The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1910-12-01
IN SPEECH AT MARK TWAIN ME-
MORTAL, kENTUCkIAN TELLS
OF THE HUMORIST.
WERE COUSINS BY MARRIAGE
Says Twain Locked Sound Business
Judgment in Larger Things, Al
though an Economist in the Small
er Matters.

New York, Nov. 30.-Recollection
of Mark Twain's life were given by
Henry Watterson of Louisville in hi
speech tonight at the Mark Twair
Memorial.
Although Mark Twain and l." sait
Mr.. Watterson, called each other
cousin anu claimed to be blood rela
tives, the connection between us wa!
by marriage. A great uncle of his
married a great aunt Of mine; his
mother was named after and reared
by this great aunt; and the children
of the marriage were, of course, his
cousins and mine. Though the fam
lily became widely separated, we
were lifelong and very dear friends;
passed much time together at home
and abroad; and had many common
ties and memories.
Just after the successful produc.
tion of his play, The Gilded Age,
and the uproarious hit of the come.
dian, Raymond, in its leading role,
| received letter from him in which
ihe told me he had made ~ Col. Null
berry Sellers a close study of a GER
tain mutual kinsman and thought he
had drawn him to the life, but for
the love of Heaven he said, don't
whisper it for he would never un-
derstand or forgive me, if he did not
thrash me on sight.
The pathos of the part, and not
its comic aspect, had most impress
ed him. He designed and wrote it
for Edwin Booth. From the first and
always he was disguised by the Ray
mond portrayal. Except for its pop
ularity and money-making, he would
have withdrawn it from the stage as,
in a fit of pique, Raymond himself
did, while it was still packing the
theatres. The original Sellers had
partly brought him up and been very
good to him; a second Don Quixote
in appearance and not unlike the
knight of La Nancha in character.
How much melancholy lay hidden
behind the mask of the humorist it
would be hard to say. His griefs were
tempered by a vein of philosophy.
He was a medley of contradictions.
Unconventional to the point of eccen-
tricity, his sense of his own dignity
wps all sufficient. Though lavish
in the use of money, he had a full
realization of its value and made
close contracts for his work. Like
Sellers his mind scared when it
sailed financial currents. He lack
ed sound business Judgment in the
larger things, while an excellent
economist in the lesser.
His marriage was the most bril-
liant success of his life. He got the
woman of all the world he most
needed a truly lovely and wise help
meet; who kept him in bounds and
headed him straight and right while
she lived; the best of housewives and
mothers. and the safest of counsel
lors and soundest OF critics. She
knew his worth; she understood his
genius; she clearly saw his limita-
tions and angles. Her death was a
grievous disaster as well as a stag
gering blow. He never quite sur
vived it.
Mark Twain's place in literature
il is not for us to fix. We are here
the rather to commemorate his char
acter and his personality; his cour-
ageous and upright manhood as
strong as Scott's, as primitive as Car
lyle's, as unassuming and simple as
Irving's and Whittier's, integrity the
bedrock, hard and fast, quite hidden
under the verdure of sentiment and
the flora of the loyal and the gentle.
With the fine, unerring phrasing
of his penetrative insight, Mr.. How
ellis calls him the Lincoln of our lit
erature.' 1t is a striking title, and as
suggestive and opposite as striking.
The genius of Clemens and the gen.
ius of Lincoln possessed a kinship
outside the CIRCUMSTANCES of their