Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1910-10-05
Mark TWain'S Burlesque of Emer-
son, LongfeIIoW and Holmes.
1T SHOCKED THE IMMORTALS.
w. o. HoweIIs' Description of the Dis
NAL Effect of the Humorist's At
tempt to Make Game of the Disnified
Literary Trio at the Boston Dinner.

with fatal effect. made game of Emer-
son, LcngfCllow and Holmes:
HE believed he had been particu-
larly fortunate in his notion for the |
speech of that evening. and he had |
worked 1t out in joyous self reliance. |
1t was the notion of three tramps. |
three deadbeats. visiting California
mining camp and imposing themselves
upon the innocent miners as respec-
lively Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver
Wendell Holmes. The humor OF the
conception must prosper or must fail
according to the mood of the nearer,
but Clemens felt sure Of compelling
this to sympathy. and he looked for
ward to an unparalleled triumph
But there were two things that he
had not taken into account. One was
the species of religious veneration in
which these men were held by those
nearest them. They were men OF ex-
traordinary dignity. Of the thing call.
ed presence for want of some clearel
word, so that no one could well ap-
proach them in personally light or
trihing spirit. l do not suppose that
anybody more truly valued them or
more piously loved them than Glenn
ems himself. but the in,oXication of his
fancy carried him beyond the bounds
of that regard and embroidered him to
the other thing which he had not taken
into account-namely the immense
hazard of working his fancy out be-
fore their faces and expecting them to
enter into the delight of il. II neither
Emerson nor LongfellOw nor Holmes
| had been there the scheme might pos
sibly have carried. but even this is
doubtful.
Il was the hapless president. fulfill
ing the abhorred function of calling
| people TO their feet and making them
speak. When l came TO Clemens
introduced him with the cordial ad-
miration / had for him as one of my
greatest contributors and dearest
| friends. Here. | said. i'm sum. was a
humOriSt who never left you hanging
your head for having enjoyed his joke.
and then the amazing mistake, the be-
widering blunder. the cruel cataStro-
phe was upon us. believe that after
the scope of the burlesQue made itself
| clear there was no one there. including
the burlesQuer himself. who was not
smitten with a desolating dismay.
There fell a silence. Weighing many
tons to the square inch. which deep
ened from moment to moment and
was broken only by the hysterical and
blood curdling laughter of a single
guest, whose name shall not be hand
ed down to infamy. Nobody knew
whether to look at the speaker or
down at his plate. | chose my plate
as the least affliction. and so | do not
know how Clemens looked except
when stole glance at him and saw
him standing solitary amid his APP
palled and appalling listeners, with his
joke dead on his hands. From first
glance at the great three whom his
jest had made its theme. | was aware
Of LOngfellow sitting upright and re-
garGing the humOrist with an air of
pensive puzzle. of Holmes busily writ
ing on his menu with a well feigned
/, effect Of preoccupation. and of Elmer
, son holding his elbows and listening
with a sort of Jovian oblivion of this
neither world in that lapse of memory
which saved him in those later years
from SO much bother. Clemens must
, have dragged his joke to the climax
c and left it there. but | cannot say
this from any sense of the fact. OF
4 what happened afterward at the table
i where the immense, the wholly limo
o cent, the truly unima gined affront was
l. offered. | have no longer the least re
q membrance. | next remember bein,
in room of the hotel where Clpmen!
was not to sleep. but to toss in deSpai
s and Charles Dudley Warmers Sayin:
D In the gloom. We'll. Mark. You're
Y funny fellow 1t was as we'll AZ any
thing he could have said. but Clemen
y seemed unable to accept the tribute
r Il stayed the night with him. an,
u the next mcrning after haggar,
lie breakfast we drove about. and h
made some purchases of bric-a-bra
g. for his house in Hartford. with sou
le as far away from bric-a-brac as eve
~ the soul of man was. He went hom
- by an early train. and he lost no tim
in writing back to the three divin
- personalities which he had so involuI
tarily seemed to fiout. They all wrot
back TO him. making il as light fo
him as they could have heard tina
Emerson was good deal mystifie
and in his sublime forgetfulness askel
Who was this gentleman who appea
B ed to think he had offered him SON
d sort of annOyanceT But | am NJ
sure that this is accurate What
9 am sure Of is that Longfellow a fe
days after in my study stopped befol
a hot A., 81