the end was treasured
and content If Ostend could impress
him, England could amaze the head clear
off his shoulders, and have marvels left
that not even the trunk could be indifler-
ent to.
"a 81